Greater World: An Earthship Community on the Taos Mesa

On the mesa northwest of Taos, the Greater World Earthship Community has been quietly showing that a neighborhood can live entirely off the grid and still be a neighborhood. The subdivision covers roughly 630 acres, platted for about 130 homes, and the community reports around 90 built so far. Every home is an Earthship: passive-solar, rain-catching, built from earth-packed tires, bottles and other reclaimed materials.

More than half of the land, a 347-acre greenbelt, is owned in common and is never to be built upon. Members own their own lots, share modest road dues, and follow a community land-use code. It is one of the clearest working examples in the bioregion of dwelling lightly and together.

Sources: Taos Earthship Community (Earthship Biotecture) · Taos Earthships (Taos.org)