Out of the degradation of a South African township where poverty, unemployment, air pollution, lack of clean water and sanitation seem insurmountable problems, comes hope. In EcoCity people harvest rain-water, grow organic vegetables, build with mud bricks, use solar cooking stoves, and recycle unwanted materials both for insulation and to make a living. Using simple technology the project simultaneously improves people’s lives and cuts greenhouse gas emissions. The village became a demonstration project for the Earth Summit in 2002, showing how the lives of the poorest people could be transformed while at the same time reducing the impact on the environment. Now its ideas have been endorsed by the government and adopted across the country bringing new, cleaner, more affluent lifestyles to previously impoverished communities.