Oberlin, Ohio: Laboratory for a New Way of Life

An environmental-studies professor tries to reinvent his town for a future of scarcity

By Scott Carlson

Oberlin, Ohio

This northern Ohio college town is barely a blip on a map, far away from national centers of power. And yet people here are working on a plan that could make it a model for fundamentally reshaping the American economy and its society.

The architect of the plan is David W. Orr, a professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College. More than a decade ago, he helped inspire a "green building" trend when he dreamed up the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, which remains one of the greenest college buildings in the country.