"The repopulation of rural areas in ecologically sustainable ways."

"Most manifestations of the Green movement argue for a repopulation of the countryside."

"Greens believe that more people should have access to the land and would end the current stranglehold of large landowners by means of grants and a system of community ground rent designed to split land holdings of many thousands of acres. Greens would like to see more people living in rural areas."

"If current forecasts are to be believed, almost half of humanity will be living in cities by the year 2000. This trend should be halted or at least slowed, and incentives provided to persuade people to live in rural areas or in smaller towns."

Charlie pye-smith and chris hall were members of an informal group called the '1999 committee' which produced a manifesto to promote the rejuvenation of rural areas, "We need a new vision of what our countryside should be and a manifesto to achieve it. That is what this book provides."; "The Countryside we want' is a practical programme of reforms for revitalizing rural britain and halting the many destructive processes which yearly make it a less attractive place to live in and visit. We want a diverse countryside in which a multiplicity of activities can take place."; "We are concerned with revitalizing the countryside. Something must be done, and done quickly, about the shortage of housing, the decline of public transport and the loss of jobs .. We must also create the opportunities for the less affluent town-dwellers to move into the countryside and to work in it if they wish."

"There should be ... a massive programme of rural resettlement."

"Eventually the proportion of farm to city population will have to reverse itself if human life is to survive. Labour intensive organic farming cannot support the concentrated urban population centres that have built up during the high energy fossil, fuel age. An agricultural way of life will dominate the coming Solar age as it has in every other period of history before our own."[9]

"Charles called for the development of new towns with young, old, rich and poor living side by side."[10]

"If we want to arrive at ectopia we must not work towards renovating Frankfurt but rather towards clearing and dismantling it." [11]

"City life is marked by consumption and waste. Cities, however small, have always been parasitic on the countryside around them, not least because the majority of their inhabitants must rely on farmers in the countryside to provide them with food. Where cities are small, and the demands of their citizens limited, the degradation caused need not undermine their viability. But the demands being made by city-dwellers today, particularly in the industrialized countries are global in their reach, and global in their implications. Meeting even the demands of present day cities is placing an intolerable burden on the environment and society as more and more resources are sucked into urban conglomerations." [12]

"Urban dwellers..constitute the oldest imperial interest in the world. The empire of cities, incessantly forcing itself upon the traditional, the rural, the wilderness at large. Today, all the decisions that are being made about the future of our planet are being made in the cities by city brains." [13] ; "By the very fact that they are locked away from the Earth in an artificial environment, urbanites lose sight of the planet as a living entity with whom they must maintain an organic reciprocity." [14] ; "The modern city represents our most daring attempt to live 'beyond' nature as its detached observer and master." [15]

"When the cities can no longer provide jobs and food gets increasingly expensive, the cities will dwindle to nothing."