Lois Arkin is the founder (1980) of the nonprofit CRSP Institute for Urban Ecovillages.   In 1993, she co-founded the Los Angeles Eco-Village as a project of CRSP.  Co-author/editor of two books on sustainable cities and cooperative housing, she is the former editor for the “Ecovillage Living” column in Communities Magazine. She represents the Western U.S. with the Ecovillage Network of North America, is on the board of the Global Village Institute, and served for 17 years on the Community Advisory Committee of the Wilshire Center/Koreatown Redevelopment Area. CRSP is a co-founding organization of the Beverly-Vermont Community Land Trust and the Urban Soil/Tierra Urbana limited equity housing cooperative. Lois lives and works in LA Eco-Village, and is passionate about reducing auto use in L.A.  She is a frequent public advocate for sustainable urban living and gives regular public tours of the L.A. Eco-Village neighborhood.  You can see her occasional blogs on the LAEV blog site.  She holds a BA degree in Anthropology from Cal State University Northridge.