Ecocity World was founded by Richard Register in early 2018. Its beginnings can be traced back to 1965 when Richard, a 21-year old sculptor, met architect-philosopher Paolo Soleri and became convinced that radically altered patterns of community habitation are essential to guarantee a thriving future for our planet. Soleri’s notion was that cities should fit snuggly into patterns that underlie ecological and evolutionary processes, and that destructive urban sprawl is not inevitable but a product of human culture and psychology.

In 1974 Richard became the founding President of the Arcology Circle, a California non-profit, adopting Soleri’s term denoting an integration of architectural and ecological concepts and practices to create a new kind of city.  In 1980 that group changed its name to Urban Ecology, which under Richard’s leadership hosted the first International Ecocity Conference in 1990 - its keynote speaker Earth Day founder Denis Hayes. Soon after that event, the spirit of the organization changed to the almost exclusive pursuit of local activity funded by local foundations, and Richard left and founded the Berkeley-based non-profit Ecocity Builders to regain international breadth. In early 2018 Richard and Ecocity Builders parted ways; today he carries on his vision through Ecocity World, with a new team of collaborators and defining different areas of work.

We are presently registered as a single proprietorship, “doing-business-as” Richard Register, in the early stages of considering best organizational structure for our mission of envisioning and building ecologically healthy cities.