Christie Walk Effie1

Christie Walk is the brainchild of Cherie Hoyle and architect Paul Downton. As far as we know it is the only medium density Eco-community located within the boundary of a capital city. Built on 2000 square metres, nearly a third of which is green space its 27 households is home to up to 45 residents. It is an absolute success story and a living model demonstrating what a city could look like. But it didn’t come easily into the world. There is a whole backstory behind the development. There were many people who expressed interest in making the development work. One of them was Christine Davis who introduced Effie Best to the developing project. Effie was to become instrumental to achieving Christie Walk’s success. She took a steep learning curve from an educator and author, (having written the seminal text book “The web of life”) to essentially being the project’s developer. There were many people involved, all playing key roles but Effie’s contribution was a stand out. In this podcast, Kaye Cleave, Chris Hales and Simon Fisher chat with Effie about those early days.