Prime Minister of the U.K. Gordon Brown has announced plans to develop 10 new environmentally friendly towns on 10 plots of land across Britain. The goal is for these “eco-towns” to remain carbon neutral, which means that for all the energy taken form the national grid to power the town, an equal or greater amount of renewable power must be put back.

Housing Minister Caroline Flint hopes to cater the town to pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transportation users.

“I would like to see eco-towns which follow the most ambitious European models where half the households do not rely on a car,” said Flint to BBC News.

To realize this fantasy, the proposed towns include plans to have all major facilities including schools, hospitals, and most offices and shops within a 10 minute walking distance from all residents’ homes. Speed limits entering the towns will not exceed 15 mph and construction plans outline only a limited amount of roads that permit car traffic. Homes will face south to capture solar heat and may or may not have the addition of Photovoltaic cells. At least half of the homes will be marketed at affordable prices.

“These developments will be exemplars for the rest of the world, not just the rest of the country,” Flint said. “It’s critical that we get it right – and I make no apology for setting the bar as high as possible. We have a unique opportunity to deliver a program which will genuinely revolutionize the way people live.”

Meanwhile, environmentalists have drawn attention to the fact that carbon emissions seem to be the only environmental concern to which these towns will respond. They claim that the energy and waste produced as well as the destruction of previously undeveloped lands will cancel out the eco-friendly intent.

“There’s been a history of something called ‘greenwashing,’ which is a play on brainwashing. It happens when corporations, or in this case the Prime Minister of Britain, want to do something good, but is also trying to make it play into their interests,” said junior and Forevergreen member Kat Siladi. “Their interest is to build on this land and continue to increase capital. It seems like a better compromise would be to start developing more sustainability (features) in communities that already exist.”

Some feel that political leaders are using the growing popularity of environmentalism as a false motive to return to development proposals of yesteryears that were turned down.

“The list of sites put forward by developers reads like a greatest hits of planning applications gone by,” wrote journalist David Blackman for Building Magazine. “The communities department refuses to publish the list, but an investigation by Building (Magazine) has uncovered nine, all of which bring on a sense of deja vu.

Micheldever, a quaint village in Hampshire England dotted with thatched cottages, is so remote that there is only one shop and one pub. The town managed to deflect two advances from building companies in the late 1990s, but if Brown’s plan pans out, a 12,500-home eco town may be built in the direct vicinity.

“It looks like developers and councils have leaped at the chance to build on sites that have lain fallow for decades, dusting off old schemes, tarting them up with low-carbon jargon and bolting on eco-bling,” said Blackman. “Conservation groups on the other hand, are horrified.”

Critics and members of the surrounding communities of the proposed sites for the eco towns have participated in campaigns against the new developments. Protest blogs have sprung up on the web, and residents of Leicestershire and North Yorkshire, rural areas in close proximity to two of proposed locations for eco towns, have engaged in peaceful protests with songs and drumming on the streets of England.

Regardless of the opposition of community members in rural areas that are proposed for development, is estimated that five eco towns will spring up before 2016 and another five will be built before 2020.

“Britain can accomplish this because its political system isn’t federal in nature, so if the government decides to move forward on issues like this, localities have very little power to resist compared to state governments in our system,” said Assistant Professor of Political Science Kyle Dell. “But I do think promoting this kind of planning and forward vision in developing new communities is something that is helpful in giving markets and developers clear guidelines and incentives to be responsible.