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One of the more unexpected charms of driving through the Spanish countryside is the proliferation of windmills, especially in the windier, higher plateau areas in the north of the country. We're not talking about charming medieval ones that Quixote took for giants either -- Spain is rapidly becoming one of Europe's leaders in green energy, and broad acceptance of wind power is a big part of it.

As if an annual 30% growth rate in wind energy weren't enough, the Spanish are also going after the sustainable living thing in a more immersive way, with plans released recently for a completely carbon-neutral city on a pair of hills in the storied Rioja wine-producing region. Consisting of 3,000 homes, the Logrono Montecorvo Eco City will include wind turbines and photovoltaic cells to supply all of its own energy needs, and just received approval from the local government.

Renderings of the project, developed jointly by architecture firms from Spain and the Netherlands, are inspiring in that way renderings have -- they're also the latest entry in a growing parade of eco-city concepts that are turning up in countries all over the world:

Dongtan Eco City, slated for development among wetlands near Shanghai:

Estonia's ECOBAY:

And two sustainable cities-from-scratch in the United Arab Emirates,

Masdar:

and City in the Desert, in Ras al Khaimah:

While all of these are inspiring to look at, Rioja's bid is perhaps the most exciting, not because it's the prettiest, but because it seems at first blush to be the most realistic. It's one thing to show what a ground-breaking city of the future will look like, quite another to deal with the logistics of getting it built.