Critical Mass - 5,000 to 10,000 population
With less than 5,000 people, or 3,500 at the absolute minimum, a community encounters two problems.
- It is difficult to maintain a thriving local economy - not enough customers for local business
- Privacy suffers - everyone knows everyone else's business. Not enough happening.
Over 10,000 people and the place becomes bureaucratic, difficult to manage. One no longer runs into leaders in the streets. Informal accountability is lost.
For these reasons, the target population is set between 5,000 and 10,000 persons, and once built it remains constant - no further sprawl. If growth is needed, build another village 10 miles down the road. Because the local businesses will need the village residents as customers, the village cannot be built in stages... everyone needs to move in in the same time frame. This means that the village must be almost completely pre-sold and the construction will use an entirely different approach than conventional developments.
The population make-up will probably reflect national demographics. Typically this means:
- 20% are school-aged children 6-18
- 16% are over 65
- at least half the adults will work
- young adults(18 to 25) will be present because they have a place
However, there could be a stronger representation of families with school aged children due to the inherently better education, and there could be a stronger representation of Baby-Boomers who may find their investments and government pensions fail due to demographics. See "If you are a Baby Boomer"
The first villages may also expect a strong visitor element, perhaps as much as 10 to 15% of the local population at any one time. This would be both for the curiosity factor and the enriched quality of life.
