What a Village is Not
The book How to Build a Village opens with a paragraph in red text intended to clear the air, since some people initially form the wrong impression. Thus the book opens with...
What is a village, or more particularly the Village that is the subject of this book?
Let’s begin with what it is not. No, it is not an Intentional Community – a form that spans the likes of Eco-Villages, Co-Housing, Gated Golfing Communities, Retirement Villages and Hippy Communes. Such places attract like-minded people, segregated by interest. It’s not Utopia or a live-in Disneyesque theme park. It’s something more authentic, vernacular and eminently sensible in an era dominated by artificial, vacuous design, driven solely by profit with little consideration for quality of life. Right – now that we have made that clear..
We find when people are first told of the concept of a Village, some try to associate it with something alternative, something they have read or heard about... a 60's hippy commune, a 90's eco-village or a Danish co-housing, to name but a few. It's nothing like these forms of intentional communities, although being sustainable is a non-negotiable. Such intentional communities tend to be small, and they tend to attract a smaller subset of society experimenting in new forms of living. In contrast, the Village is a mainstream concept that takes a wide-eyed look at problems we seem to create for ourselves, and put forth sensible plans to avoid them and to create a great and affordable place to live.
Others hear about the idea of Village gates and walls, and they think it is a secured gated-community. No, not that either. The gate is to mark transition, the wall is to establish a clear delineation between development and greenbelt, to say: this Village will not sprawl!
A Village is not a solution for an existing city or town; retrofitting an existing suburb to make it more sustainable, for example. The ideas could be used for reinventing existing places, but the cost of developed land is usually too high and the existing infrastructure is too wrong.
At this point, the target is new development on bare land. It could be brownfield-urban land where slums were cleared. It could be open suburban land where both the developer and the local government realise the land would be better built as a Village. Or it could be rural land, a Country Town Village placed on marginal agricultural land surrounded by farms.
New development, or sprawl, continues at a huge pace. It is based on a set of formulas that make money for the investors and developers. What the Village tries to do is turn that process upside down, so the investors and developers see they can do something good for people and the planet by changing how they work... and still achieve their business goals.
And finally, a Village is not built on a negative. Peak oil, global warming, economic collapse (POGWEC) are but three of the popular negatives driving people in the sustainability movement. How can one build a community based on negatives?
Instead, build a community around Quality of Life, and make matters like health of the globe and the economy givens in developing your plans. It's like health. Well balanced people are healthy, they eat well and use their bodies well. They look and feel good as a result. But they don't make health their prime mission in life. They enjoy good food and exercise, but their lives focus outwardly, on others, and on ones own life unfolding... the reason they are here on earth. The same applies to communities. Build a community around qualities.
