Recently, I’ve been considering the economic turmoil we find ourselves in.  In my view, it is more than a recession, or a depression.  I think that it is a turning point in society where the old ways of being a slave to conventional wisdom are no longer sustainable, and where we have an opportunity for greater freedom.  This post is about an idea of a sustainable, resilient community that will help us regain our independence and freedom.

To date, the world runs on centralisation and power structures that separate consumers and producers and those who can make others do things, and those who do them – slave drivers and slaves.  The result of this is that the economy has to keep expanding, and at the same time big corporations and governments are constantly seeking to expand their powers and leach more of our money and time away from us.

Economic crashes show the impotence of government to ignore reality and the fact that there is no safety in the prison.  Anyone who has not broken away from the system is vulnerable to the fallout.  We have become reliant on government and centralised authority for our power, water and food, as well as our employment.  We are as dependent on them as an unborn baby is on the umbilical cord.   Centralised systems of employment and infrastructure are easily attacked and are a point of weakness.

Well I think that it is time to grow up and be independent.  Inspired by the idea of Galt’s Gulch in Atlas Shrugged, I thought about the idea of living independently.  People originally moved to cities for protection, employment, centralised services and a better life.  Whilst cities will continue to provide some benefits, the scale has now tipped towards decentralised living.

What I am thinking of is a community not based on hierarchy but simply on shared goals.  If a member doesn’t like it, they are not compelled to do anything.  In this community, everyone both produces and consumes.  Since less money is required, the community and the individuals within in are not beholden to governments or large corporations.

I see it working like this:

A group of people would buy a parcel of rural land, for example, depleted farmland.  They would revegetate most of it to its natural state to ensure that it is sustainable.  Each would own shares in a corporation that owns the land.  Each person or family group would have an allocated area for housing (in practice, this would be quite a lot of land).  Each dwelling would use photovoltaic cells on the roof to produce electricity (I have these on the roof of my house), combined with wind turbines.

There would be a small electrical grid that would share out the power load, and battery banks to store electricity.  If a family wanted to produce more power, they could sell the surplus to the grid.  The perimeter of the overall property would be secured, and access would be allowed only to residents and their guests.

Each household would collect rainwater and have access to bore water and water purification systems (where I live has frequent drought, so water is very important).  Gray and black water would be treated in reverse osmosis units (see Novaclear for an example of a system).  This filtered, pathogen free water would be used to irrigate crops.  Each family would therefore have the capability of producing water, electricity, food and treating any wastes.

The technical design is important.  I would expect that members would take advantage of standardisation to allow bulk buying and substantial savings on the technology.  This is a sustainable way of life, but it does not mean a primitive way of life.

Communications infrastructure would again take advantage of the economies of scale available.  This would be the lifeline for work.  I would see this community doing work within the community rather than incurring the cost of commuting, wasting time in an office.  Broadband would allow remote working and communications.

Use of small home based factory units would allow flexible custom manufacturing of items for sale (for example using small CNC machining centres and robotics).  Being able to produce water, food, electricity and manufactured items as required (obviously many products would still need to be purchased) and living on cheaper rural land with potentially no mortgages bypasses reliance on the economy which is characterised by boom/bust cycles, unpleasant workplaces and employment instability.

The principle is to take back control of the infrastructure that we have let others run, run an economy partially outside of the system, be independent and value the quality of our lives.  It is not based on idealism and is not any kind of a cult.  The principle is based around mutual benefit to all.

I would be interested in any feedback on this idea.

Tags: resilient community, sustainable

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 6:51 pm and is filed under Sustainable community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.