HOW TO BUILD A VILLAGE TOWN, PART I

The process of creating a VillageTown 

Obviously a VillageTown is a big project and it will use the best professionals that can be found to assure the job is done on schedule, on budget and without chaos. However, while the professionals are essential, it is of the utmost importance that the VillageTown is built on a strong foundation.  First, it is:

Self-creating and self-organizing 

Self-funding, self-supporting and self-sustaining

Self-correcting and self-replicating

When Professor John Bremer read How to Build a Village, he wrote back saying perhaps the title should be How a Village Builds Itself. He is right, the core principle of a VillageTown is about this sense of Self.

Not individual self, as in selfish or self-centered, but what happens when people come together as a group and develop a sense of community self-awareness - a healthy living system. Evolution biologist Dr. Elisabet Sahtouris gave us language for this when she described 16 characteristics found in almost every biological organism that exists. See her graphic below.




We took the 16 points of Elisabeth Sahtouris and added language relevant to building a community as a healthy living system:

1. Self-creation: The villagers self-indentify in the beginning. They shape their village. A VillageTown self-funds & keeps profits from self-creation to self-sustain.
2. Complexity (diversity of parts): Each village is different. A VillageTown market economy is based on diversity. Both contribute to its richness & resilience.
3. Embeddedness in larger holons and dependence on them: A VillageTown works within a host jurisdiction, a region, state, nation and the global economy.
4. Self-reflexivity: The citizens are present 24/7, thus they are more aware of their community than a typical suburb where commuting & electronic media (TV) rule.
5. Self-regulation/maintenance: Locality, market forces & corporate law enable self-governance, regardless of municipal law overlaid from the host jurisdiction.
6. Response ability: The local economy and the self-contained nature of a VillageTown protects it from external stress that is crushing many communities.
7. Input/output exchange of matter/energy/information: Telepresence greatly enhances global exchange; the local economy enables balanced exchange.
8. Transformation: The Local Economy and the Legacy Fund focus their attention on wealth creation using market forces combined with internal cooperation.
9. Empowerment/employment: A VillageTown places priority on enabling all its citizens to live productive lives, and to help those who suffer setbacks.
10. Communications: Informal communications comes with proximity. Formal communications comes through a VillageTown's governance and its Intranet.
11. Coordination: The structure of a VillageTown inherently enhances coordination, and this is supplemented with a checks and balances governance system.
12. Balance of Interests: Checks & balances and a market economy distribute authority for decision-making and action to assure no person or group can dominate.
13. Reciprocity... mutual contribution & assistance: A VillageTown institutes a sense of identity in which cooperation naturally thrives due to proximity.
14. Efficiency balanced by resilience: By limiting the size to about 10,000 people, bureaucracy does not creep in, yet the size and wealth gives critical mass.
15. Conservation of what works well: Market economies self-regulate as every person participates from their point of view. Wisdom emerges from the group.
16. Creative change of what does not work well: The villages and the VillageTown are granted powers at the onset to protect the citizens and the community.
17. And, we add a 17th which may be part of No.1, above: Self-replication. The 10% reinvestment premium enables the Stewards to start other projects world-wide.

This, then, is the foundation.  Eastern Missouri can be the first.  Give us your input and let us begin.