A community designed to produce its own food

[bower]

Re: the local food part of the model - I know of a suburban model happening, where the farmer rents land in multiple back yards to grow enough for market. Rent is typically negotiated to pay in whole or part with produce from the backyards farm to feed those families. The surplus goes to local markets. So even the suburbs have the potential to be converted in a positive way.

Re: the waste-to-energy process, this is a big benefit to the environment also a big "carbon credit " and I believe in the near future you'll see one form or another adopted by cities and towns across the world, as an alternative to current waste management practice. The carbon tax coming in most places will be a push in that direction, make the necessary investment in infrastructure and service the whole urban area. Sorry to those who dislike it but the language of carbon credit is out there and is happening whether we yea or nay in most of the world.

Also a lot of existing homes/buildings can be fitted with solar, for those who have enough sun to make it worthwhile. Not sure about the other energy captures, when or how feasible.

Realistically, though, adaptive changes have a much smaller footprint than brand new development.... but there will always be a mix of both.

Yes it's cool to have a model 'lower impact'' community which is a real estate development model for a privileged class. Just for oohs and aaahs I enjoyed looking and reading about it! Would also be cool to have some new homes development model to address what Worth said, smaller homes and single person or couple size dwellings, also accessible appropriate sized dwellings for elderly folks is a huge issue. With gardens, please!

[Worth1]

One of our biggest hurtles is we live in a capitalist society with freedoms.
BUT these can be overcome with amendments to the constitution already in place.
Immanent domain for the good of the people is one.
This is in the 5th amendment.
One of the biggest agricultural counties in the state of Texas is now being covered in concrete slabs for houses.
By land developers.
1000 years from now they will say what on earth were these people thinking.
With the 5th the government could step in if the wanted to.
This land needs to feed people not house them.
Or make it a community were people grow there own food.
In other words zoned.
We have to do this now later is too late.
We have to be proactive not reactive.
I can show you the math where this would work and still have the same amount of housing for more people.
Home fire codes would have to be changed and common walls for houses.
Not the stupid what is it 10 feet wasted space between houses.
Possibly parking garages for home owners not driveways, just a thought.
Less streets and more land for everyone.
The top of the parking garage can be more places to grow food or collect energy from the sun or both.
Different ideas on roof tops, that way the house isn't taking up usable space.
Water collection instead of it running down storm drains going to fish ponds.
What this effect will have on the people is positive not negative.
For once they will get to know each other.
They will become family so to speak.
They will protect each other and their investments.
Real experts in the field living there.
The people that move there would be like minded, a real plus.
Local shopping in the area we already have.
The rest can be ordered on line which we already have.
People of all walks of life would live there not just one.
In other words blue and white collar we already have this anyway.
You see gorbelly I am not a negative person as you seem to come across to me you think I am.
I have thought this stuff out many times for the entertainment alone.
It is what I do with my mind instead of sports what can I say.
Your thread lit my fire and I will not stop till the cows come home.
Worth

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by bower

Re: the local food part of the model - I know of a suburban model happening, where the farmer rents land in multiple back yards to grow enough for market. Rent is typically negotiated to pay in whole or part with produce from the backyards farm to feed those families. The surplus goes to local markets. So even the suburbs have the potential to be converted in a positive way.

Re: the waste-to-energy process, this is a big benefit to the environment also a big "carbon credit " and I believe in the near future you'll see one form or another adopted by cities and towns across the world, as an alternative to current waste management practice. The carbon tax coming in most places will be a push in that direction, make the necessary investment in infrastructure and service the whole urban area. Sorry to those who dislike it but the language of carbon credit is out there and is happening whether we yea or nay in most of the world.

Also a lot of existing homes/buildings can be fitted with solar, for those who have enough sun to make it worthwhile. Not sure about the other energy captures, when or how feasible.

Realistically, though, adaptive changes have a much smaller footprint than brand new development.... but there will always be a mix of both.

Yes it's cool to have a model 'lower impact'' community which is a real estate development model for a privileged class. Just for oohs and aaahs I enjoyed looking and reading about it! Would also be cool to have some new homes development model to address what Worth said, smaller homes and single person or couple size dwellings, also accessible appropriate sized dwellings for elderly folks is a huge issue. With gardens, please!

I think a mosaic of all of the solutions you mention and many more will be needed.

But note that the model here does include single person/couple dwellings, as well as strategies to subsidize housing for lower income people.

And I think it's important to keep in mind that basically everyone in rich, Western countries is enormously wealthy by global standards and therefore consumes a ridiculously outsized share of the world's resources and does a hugely disproportionate share of ecological harm.

While this particular company may be doing this particular pilot project for a relatively wealthy demo in the Netherlands (which I think is smart--let the wealthy bear the burdens and uncertainties of being test subjects, as they can more afford to do so), they and others will be envisioning ways to adapt these ideas to general housing for the middle classes everywhere, most importantly for emerging middle classes in developing nations who will put enormous strain on the earth's already strained resources.

In a place like the US, adapting the abundant already existing housing may work better in many cases, although I think that our vast suburban sprawl will, at minimum, eventually have to be reorganized to form denser clusters of housing that can be better served by communal transportation. In places where housing is scarcer or hasn't been built so extravagantly with such abandon and excess, especially in places where there was no middle class so there is no middle class housing that can be repurposed or improved, ideas like this will be incredibly important.

[rhoder551]

VERY nice. If the community was built among citrus groves...that would be my ideal living environment.