A community designed to produce its own food

[My Foot Smells]

Originally Posted by jtjmartin

The engineering & planning is usually great - it's the people that get in the way!

I live about a mile away from historic Jamestown - seems like people don't change much over time. "Tragedy of the Commons" seems to be as strong as "Murphey's Law" in a lot of these pursuits.

I hope it works out along with the urban gardening - great ideas!

What really happened to the ppl of Roanoke?

[jtjmartin]

Nobody really knows what happened. The first attempt to settle the Island failed and all survivors left with Sir Francis Drake. On the second attempt, the colonists were supposed to be resupplied in about 3 months. Due to another war, it took 3 years for a ship to return. No one was left.

There are theories and some evidence that (1) they died/were killed, (2) fled to an island south of them, (3) some survived and lived with another native tribe.

What I find fascinating are the accounts from many of the early settlements how utterly unprepared and unwilling to learn and work they were. Not that they were so different from us today but so similar!

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I think Frank Loyd Wright started up something like this.
Turned out to be a flop.
It seems if memory serves me the elite did nothing while the lower folks of status did all of the work.
Saw it on PBS years ago and never heard of it again.
This seems to always be the case with these things there has to be leaders and the bigger it becomes the regular folks become servants to the elite leaders.
Which becomes a statehood.
Full circle to back where we are now.

This Dutch project is not a utopian community separated from the world, though.

I think you guys are confusing "self-sufficient" and "low environmental impact" community with "nuts forming a cult and isolating themselves".

Think of it more like a co-op or a neighborhood with a really strict HOA. I'm sure there will be stringent rules to follow about how you handle your waste, what you pour down the sink or flush, what gets grown in communal plots, etc. I imagine everyone will pay taxes or dues to take care of someone to handle public maintenance, maybe even farming the communal plots, etc. Presumably, all of those people would still commute to school and jobs and other things just like any other suburban dweller. It's just that their neighborhood infrastructure is far, far less wasteful and more useful than the average new suburb.

The Dutch have a consensus-based and community-responsibility-based culture. Not like us Americans. And they're an eminently practical folk, unlike us. That doesn't mean this will definitely be a raging success, but it's not going to be some experiment in craziness the way it would be if we did it here.

[jtjmartin]

Gorbelly:

The village looks awesome and cool. As you say, it looks far less wasteful and more useful than the average new suburb. It looks like a great experiment to see if a number of permaculture techniques that individuals are practicing can be applied to a whole community.

A couple points though:
(1) the success of the community probably still depends on the dedication and like-mindedness of the individuals,
(2) ReGen is an American company based in California - American craziness sometimes results in ingenuity!, and
(3) your descriptions as far less wasteful/more useful are much better descriptions of what is being planned than "self-sufficient," "closed loop," "doesn't need a grid," and "handles its own waste." It may be a step in that direction . . . but it's a step.

[Cole_Robbie]

I admire the attitude behind the ideas, but I'm struggling with seeing how it is economically feasible. Clear poly panels are like $3 per square foot, and they have to be replaced every ten years. You'd have to grow a lot of lettuce to recover the costs of one of those structures.

The article mentions wanting to expand their model to third world countries. Obviously, they are going to have to use poly sheeting and not the rigid panels, and care a lot less about how nice everything looks.

The redneck version of their ideas would be a hoophouse built over a trailer, which is an idea that has occurred to me before.

[PaulF]

So far as I can see it will require a huge initial cash outlay with a continued very large cost (tax). If food is distributed on a per work basis, if I work twice as hard will I get twice the food? If all Worth does is crack the whip does he get a portion of the food from those he cracks. Is his portion decided on the increased productivity of those who are shirkers? If those who do not hold up their end are ejected how is that decided and by whom. Soon we are back to current societal norms with no incentive to keep this model going. The produce gets wasted, the animals starve and a multinational comes in and takes over and everybody drives to the nearest Wal-Mart for food and clothing.

[Jimbotomateo]

Sounds like they need a really good community organizer. Know of any? Jimbo

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by jtjmartin

(2) ReGen is an American company based in California - American craziness sometimes results in ingenuity!

Indeed it does. We excel at coming up with great things. We have some issues in general with the long-term view, and people are just not as community oriented here, though.

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

I admire the attitude behind the ideas, but I'm struggling with seeing how it is economically feasible. Clear poly panels are like $3 per square foot, and they have to be replaced every ten years. You'd have to grow a lot of lettuce to recover the costs of one of those structures.

You're fixating on one aspect, which is certainly unlikely to be purchased at retail cost and may involve materials not accessible to ordinary American shoppers. And maybe they're not thinking in terms of "recovering costs"? Maybe the ability to garden in a giant greenhouse year-round is something that has value in and of itself that people are willing to pay for for its own sake, the way we value backyard swimming pools? If I were that rich, I would certainly pay for that as a desirable feature, like a beautiful balcony or a gorgeous deck and not see it as something that had to pay for itself in dollars like upgrading insulation or energy-efficient windows.

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

The article mentions wanting to expand their model to third world countries. Obviously, they are going to have to use poly sheeting and not the rigid panels, and care a lot less about how nice everything looks.

I think they're talking about this general sort of community planning as a model for developing nations as they continue to produce wealthy middle classes. I don't see them advocating for imposing this wholesale on poor populations now, which would be ridiculous. In fact, it's clearly very deliberate that they're starting this in wealthy nations. They obviously don't want this to be yet another ill-conceived brain fart imposed on the world's poorest people who then have to cope with those failures even though they're the least equipped to do so.

In other words, they are proposing this sort of community as a possible model for the significant percentage of the world that will rise out of poverty as an alternative to the horribly wasteful, short-sighted McMansion tracts and ticky-tacky lifestyles of the past. Seems to me that these communities are about a better way to house the most wasteful segments of the world population: wealthy people (by global standards, which means a lot of people who do not consider themselves wealthy by American standards) who live in suburbs. The developing world is producing such people now and will produce ever more of them. The planet won't survive it if all of those people decide to live in American style suburbs.

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

The redneck version of their ideas would be a hoophouse built over a trailer, which is an idea that has occurred to me before.

You're leaving out the sustainable energy features, the community waste recycling, and the whole concept of the thing being designed from the ground up so that the entire community is more integrated. It's not just about big fancy greenhouses over your dwelling. It's a new vision of what a suburb can be and how the rich can be less wasteful, not something that is being proposed as a lifestyle to be forced on the poor.

Originally Posted by PaulF

So far as I can see it will require a huge initial cash outlay with a continued very large cost (tax). If food is distributed on a per work basis, if I work twice as hard will I get twice the food? If all Worth does is crack the whip does he get a portion of the food from those he cracks. Is his portion decided on the increased productivity of those who are shirkers? If those who do not hold up their end are ejected how is that decided and by whom. Soon we are back to current societal norms with no incentive to keep this model going. The produce gets wasted, the animals starve and a multinational comes in and takes over and everybody drives to the nearest Wal-Mart for food and clothing.

I think you're assuming that this is going to be some kind of totalitarian Biodome. While the announcements from the company are typical PR hyperbole, I would bet my front teeth that the project is actually much more practical in scope and is mostly about maximizing the recycling of household water and waste and allowing for more food consumed to be produced very locally. Other countries aren't as prone to thinking only in polarized extremes like the US. It's not going to be all or nothing, because that approach doesn't work. Also, keep in mind that final implementations of these things tend to differ from initial modeling, and that this is a pilot project, which means it's going to be a learning experience for all involved.

They're actually quite smart to start in northern Europe, where attitudes are much more moderate and practical and the whole thing won't be entirely scrapped as a failure if it's not a total success and massively profitable immediately.

As for huge initial outlay,
1) other rich, developed nations are far less hostile to the idea of government using public funds to subsidize projects for the common good, and
2) despite much more socialism than here, the Netherlands has a lot of wealth and plenty of very wealthy people.

[Father'sDaughter]

I think it's a unique idea for more environmentally responsible suburban development. And like many environmental initiatives, it's not going to be cheap, but some segment of the population will gladly pay the entry fee.

Take the Prius versus comparably sized and equipped gasoline vehicles--the Prius cost a lot more yet once it hit the U.S. market, there were tons of them on the road. People who felt strongly enough about energy conservation and could afford it, gladly paid the initially higher cost.

As I saw nothing in the article saying this would be a low cost or low income neighborhood, it's probably going to be like the Prius. Even when they talk about India and Africa, they talk about areas of those countries which they think will be moving towards middle class.

[zeuspaul]

Originally Posted by Father'sDaughter

Take the Prius versus comparably sized and equipped gasoline vehicles--the Prius cost a lot more yet once it hit the U.S. market, there were tons of them on the road. People who felt strongly enough about energy conservation and could afford it, gladly paid the initially higher cost.

My nephew was an early adopter. He probably paid 2x the cost of a similar gas powered car. About a year later he told me that he wasn't going to try and save the world again

[kurt]

Originally Posted by Worth1

I think Frank Loyd Wright started up something like this.
Turned out to be a flop.
It seems if memory serves me the elite did nothing while the lower folks of status did all of the work.
Saw it on PBS years ago and never heard of it again.
This seems to always be the case with these things there has to be leaders and the bigger it becomes the regular folks become servants to the elite leaders.
Which becomes a statehood.
Full circle to back where we are now.

Heard a NPR program about this guy and his following to this day!Those "society's"and "in a perfect world"scare the bejesus out of me.HOA's on steroids.Stepford Wives comes to mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More

[gorbelly]

RE: Frank Lloyd Wright and Usonia

I feel compelled to point out that it stopped being a collective mostly because banks refused to offer the necessary financial services to people who wanted to own things collectively. It's important to remember that this was during full blown Red Scare decades.

But in the end, people took individual possession of their properties. There were naturally some disputes around ownership because that's to be expected with collective ownership of anything. A lot of that conflict was generated by the banks' refusals to help them, though.

It was a successful community, and much of it remained in the hands of the original residents for 4+ decades. Some of the original residents still live there, although they are very old, and the community is still occupied and thriving. It is definitely NOT a Roanoke, nor was it any kind of kibbutz or hippie commune or anything. It wasn't even a farming community. All it was is a community in which the architecture and infrastructure were designed to be in harmony with the nature around it and foster a sense of community between the families there.

Wright himself was a consulting architect. He wasn't in charge of the community, and he was never any kind of dictator to it. He just had a big hand in planning its overall architecture.

People still live there, and it's a perfectly functional community.

http://patch.com/new-york/pleasantvi...ell-b60923c618

http://architizer.com/blog/wrights-u...-usonia-today/

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by kurt

Heard a NPR program about this guy and his following to this day!Those "society's"and "in a perfect world"scare the bejesus out of me.HOA's on steroids.Stepford Wives comes to mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More

No kidding, Utopia.

As for the Dutch I just about bet I know more not all but more than the huge majority of the people in the US and many of the Dutch themselves.
I have known them here and met them over there.
They are nothing like us.
I have read their history too.
How many people know that what is now called the Netherlands used to be part of Spain?
The Dutch of all people might pull it off and maybe Denmark.
But not us.
I got and do get along great with these people because I am polite not in a hurry and not pushy.
They like that.
Worth

[PureHarvest]

[/QUOTE]

Take the Prius versus comparably sized and equipped gasoline vehicles--the Prius cost a lot more yet once it hit the U.S. market, there were tons of them on the road. People who felt strongly enough about energy conservation and could afford it, gladly paid the initially higher cost.

[/QUOTE]

But it doesn't conserve anything as advertised. They never pointed out the fact that it requires so many more resources to build than a conventional small car. So if you evaluate it from cradle to grave basis, it has a larger footprint than a comparable sized gas car.
I wonder how "green" this community idea would be if you could compare it cradle to grave to a standard community. They still will have to import 1/2 their food per the article, and will still work outside the community. So, what is the extraction of resource cost and component cost to build and install all of this tech, and then they still have to participate in traditional resource consumption.
It reminds me of all the urban indoor vertical hydro farms being touted as the savior of food and ag. Then you look at the MiLLIOns of dollars to install just to grow lettuce. Think about all of the bulbs and metal and electricity to run the lights and pumps. What is the lifespan of the equipment for such an expensive install cost?
So creation, install, and operating costs are important. They are not irrelevant just because "rich people" are willing to foot the bill. Resources are used to create, install, operate, and replace. These costs hit our planet and can't just be brushed off because someone with bucks can pay for it.
I applaud recycling, water saving strategies, composting, using animals in a plant production system, but only if it is not some over the top fancy pants rig that takes major resources to create and ends up really creating a bigger resources draw than it conserves before it wears out.

[Worth1]

Take the Prius versus comparably sized and equipped gasoline vehicles--the Prius cost a lot more yet once it hit the U.S. market, there were tons of them on the road. People who felt strongly enough about energy conservation and could afford it, gladly paid the initially higher cost.

[/QUOTE]

But it doesn't conserve anything as advertised. They never pointed out the fact that it requires so many more resources to build than a conventional small car. So if you evaluate it from cradle to grave basis, it has a larger footprint than a comparable sized gas car.
I wonder how "green" this community idea would be if you could compare it cradle to grave to a standard community. They still will have to import 1/2 their food per the article, and will still work outside the community. So, what is the extraction of resource cost and component cost to build and install all of this tech, and then they still have to participate in traditional resource consumption.
It reminds me of all the urban indoor vertical hydro farms being touted as the savior of food and ag. Then you look at the MiLLIOns of dollars to install just to grow lettuce. Think about all of the bulbs and metal and electricity to run the lights and pumps. What is the lifespan of the equipment for such an expensive install cost?
So creation, install, and operating costs are important. They are not irrelevant just because "rich people" are willing to foot the bill. Resources are used to create, install, operate, and replace. These costs hit our planet and can't just be brushed off because someone with bucks can pay for it.
I applaud recycling, water saving strategies, composting, using animals in a plant production system, but only if it is not some over the top fancy pants rig that takes major resources to create and ends up really creating a bigger resources draw than it conserves before it wears out.[/QUOTE]

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Gorbelly I commend you for the thread and the feed back and I would love to see something like this work.
It has been a life long dream of mine.
I also know you dont always read me the way I want to come across.
It will take time to figure me out that is for sure.

As for the Basketball I have no problem with it but you said the key word Cheap to build.
And it is good exercise.
Good for the kids too.
But the problem is there is too much emphasis on this sort of thing and not true education.
I can grantee you that if I had the opportunity I could take some of these kids and educate them in scholastics that were otherwise having problems.
Why do I say this because I did it for myself when no one else could.
Not all but some and some is better than none.
That none is what is killing our nation.
These children are being left behind and it ticks me off to no end.
We need too teach more industrial arts trades and agriculture bottom line.

Did you know that white collar wages are going down and blue collar wages are going up?
That tells it all right there.

Worth