Community layout is crucial to sustainability, because we are accustomed to unsustainable models and will unconsciously adopt one unless careful planning is used. Old habits die hard, especially when they have existed for generations.
When everyone groups together without limitation, the land required for sustenance will be farther away, and artificial methods of transportation will be needed. In such a model there is insufficient land immediately adjacent to support growing food for consumption personally or within a community. This scenario eventually becomes a modern city, where the only requirements are building codes, streets and sidewalks for transportation, and utilities. The high concentration of population in such a small area requires huge networks of artificial transportation for commodities, food, supplies, utilities, phone, water, waste, rainwater and everything else. Such a model is clearly unsustainable in many ways and ultimately creates multiple huge grids controlled by wealthy corporations. When such grids fail, as everything eventually does, the result is catastrophic for everyone.
Conversely, everyone could simply buy their own acreage and build a house. This would seem acceptable, since a family can produce sufficient food on an acre or two of land. But that’s hardly a community; that’s just living in the country. And usually people buy much more than one or two acres. The more land we have the more we try to use it for profit, and that leads back to machinery, oil, artificial systems, and ultimately huge cities and nationwide grids. When we have too much land we need vehicles even to drive around all of it. There is too much distance from neighbors, and relationships suffer.
Neither of these models are conducive for either sustainability or self-sufficiency on a community level. They represent two extremes, and thus the sustainable model is in between them.
Another model to consider is called co-housing. In this model a small number of houses are grouped close together, usually in a circle or other arrangement to create a common area in the middle. It is a good plan especially because it creates neighborhoods that are very safe for families and children. It creates an environment for real sharing and cooperation between people, and thus builds natural extended families. But is has one serious flaw - it is essentially urban in design.
Villages
The village concept is the original source of the co-housing concept. Co-housing is still based upon an artificial economy and lifestyle because it doesn’t account for the land needed to provide sustenance. It’s based on that polluting, gas-guzzling car to get to work and to shop, the trucking industry to bring in food and supplies, and all the factories needed to create these along with the resultant pollution and massive roadways in a completely unsustainable system.
The village concept combines the “house on an acre” with having a small number of select neighbors. It is the building block of agrarian-based society. The houses are grouped together and the fields and land associated with those houses are all around them. If you walk across two fields, you'll find the next village.
An ideal village consists of a limited number of houses immediately surrounded by the land required to sustain all the residents. After much consideration we finally settled on eight families (homes) in a village. It is similar to co-housing, but there are only 8 houses, and of course eight tracts of usable land around them.
One acre can provide food for six vegetarian people, not including grazing land for any animals such as cows or sheep. There is also a need for growing cotton or similar crops for clothing, as well as trees or bamboo for various construction purposes and cottage industries. Therefore more than one acre per home may be required, but land for cows and textiles (clothing) will be separate from the village areas. Thus 1 acre is sufficient for a household.
A village consists of 1 acre in the center where eight homes are built, with a common area in the center of them, and eight 1 acre tracts of land behind each house. Grazing land, and land for textiles or building materials (wood, bamboo) will be separate, and any land desired for other crops for sale will also be separate, for example crops for sale to the general public.
Each home is on one acre, with a 1 acre common area in the middle. The exact placement of each home is up to the village residents - they might be within the central acre, or on each private acre, depending on how close the village residents want their houses to be. Thus a village consists of 9 acres. The design is flexible and customizable.
The diagram at the right shows the general concept. There are 8 houses and a common area in the central tract of 1 acre. Around that there are 8 tracts (also 1 acre each) for growing crops. At the village's outside border, the residents might want parks, a border of trees, small recreational areas, etc - and the neighboring village would be just beyond that, In reality there would be a mixture throughout - the parks, ponds, tree groves or flower gardens can be mixed in with the vegetable gardens, orchards, and grain fields. There should also be wooded areas with trees for lumber or shade. Parks or recreational areas on the outer rim would be created and shared with adjoining villages. This is clearly NOT the scenario often seen today where growing produce means huge open fields of nothing but crops as far as the eye can see. That is a business model, and we want a pleasing atmosphere in which to work and live. Of course certain sections can be furrowed and planted, and a village may choose to have all their grain fields combined together in one area and work cooperatively, or everyone can exclusively use their own land, or a combination of these two layouts in unlimited variety.
The area in between the eight houses is a common area, as in the co-housing scheme, but its purpose is not restricted to a kitchen and dining area. The common area can be whatever the residents of each village want it to be, within reason. It could be a common dining area, or a garden, a playground, an exercise facility, a guest house, a storage area, or a building with different rooms for all these or different purposes. It could be a huge fountain and include flower and herb gardens.
A house is not restricted only to families. A retired couple who does not have children might want a house, and since all houses can have multiple bedrooms they can provide one room for a live-in caretaker and another room for a gardener who grows the crops for the four of them (for example). Or a house could be six young men living together or two young couples sharing a house, etc. A home can also be split into a duplex. If we allow for this type of flexibility we can use the timeless principles of sustainable villages while still accommodating the various needs and circumstances of people in different stages of life. It may take a generation or two for a community's social body to become more stable, and we may eventually find several generations of one or two families living in a village.
Each village chooses a particular architectural style for the homes and common area, and the layout for their village. Each community is a planned development but we want variety, within reason. Everyone has a say in the details of their village, and thus their home and immediate surroundings. (See page on Shelter for types of construction.)
Next - (Community) Community Layout
