It doesn’t do any good to build a smart house in a dumb neighborhood. James Ehrlich, of ReGen Villages (dubbed “the Tesla of eco-villages”), explains how the future is rural. (You can find an overview of his plan here and a New York Times article here.)

Peter Callahan gives a concise overview on how we can transform our sprawling ways into much more sustainable and enjoyable built environments. These are transformations that need to be made and apply to every scale.

If I could make villages, without any restrictions of code, zoning, or finances, I would design small, dense nodes for about 150 people. (Dunbar’s number suggests 150 is the number of people you can know relatively well and how big a group can get before it tends to split or require more restrictive rules and regulations). Each node of 150 people would have kind of a sister village so that there could be a school for the kids that was also about 150 kids (k-12) between the two villages. 

There would be plenty of farm and wild lands surrounding each village to preserve the balance of nature and to ensure each village could be essentially self reliant. Using the latest permaculture practices (see David Blume’s work), we could farm as little as one half to two acres to feed a population of 150 people. This distribution could virtually eliminate pollution as people wouldn’t want to pollute their own food and water supplies. Additional undeveloped lands would be important to maintain healthy ecosystems, wildlife corridors, and give people access to places of solitude and opportunities to connect with untamed wilderness.

All the buildings would be built close to one another to facilitate community. You would be able to walk anywhere in the village within about 5 minutes. Ideally the sister village wouldn’t be more than a 10-15 minute walk or easy bike ride away, further reducing pollution by daily car trips, and increasing resident’s health by upping their daily movement, vitamin D, and connection to others and nature.

The design of the place would begin by balancing three initial goals:

1. Finding the most beautiful natural features of the land and optimizing them for maximum public enjoyment.

2. Engineering the land to slow, spread, and sink/store the water.

3. Determining the best sites to grow food and to build buildings based on soil quality, topography, etc.

The building site would not be leveled and gridded, but rather we’d work with the existing or engineered topography for the water remediation to bring water through the village. The buildings would be oriented to make the most of passive and active solar energy and their spacing would balance the use of solar energy with the residents needs for both community and solitude. Meaning, they would be as close to each other as possible, creating community, while retaining the distance required for passive solar gains and the solitude granted by private courtyards whenever possible. 

The buildings would be made of natural materials as much as possible. The vernacular architecture and the local stone, earth, and timber would provide the primary palette, they would be net-positive and carbon-negative, and have a small footprint.

Each village would have a permaculture farm, at least one restaurant, some workshop/studio spaces that would include a 3D printer, some quiet coworking space, some shop/market spaces, a spa/well-being/healing space, at least one school space between the two sister villages, and a space large enough where everyone could gather or hold events indoors. 

Buildings would not be over three stories high because that is the max height at which you can recognize a person and be able to call out to them from the ground to a balcony. Most buildings would be attached to one another, many with living quarters above and working quarters below and open to the street. Homes would be built to create a full range of price points, with plenty of cohousing and multi-family options to provide affordable housing opportunities. About 30% of the residences (at every price point) could be available for both short term and long rent. There would be minimal signage and no advertisements like billboards or the like. And as much as possible would be engineered for close-loop, no-waste systems, including flushing vermicomposting toilets.

All settlements would be organized by watersheds so they could work together to create optimal quantity, quality, and health of the water (see the work of Brock Dolman). These villages would be dotted across a green landscape, replacing suburban sprawl but there would still be larger towns and cities providing easy access to higher specialization of jobs, hospitals, etc. But for most people, their daily life would not require a commute.

The primary measures for settlements at all scales would be human flourishing of its residents and the quantity, quality and the health of the water.