The Yearning: Many yearn for a “home village” —that is for a place where we are each known, appreciated, and have a place. We yearn for a place where there is a strong community but a workable one, and also with a private realm where we can have privacy and control. We yearn for a place with timeless beauty. We yearn for a place that is secure. We yearn for a way to live that works, that is comfortable, but does not destroy us to pay for it…or the Earth to sustain it.

French Village Square

A vision to meet these yearnings:

Settlement Form:   An Earthen Village is a settlement of about 200 households (approx 500 people), a size anthropologists have found is large enough for everyone to find kindred spirits AND small enough for everyone to feel seen, known, and at home.

Community can flourish in such a village, but we also want tranquility, and places to retreat and be at home with chosen friends or alone. So the village is made up of households each with its own compact lot in an updated version of the classic pre-automobile physical form of village of Europe, Asia, South America, and beyond.  That is 1-2 story homes with common walls along car-free pedestrian  “street” spaces. (Small slow human or electric powered vehicles would be welcome too).The pedestrian character of the village promotes not only quiet and safety but also community, for, as a supporter noted, “I love the idea of the Village because it would be a place I could have a meeting without making an appointment“.

This compact layout will allow the whole village to occupy no more than 15-20 acres of a 100 acre+ site. The balance of the site, outside the village will be space for commonly held green-belt surrounding the village–a natural open space to be alone in Nature, minutes walk from every door. It will also accommodate beside the Village community gardening and fresh food production, and community utilities such as vehicle parking, village-scale solar generation, water supply, etc.

With each lot also comes equal & indivisible ownership in the whole of the “Village Commons”–the open space around the village.

Common Space Land-Use Principles All the common open space around and within the village will be stewarded with the wisest long-term principles (assumed now to be those of “Permaculture”) with the aim of building the fertility, resilience & yield (and so beauty) of the land for all life, for the Village, for all time.

This means the village will be surrounded by land growing greener year-by year, with springs long-dry flowing again. And this will include beautiful “forest gardens” near the village—community-supported—where “shopping” for fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, or medicines, is simply picking in a  park-like garden  from the trees, bushes, or the earth. Long term favorable leases for these (or other) uses of portions of the Village Commons would be approved by vote of the elected Village Council..

And beyond the gardens, would be tens or hundreds of acres of beautiful wild open space in which to wander, wonder, & regenerate.

Are you interest in living in a village like this? Please Join our community and help us make this vision a reality!