Community Project

[sjkted]

Hello All,

When I first bumped into Project Camelot a few years ago, I was inspired by George Green's concept of the groundcrew and communities. It seems like a community is the model that will ultimately work today and well into the future. With all of the research I've done, I feel we are reaching an ending point: our current structures are crumbling including government, industrial food, transportation systems, environment, monetary, moral/ethical standards. There is no doubt in my mind that these are all completely unsustainable -- the big question is when they will fall apart and by what will they be replaced?

I've set about to research Intentional Communities or Self Organized Communities and have been a little disappointed by what I have seen. The majority of communities I have found are for followers of a specific religious path. Many of the others are basically real estate deals to buy a parcel of land with the opportunity to build your own home and join a Home Owner's Association with a eco-friendly bent.

I have nothing ill to say about either of these paths, but I have found that neither is right for me and I am unconvinced that these models are the solution to the above issues, although they are a big improvement over the concrete empire that many of us loosely call home.

I'm writing a blog on the major issues regarding the creation of a community and how a tribe of people can be as self sufficient as possible and live off the land with minimal dollar/money cost. In order for these solutions to work, they must be renewable, good to the environment, and relatively inexpensive and easy to use. There are many survival guides on topics such as surviving in the woods or surviving a nuclear catastrophe, but none of them seem to detail how to survive the long-term destruction of our civilization. It has been said that no man is an island unto himself. Just as it is nearly impossible to survive by oneself in a system dominated by money, it will be almost impossible to make it in the future alone. Any topics discussed must be applicable to groups who can split up tasks and create new ways of organization never before seen.

Here are the main topics on the list:

1. Sanitation / Hygiene
2. Water
3. Communication
4. Living / Shelter
5. Security/Protection
6. Health/Medical/Healing
7. Transporation
8. Food / Cooking
9. Energy

Following these are a discussion on topics such as financing, legal issues, property ownership, rules, community organization, etc.

The goal is to produce some sort of a "business plan" on how a small number of individuals can take ownership of a land and create a community and sustainable economies with other local communities. It need not be a rigid plan, but it should be able to guide urbanites to switching over their lifestyle without making too many mistakes.

I am proposing that I post these topics and my research here on Avalon first and then after receiving comment from other members and input who have topic experience and expertise on other methods. Once this is done, I'll post in an edited (condensed) form on the blog.

I'm writing here not as an expert who has been there, done that but as a researcher who is very interested in creating a model that people could use to transition from the corporate world into a community/nature world.

I would appreciate your comments and ideas here.

-- sjkted