What is a VillageTown?
As suburban sprawl moves outward from the city, "no" is not an answer to stop it. There needs to be another way. The VillageTown anchors the countryside, protecting it while enabling people to live in human-scaled communities that work more like the old farming market town - forming a single town-country local economy that can permanantly halt suburban sprawl.
It takes a village to raise the child, but it takes a town to keep businesses profitable. So build a town of villages - a VillageTown that provides the critical mass to support a local economy. People work in the villages; it's not a bedroom community. Keep the cars out in the motorpool, everything is within a 10-minute walk. Make it culturally and socially enriched. Retain permanent affordable housing. Build a walk-to industrial park where people make things. Build for 10,000 people, 20 villages, providing a fulfilling, wonderful place for all ages and stages of life, where all - home, work, shops, schools, cafés and recreation is within walking distance. And do it all on a very small, medium-density urban core, perhaps 60 hectares in the middle of a larger farm. Wrap the urban core with a greenbelt to prevent cross-boundary conflicts and keep it inwardly focused so it does not spoil the countryside. Use the money it brings in to protect the farmland.
