Parallel Villages in Context - from trans-port to tele-presence
This article looks at villages from an economic historic perspective to explore why smaller communities faded from importance, and why changing conditions now mean their time has come once again.
In decades past, small towns and villages lost their vitality and in some cases disappeared entirely. What changed to make them viable once again?
The short answer is Telepresence. Permit us to explain: The introduction of the automobile in the 20th century radically changed how people lived. Initially, it replaced the horse and street-car as an easier way to get around town, but after World War II, people redesigned their habitat to fit the car. For mainstream society, suburbs, shopping malls and office & industrial parks replaced villages and towns and even cities went into decline. It began in America, but spread world-wide.
In the 21st century, a new technology is replacing the car. Initially called the computer revolution, then the internet and now electronic convergence of phone, TV, PC and robotics, the word that best encompasses the technology is telepresence. Not only can one have a face to face business meeting using systems like Cisco’s telepresence, but a doctor can perform an operation using telepresence or a scientist explore the depths of the ocean from the comfort of an office on dry land. Telepresence opens up new ways for people to live, and most importantly allows millions to chose where they want to live based on quality of life rather than proximity to the office, markets or services. For a CBS news story on Telepresence click here.
Quality of life means different things to different people, but common themes emerge: a safe and secure place for all ages and stages of life, engagement with others, stimulation, cultural and social enrichment to name but a few. The implications become profound when one considers that one can design a whole new form of habitat when one is freed from the tyranny of distance.
In How to Build a Village, author Claude Lewenz examines what that form of habitat might look and feel like. He weaves five elements: economic, social, cultural, environmental and espiritual (the spirit of a community), looking at timeless patterns of what is proven to work, and then set the stage so the people who will live there participate in making it happen.
Certain aspects of the design become apparent. For numerous reasons, it requires a critical mass of about 5,000 to 10,000 people and once built, it must not sprawl. Smaller than 5,000 people and the local economy cannot thrive. Smaller than 5,000 and it becomes too familiar, everyone knows everyone else’s business. Larger than 10,000, and it becomes bureaucratic and difficult to govern – especially problematic with children.
If it is to be a post-automobile society, the infrastructure (roads, plazas and buildings) become human-scaled, not machine-scaled… no cars or trucks. The streets are safe for children, and elders may live out their years even if infirm, and not be banished to retirement villages and nursing homes… indeed they become an important part of society once again, not problematic excess baggage to be dealt with. Car-free streets make the community quieter, cleaner and they become a place where people meet as life slows to a walking pace. In good weather alfresco dining becomes a pleasure and at night people may sleep with windows open and no infernal background noise of vehicles driving by. Considerable money is saved as homes need no garages or driveways; streets are narrower, not needing on-street parking and businesses need not provide acreage for car parking. Residents save considerable money on commuting – by foot as access to daily destinations become more accessible not having to provide for the spread-out infrastructure demanded by cars and trucks.
With our machined-scaled society, boredom or distraction have become major issues. Modern life separates people, disengages them. People watch television about 4 hours a day, although now the world-wide-web is providing a new form of distraction. When the power goes off, people emerge from their homes and find there is little to do. No wonder that several decades ago the word citizen went out of fashion to be replaced by consumer. With the opportunity telepresence gives to create a human-scaled society, we can do far more than just rescale the architecture. We can create a wonderful place to live – not a utopia for idealists, but a mainstream, functional community for all ages, stages of life; providing for the full diversity of humanity found in any nation.
It is worth noting that none of these issues above speak to the big crises facing the world today… in 2007 it was global warming, 2008 peak oil and in 2009 economic collapse. While there is much talk about green architecture, for the most part responding to these harbingers of doom asks us to build a community in response to a negative (fear of cooking the earth, running out of fuel or going broke). Building a sustainable community should be a given, a non-negotiable, but not a bragging point.
From these findings came first a book and then a business plan, a plan to build what came to be known as Parallel Villages. “Village” to suggest human-scaled. “Parallel” because we are in a time when the machine based infrastructure is still operative, and we intend to design an infrastructure based on different principles. The age of the automobile (i.e. suburban sprawl) may be obsolete, but it is still ongoing. We do not propose to condemn it, but merely to offer competition, to offer people a choice – what we believe is a better way.
