mconlonx

A Mormon Tycoon Wants to Build Joseph Smith’s Mega-Utopia in Vermont

David Hall is snapping up farmland to bring his vision of a sustainable high-density community to life. The neighbors are horrified.

ThermionicScott 

Hmm, I haven't made it all the way through the article, but LCF-ness seems to be way down the list of why the local people are fighting it.

I-Like-To-Bike

LCF-ness isn't anywhere on the list of local objections to this scheme.

mconlonx

Not being fought for its LCF-ness, but this walkable utopia is being fought nonetheless.

Minus the Mormon thing, this is the kind of high-density, low impact (?), sustainable and BTW LCF utopia that some here dream about. And yes, the opposition by status quo forces, even those as whacked out as Vermonters, is surely demonstration of the forces that such development is up against.

Roody

First, this kind of development shouldn't be forced on anyone. It seems inappropriate for a rural state like Vermont, but local people should be the judge of that.

LCF can't be pushed on people. It will eventually develop naturally as cars become more and more unwieldy in already established urban areas. If LCFers want to push for anything, IMO, they should push for better public transportation and for better human infrastructure.

That said, some aspects of the proposed development are intriguing. I would like to see it implemented someplace where locals actually want it.

I-Like-To-Bike

It might be interesting if there is any constituency can be found to populate these 20,000 people communities, beyond a handful of hippie vagabonds, willing to move into and/or raise a family in this so-called utopia unless the multi million dollar promoter and/or the Mormon Church is willing to bankroll the whole operation and their lifestyle and provide employment and public services for the residents in this economic "sharing" utopia scheme.

mconlonx

I don't know that locals have much say beyond refusing to sell property to the guy getting this together, and it sounds like many are saying f' it, probably selling out to retire some place much, much warmer... Many have this bucolic vision of small farming, but it's hard work and given a chance to get out for a suitably large lump sum of money, many apparently are doing so.

I also don't know where you find this kind of acreage outside of very rural, near destitute areas. Kinda like when the Shree Rajneesh tried to take over that town in Idaho... once you move 10-20k Mormons into the area, they are the local population there.

Walter S

I agree. We're a long way from having that many people that all want to live car free in the same community. And a community that attracts big employers to give them jobs.

I don't think I want to live with robots that "move quickly" tidying up around me thank you. And "house captains" sounds even more fun. Bite my ass captain!

At least you'll have a toilet that monitors your excretions and will let you know if anything is strange.

It gets better. You have to give up everything you own ("invest your net worth") before you can live there. Sign me up!

wolfchild

It's just another example of a religious cult trying to separate themselves from other people whom they believe to sinners.

Roody

Well, cult is a judgy word. I will stick to the development plan and leave the religious opinions to you.

Other millionaire visionaries have had similar plans, if more limited. Tom Monahan, for example, tried to build a Catholic town in Florida, but ran into a lot of local opposition. AFAIK, he scaled it back a lot and not much is left.

I predict that this guy will tick off his heirs by spending all the money but it won't go much further than that. Ultimately he wants to build thousands of these cities all over the world. Definitely not feasible!

We have had interesting threads about carfree planned communities in Germany and other places. The idea is fascinating but I don't think that this particular one will work.

cooker

Very interesting article. The guy has great engineering ideas for building sustainable communities and I hope a lot of them are adopted by society at large. The rigid social structure and governance he envisions in these insular communities is nightmarish.

I-Like-To-Bike

If and when the toilet monitors give a sign to the Great Leader Captain, or his money runs out, he may decide the time is right for the devotees of this scheme to have a big Kool-Aid party.

jon c. 

The Church itself has similar ideas:

Massive Mormon ranch plan in Florida draws scrutiny - CBS News

Rumor is they've also purchased large tracts in my area, but that they plan nothing grander than running a cattle operation.

mconlonx

But may be necessary to make such a scheme successful. You've got to get everyone on board with an idea or ideology -- similar ethics and morality -- in order to pull off a utopia. And rigid rules are fine, if everyone obeys them and accepts them freely.

Walter S

I think you might have a problem there.

Roody

I wonder if market forces would work here? What if a carfree community were developed and people were free to move in if they wanted? Or what if some of the original technical ideas were offered commercially?

I don't know...just thinking out loud. But cooker alluded to this in an earlier post.

cooker

There have been lots of planned communities - many of them very successful. I see no problem with architects and city planners and developers experimenting with urban form and creating a subdivision they think will attract and satisfy buyers, and it is great to see innovative ideas on efficiency and resource conservation. I would bet there is a latent demand for exactly this type of development.

However once the public buy in to a new community, they normally live how they want. The problem in this case is that the social structure and economic relationships are also planned in detail, and you have to sign on to the fully integrated package if you want to live there. That's going to suit very few people as far as I can guess.

As well, it is being parachuted in to a remote location rather than what is more typically done - building out from an existing urban centre or even within it on former industrial land or otherwise newly available space - like Vauban in Freiburg. So that is why there is so much local opposition.

jfowler85

Here comes the PC police.

Walter S

Cult is too judgy for a religious community that you live in only by giving up all your money and worldly possessions and then occupy 200 square feet of living space? I bet they get an interesting list of applicants you'll be happy living next to. Losers and washed up hippies.

What's a "cult" to you? Most people would find it unreasonable and strange that you have to own nothing for the rest of your life and live where your feces is inspected by computer analysis and robots inventory your room.

tandempower

This was my my thought also. Whether you like or hate the overall community plan and its religious aspects, it is a planned community with a smaller footprint than other planned communities. The good thing about it being a Mormon initiative is that you have people willing to buy in and commit to the lifestyle because they believe in their church community. If successful, others may adopt parts of the design for a more general public, who are more likely to buy in because it is not a totally experimental community design.

The problem with "latent demand" is that people tend to be sheepish about new things and will hesitate to invest in living in a new type of area, especially if they don't know what type of neighbors they'll be getting, whereas these Mormons will not have that concern.

No, it's a Mormon community; but many elements of the design could be adapted to fit a more general culture. The problem, as always, is connecting people with other areas for travel without driving. Otherwise people want cars and you end up with just another mixed-use development where people might drive less, but they still end up driving around and contributing to road-lane demand.

I think a big part of the local opposition is social. You have a religion community wanting to locate in an area with many liberal/hippie types who have embraced atheism and/or moral relativism. Secular fears and prejudices toward religious morality abounds but this quote from the article of a protest sign sums it up, I think:
Once people get it in their heads that someone else is looking down on them, they can descend to the most animalistic levels of hostility to cut down their competitors. This was one of the motivations behind Nazi-Jewish violence during the WWII period, for example, because Jews were viewed as regarding themselves as morally superior to other Europeans.

All-in-all I think there are some good ideas in this plan/design but by no means do I think this is the only possibility for planning an LCF-friendly approach to human geography. A free market would allow for more diversity in community-design, but the key to making such a free market LCF-friendly would be to create general restrictions on things like parking, road widths, etc. That way, you simply encourage non-automotive traffic by limiting motor-traffic infrastructure and don't permit any developments that are unrealistic in terms of functioning within a largely LCF-community.

Generally it would be better not to clear any natural land to develop any such community, though I think it is possible to design/plan extremely low-impact development that retains the natural forest ecology by weaving bike roads around existing trees and building buildings to also fit between trees. You would end up with some strange, labyrinth-like buildings, but the forest ecology, watershed, and carbon-sequestration levels of the natural forest would be preserved. And even with such an eco-friendly design, I still wouldn't want to take over really natural wilderness for the development in this way. It would be more of a method for developing small areas of undeveloped land in rural areas near cities where bike/bus/rail connection with the larger city could eliminate the demand to drive.

Roody

It was very far from my intent to start a religious flame war here. Actually, I didn't start it by any means.

There are interesting LCF aspects in the OP but focusing on the religious aspects is totally off topic, IMO.

Why not talk about the technical and design aspects of the development plan, features that could be important to LCF people who don't care for religious flame wars on the forum?

Roody

For example,how about placing such a community in empty areas of Detroit and other underpopulated cities? Or in sprawling suburbs that need infill development to be more livable?

tandempower

Yes, but unfortunately that's more likely to happen once potential investors/developers have seen it as a functioning model, so that's where this Mormon visionary and his potential clientele come into play as pioneers who are willing to march forward into the unknown on faith instead of waiting first to see if the resale values are strong.

cooker

Or. the utopian flavour of it is perhaps equally likely to work against it. If it fails due to a lack of adhesion to the planned social aspects, with disillusioned residents not wanting to live out the roles Hall cast them in, fleeing to less structured communities, observers might see the whole concept as flawed, including the sustainable urban form. It might become a real world example of what you mentioned in your thread on The Giver, where LCF is possibly demonized as dystopian. Sort of like life imitating art.

Walter S

That leaves me not knowing how this community gets established and run. What we talking about really? If it's not setup and operated like the OP then something else needs to be stated as the topic of debate. You can't just talk about how the structures are arranged without considering how it will get put in place and how commerce/employment will work. Do the people in this community own property? Do they rent? Is it run like a condo? Do the people in the community have jobs where they live? Do they go to outside locations to work? How do they get there? etc.

If those are also off topic then I'm not sure what this thread is about.