The Fancy Neighborhood of the Future Is an Earth-Friendly ‘Intentional Community’ by Gisela Williams c/o Bloomberg
Powder Mountain in Utah.
Photographer: Paul Bundy
Key Takeaways
On the rise of intentional community-development in the US and around the world:
Serenbe is one of a few dozen relatively new utopian-lite communities in the U.S., all echoing a rich tradition that stretches to the American Shaker movement of the 1780s. Around the world, these developments have ballooned in number in recent years, to about 1,200 in 2016, according to the Foundation for Intentional Community, a nonprofit that provides information and support to many of these experimental towns. “There are currently 753 intentional communities in the U.S. listed in our directory,” wrote Cynthia Tina, the organization’s communications director, in an email. “Of course, the total number is probably higher.”
On Covid-19 inspiring a resurgence of approaches to achieve neighborhood self-reliance:
According to Tina, the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a “huge surge” in interest. “Many of these communities are self-contained and self-reliant,” she says. “They grow their own food, produce their own renewable energy,” and offer a collaborative approach to “emotional support and child care.”
On the luxury of sustainable communities and the flaw of inaccessible innovations:
Among those residents is Bryan Meehan, chief executive officer of Blue Bottle Coffee Inc. He’s building a sustainable house on Powder Mountain for his wife and three daughters. “Ultimately, the people buying houses are a small set of those that can afford it and who like skiing. As the town grows, the founders will have to work to ensure diversity,” he points out. A hazard of these projects is that they become homogeneous, he says; thus, the value of a creative community loses relevance. “My children yearn for diversity.”
For James Ehrlich, pioneering innovative and sustainable communities isn’t a luxury, it’s a matter of human survival. An entrepreneur in residence at Stanford University, Ehrlich says climate change and a growing population have spurred an urgent call to create more resilient, self-sufficient communities such as his own ReGen Villages, a prototype in development. There, he envisions people producing their own energy, farming their own food, and working in exchange for house payments.