Scalable Local Solutions to Global Issues

It can be overwhelming to attempt to understand issues on a global scale. For this reason we are breaking planetary and humans needs down to the most basic buildings blocks.  We are framing these issues in a human-scale that everyone can relate to.  Every human being on this planet deals with the same basic human needs.  We all need food, water, shelter, a way to provide these basic necessities and an ecologically efficient way to deal with the byproducts of the systems needed to provide these necessities.  We think it is also safe to say most of us appreciate love, community and friendship to make this human experience an enjoyable as possible.

No ONE human being can be 100% self sustainable… this means we need each other.  This means we need community to survive.  Yet we do not only want to survive… we want to THRIVE and enjoy!  So by taking the often overwhelming challenges facing us on a global scale and breaking them down into the most basic building blocks of society we can begin to address these issues in a more understandable and comprehensible manner.  Because we can not survive completely alone, this means our most basic building block of humanity is COMMUNITY.

The word ‘community’ can be used in the context of many scales.  A community of 10, 1 thousand, 1 million or 8 billion?!  We are using the word ‘community’ in the context of a manageable sized group that can support each other in providing the most basic human needs in the most efficient fashion.  Anthropological studies have been conducted and research has shown that 100-150 humans working together appears to be one of the most efficient and effective community-scales to work with.  100-150 human beings can effectively work and communicate together to provide the basics human needs. (**See Dunbar’s Number**)

One of the most fundamental and imperative elements of healthy community, is healthy communication.  Based on observation and research of human behaviors we are working towards an ideal village size of 144 residents.  This number is guided by information from Dunbar’s number, and is based on communication systems and decision making processes.  Communication is an essential and necessary part of a community, yet no one wants to spend large amounts of time in meetings and discussion… there is a lot of fun to be had!

Humans have an attention span and productive capacity in groups of approximately 1-2 hours.  Communication in group dynamics (on the high-end) is most efficient between 9-12 people.  Based on these observations we have designed the living-clusters (neighborhood pods) into groups of 12 people who can effectively communicate with one another in a 1-2 hour meeting once per month.  Based on the communication from the monthly meeting (1st week of month), one rotating representative from each cluster is invited to represent the voice of their associated cluster at the monthly community meeting (3rd week of month).  There will be approximately 12 clusters of 12 people, resulting in approximately 144 Local Earth residents with healthy and efficient communication in 1-2 meetings per month.

Whether it is a community of 100 or a mega-city of 10 million; the basic building blocks of our social constructs and developments can be broken down into neighborhoods and communities of 100-150.  At this neighborhood-scale the global concerns begin to become more understandable and manageable. Living systems and solutions can be designed effectively and efficiently at this scale.