Sustainable Community - Land Advice 2007-01-15
This document gives advice on factors affecting the choice of land for the development of a sustainable community. It is intended to supplement traditional criteria for evaluating land, paying particular attention to the big change of focus likely to arrive within the next decade or so due to the impending ecological crisises and accompanying social shift.
The rest of this document makes use of three separate time periods. Exact prediction of the dates involved is of course an impossible task, so the dates provided are highly conjectural.
|
Term |
Description |
|
|
Short |
-2012? |
The period in which the existing social order continues largely unchallenged. Most people maintain faith in the power of central government to enforce its will and in the value of centralised money. Ecological damage & social inequality continue to get worse. |
|
Medium |
2013?-2020?? |
People adapt their behaviour in the light of peak oil and ecological distress. A new social order emerges bottom-up, featuring new organisational methods such as decentralised currency. Social conditions fluctuate wildly from place to place and over time, as centralised systems try to adapt to their new environment. |
|
Long |
2020???- |
Less and less energy is derived from fossil fuels, and social power is locally rooted and connected to reality, no longer abstracted and centralised. Global communications have eclipsed the power structures of the previous century. Social organisation is established worldwide on a decentralised basis. |
|
Feature |
Considerations |
|
Accessability |
For a sustainable community, inaccessible land is good. Inaccessability will boost independence and hence sustainability. Moreover, in the short term, it is a deterrent of central government interference and a crucial protection against the social turmoil expected in the medium term. |
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Economic Uses |
Where they are distinct from real resources, these are only important in the short term, so since they will attract unwanted attention and will generally incur a premium anyway, they should generally be avoided. |
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Fertility |
This could be considered a subset of the ‘real resources’ section, but because of the fundamental importance of food, is important enough to deserve a separate mention. Clearly, the more fertile the better – especially since in the long term, oil-based fertilizers and insecticides will be unavailable. |
|
Legal Issues |
Legal restrictions on land use will not be a factor in the long term. In the medium term, too, the authorities will probably not be able or interested in enforcing them. |
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Real Resources |
These are definitely useful where a demand exists for them in the medium or long term, and where their use does not rely on unsustainable technology, e.g., deep drilling. |
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Natural Security |
High, well protected land is desirable, since environmental change may mean that more and more land is subject to natural disasters or increasing magnitude. Avoid land which relies on intervention from others for its security (such as reclaimed land which depends on the maintenance of levees). |
|
Social Relations |
It is particularly important to avoid land near large population centres and areas with an unresolved history of fighting a potential for conflict such as religious differences or ethnoclines. |
For a community to be sustained through the medium term, social relationships with the neighbours is a key factor, and one to be generally preferred to the alternative of stockpiling security equipment (e.g. weapons), which reflects a short-term approach.
|
Feature |
Considerations |
|
Contract |
A 99-year lease, a 30-year lease and a freehold (permanent) purchase may have different resale values, and fall under different legislation, but they can be considered almost identical outside the short term. |
|
Payment |
Deferred payment may be unlikely for a large land purchase, but should generally be preferred because of monetary inflation and future economic collapse or other factors that may influence the ability of creditors to collect debts. |
National governments will not have influence in the long term, and (especially far from strongholds such as cities and military cantonments), will have little interest in the medium term in enforcing contracts.
1. The more clearly prospective purchasers have envisioned the coming social change, the better they will be able to assess the suitability of land. This document should highlight a few principles which augment local knowledge and circumstances.
2. Land which has the highest value now may have the lowest value in the future, and may not even be ‘ownable’, e.g., land in cities.
3. Land with a low value now may have a high value in the future, e.g., remote land away from power with no industrial potential suitable only for subsistence farming.
4. Fertile, resource-rich land is universally desired, so may be the subject of unwelcome attention in the medium term, making it effectively useless if too close to population centres.
5. Start seeking land where social relationships are strong and healthy , e.g., your village.
6. Freehold land, like land with short-term economic activity, is not worth paying a premium for.
7. The likeminded-ness of neighbours is the only factor subject to great change; land’s value can be greatly increased if neighbours switch away from unsustainable lifestyles that depend on fossil-fuels, money and other centralised systems. The acquiring of land is only the first step to establishing a base for a sustainable community. No community should be considered sustainable if it does not take steps to address medium term distress of its neighbours, so resources should be allocated for programs of social uplift and re-education, through the introduction of permaculture, local currency systems and other mutual aid programs.