Starting a Village

I've recently watched a trailer for the movie "Defiance". It's about three brothers who go into a large forest and start a village with thousands of Jews during the 1940's. I've always wanted to do something like this, how realistic would these dreams be?

They train everybody how to fight, survive, build houses, and all the other essential skills needed.



[edit on 17-10-2008 by jnxmcn]

assuming you could obtain the proper amount of land and enough like-minded individuals with the necessary skills and abilities to make a functional community, i think it would be possible.

i would fear that authority figures might perceive what you were doing as forming a cult or something like that so you would have to be prepared to explain exactly why you were doing what you were doing, etc.

First things first. You will need to lay the foundation for a large overstuffed form of govt. to manage your new village and to figure out your brand new tax structure.

Seriously, check out how commune living works out. Its not for me but I used to work with a gal who lived in one with her husband. Her husband was building a house out of hay bales.

you could also do some study on how communities from a few hundred years ago structured their towns, etc.

most especially isolated communities that generally didn't have any outside means of obtaining required materials.

maybe talk to some nice amish folk. i bet some of the older ones would have a good bead on how things should be structured

reply to post by jibeho


EXACTLY.

planning permission,building regulations,health and safety,council tax and a million government officials taking your cash and using it to further harrass your progress and freedom.

Now if you could start a village WITHOUT all that crap and outside interference,then there's not much that can't be overcome..
Nothing that HASN'T been overcome years ago by settlers with a lot less technology.

If I recall, there was a town sold on Ebay a few years back.

Yep, here it is...

Town

So, instead of building, you could just buy a used one. Make sure it comes with a warranty however.

Realisticly, if you wanted to carve a town out of the woods someplace, there are some real critical questions you need to ask before you can come to any sort of an answer. How many people do you want to live there? 20, 100, 1000, 10,000? The more you have, the more trouble you will have convincing your national gov't that you arent in fact building a terrorist training camp or the like.

How modern is it going to be? Are you thinking of a power plant? Is a town well enough?

If you are looking for something simple, say 50-100 people. (simple meaning not mind-numbingly difficult) then you are looking at something similar to a compound, commune, or an Amish/Menanite settlement. These things are all workable, should you have the money and the commitment of everyone involved.

Good luck if you press ahead. A remote "town" with nothing but liked minded survivalists sound interesting, and I would think its doable.

Just as long as you don't do what the Hippies did in the 60's, living for free and free sex in small communes..........IT DIDN"T WORK.

The simplest and most effective power source for any villiage is hydro and combined with basic under/overshot waterwheels, could be used to drive geared-up generators, machine shops, mills, etc

I'm in the heart of Yorkshire and there are more remains of pre-steam early industrial revolution waterwheels, mill-races, wiers, etc than you could shake a stick at...given the will and urgency, I doubt it would take too much effort or finance to get those resources up and running to power a large villiage of several hundred folk

I was thinking of having a village away from other civilizations. We could use hydro power as stated by Citizen Smith, possibly windmills and any other means of powering a community. I'm currently in the United States, I haven't really done much research on places I could start this "village", any ideas out there? Preferably where the government wouldn't be all over my ass, so most likely I'd try to stay away from the United States. I could join the Military to learn essential survival skills, which could then be used to help build the community, and my knowledge could also be passed onto some members of the community.

[edit on 17-10-2008 by jnxmcn]

I helped form Paulville, like minded folks working together, its a slow process the first group has acquired land and we are working on getting it developed.

This isn't a new idea.

There is a website I know that lists places for sale. Not only in Canada but in the US and around the world. They are not realtors but make a commission advertising the sales. I have found some pretty awesome places for some great prices. Perhaps it might be of interest.

Such communities concern me greatly, I have been around for decades and have come across such communities many times over the years. While the concept itself is sound I have always 100% found that every group attracts a certain type of people, and being honest I would rather have my testicles repeatedly slammed between two bricks than survive with the sort of characters that appear to dominate utopian communities.

Earth mothers, usually with 7 kids who follow Gaia but dont think education is neccessary for her kids.She believes in RESPECTING everyones rights, but still trespasses each year into Stone henge, scales the fence to gain entry at Glastonbury, and breaks into farms to liberate the wild boar being grown there.
Born again christians so lovey dovey and happy clappy they are frightening, while smiling and praising god with you over an evening meal they will probably try and screw your wife when you are out in the field.
Geriatric hippies who never managed to get to Goa or San francisco.
Rabid vegans who will cry if a bug gets stoood upon, but will stab a fellow human to death for eating a big mac.
Cannabis farmers and magic mushroom farmers.
Conspiracy theorists who KNOW the govt is out to get them
Eco warriors who drive old diesel buses doing only 8 MPG while they tour the nation living on benefits campaigning to save the whale from loggers.
Control freaks who's sole aim is to impregnate every female aged 10 and over in the commune.
And of course the unbiquitous socialists who want to redistribute everyones wealth, even though no one in the community has any more than the job seekers benefits to live on.

Honestly folks the best way forward is to obtain a place of your own, that is in reasonable proximity to others with a similar self reliant attitude as yourself. but " villages", communes, eco communities very very often work out as nightmmarish institutions full of zealots.

[edit on 19-10-2008 by Northern Raider]

Sounds like you've had some 'interesting' experiences there NR

I've been involved with groups that require a majority vote, a revote, a further vote on absinations, ratifications of the original question, and then put back to the vote...and all because someone asked if anyone wanted a cup of tea...

The point you seem to be missing though is that in all those cases you list, those that join them do so because they are bound by a common ideology, whether veganism, socialism, religion, etc.

No man is an island, and to flourish, needs the support of a community base to best divide labour tasks...food, defence, construction, medicine, education, technology-aquisition, etc; to enable better productivity through efficient use of all available resources.

To do all these tasks as a lone-entity would mean that self-suffiency would be to teeter on a knife-edge

What would your 'common-ideological-denominator' be in the formation of a long-term settlement?



[edit on 19-10-2008 by citizen smith]

Originally posted by citizen smith
Sounds like you've had some 'interesting' experiences there NR

I've been involved with groups that require a majority vote, a revote, a further vote on absinations, ratifications of the original question, and then put back to the vote...and all because someone asked if anyone wanted a cup of tea...

The point you seem to be missing though is that in all those cases you list, those that join them do so because they are bound by a common ideology, whether veganism, socialism, religion, etc.

No man is an island, and to flourish, needs the support of a community base to best divide labour tasks...food, defence, construction, medicine, education, technology-aquisition, etc; to enable better productivity through efficient use of all available resources.

To do all these tasks as a lone-entity would mean that self-suffiency would be to teeter on a knife-edge

What would your 'common-ideological-denominator' be in the formation of a long-term settlement?



[edit on 19-10-2008 by citizen smith]

Mutual support agreement, usually on two counts, First is defence, Second is getting the crops in / building barns a possible third is Energy IE all participants cooperate to obtain a wind turbine or hyro unit, everyone does there own thing be it growing grain or growing chucks, or metal working, brick making, what ever, but if a threat is detected then as the communities of old did they band together for defence. Harvest time everyone helps get the crpops in, and in the fall everyone goes woodcuttting, coal digging or beach coal collecting. basically they only coopetrate on thinghs where they need to. Theres nothing wrong with a " community " group standardising on say fuel choice ( petrol or diesel) common ammunition calibres etc, but foroming communities usually leads to much dissent. Two things interested parties can look at, first is read james wesley Rawles book "Patriots" second is look up the Findhorn Eco village ( not the Findhorn foundation)

Ah, so you mean a loosely bound collective based formed around common-standardisation and interchangeability...power supply whether 12/24/48v, AC or DC, metric or imperial, petrol or diesel

although there will always be those who will disgree regardless of such a practicality

Though with agriculture it would be wise to encourage a wide diversity of produce to avoid multiple-crop failure to pathogens and bad weather...just look what happened in Ireland with the total dependance of the potato as a food source, one wet season and the whole lot was wiped out by blight

Originally posted by citizen smith
Ah, so you mean a loosely bound collective based formed around common-standardisation and interchangeability...power supply whether 12/24/48v, AC or DC, metric or imperial, petrol or diesel

although there will always be those who will disgree regardless of such a practicality

Though with agriculture it would be wise to encourage a wide diversity of produce to avoid multiple-crop failure to pathogens and bad weather...just look what happened in Ireland with the total dependance of the potato as a food source, one wet season and the whole lot was wiped out by blight

A rural community that does not choose diesel is one I would not invest in, 99% of agro machinery is diesel powered anyway, and like the farm near here he grows rape which he makes into biodiesel which he sells to other farmers. Diversity in planting is as you point out the best route to survival, because if one crop fails the other may not, so in a given area you need two or more species of grain ( wheat, maize etc ) cattle and sheep, bunnies and chucks, willow and orchards, plus a wind farm, plus a fish farm etc, all ran by their own specialists, but come togtrher in defence when the city dwelling chavs come pouring out of their dole offices looking for food. Capitalism with common sense I call it, no perverse socialist concepts, you either work in your own business of your out.

[edit on 19-10-2008 by Northern Raider]

If you're interested in starting a village you should read the "Dream of Eagles" series by Jack Whyte.

It follows the disintegration of Rome and the lives of some of the aristocrats as they move to the woods and start there own village.

Probably the best series of books I ever read.


Peace

If this is in the event of a sitx occurring, preparing ahead of time in your community with like minded people, slowly educating your community,and collecting basic tools, and supplies, would be an advantage. You may be running with a group to safety and taking what you need to start your village.

Agreed mystiq! I'm thinking we won't have much of a choice soon, and the possibility of starting again somewhere in the country sounds more and more reasonable to me. I'm definitely trying to find some like-minded individuals in my area to get to know and hang out with in case things go south. I will be headed north by the way, lol.

Probably the best way of forming this type of community, at least in the early stages is by just having family members involved in it like cousins, aunts, uncles etc as well as your immediate family members. As they say, blood is thicker than water.

This then helps to keep some of NR's perceived problems down, especially the having sex with the wife scenario whilst you are in the field working ........ unless some of your family are hillbilly inbreds straight out of 'Deliverence', then in which case you just sh** your (insert family member) when he is out working the field

[edit on 16/2/09 by Wotan]