This proposal is to create a compact Village of 125 acres, on a site totaling 500 acres, in southern Piscataquis County, Maine.
Development of the Village would be guided by a set of building covenants specifically composed to create a space, as it is built out, in the traditional city pattern of Europe and early North America, in which foot or bicycle was the primary method of transportation.
Motor vehicles would be parked at the perimeter of the development in a green belt of at least 375 acres, which other than the parking area, would be a permanently protected zone for agriculture and outdoor recreation.
MEDIA
Fairfax Climate Watch:Are Walkable Cities a Fantasy or Could They Become an Economic Cash Cow?
Matt Owens, Fairfax, Virginia 2013-04-04 Full Article
The Sprocket Podcast:The Piscataquis Village Project
Sprocket Podcast, Portland, Oregon 2013-01-22 Podcast
Just learned about this great project from CarFree News.
I am long-time walking advocate and former carsharing entrepreneur (and still an advocate), with a background in urban & regional planning. Being from Ottawa, I am not that far away.
As to car traffic, plan on not just banning cars from interior of village, but pledging residents not to drive through others’ neighbourhoods and towns. Also need a strategy to get services and shops set up to reduce need to travel elsewhere.
Send info on being an investor.
Chris
Hi,
I think you must be delusional.
What makes you think people want to go backwards to living in a ghetto, or a slum?
The areas you are using to ‘show’ what you want to create, are old, nasty, cramped, poor areas that people all over the world have moved AWAY from.
Your idea of a nice place to live is delusional. No one wants, no one chooses to live in these types of cramped ghettos.
Get real.
Your idea has failed before it ever got off the ground. No one wants to live in a socially designed place.
If you want to live in one of these, move to an old town in Germany. Because the Germans don’t want to live in them either. Either do the Parisians. They all rent out their old flats to tourists, and live in much nicer areas.
Also, the idea of ‘no cars’ is just silly. No one wants to go BACKWARDS. Backward thinking is just nuts.
Heeey….different strokes for different folks. Variety is the spice of life. We think people have the right to live any way they want on their own property as long as they don’t interfere with the rights of others. It’s not for everybody. No one kind of lifestyle is. I have friends living in cabins in the woods, and my parents are happy living in their mobile home park. Some like the burbs. Some like Manhattan. We ask only that the government roll back it’s land use regulations on the 125 acres we wish to purchase, so that the people who do like a traditional village style can do what they want with their own land. I don’t think you’ll find any “social designing” in the Piscataquis Village Project.
Thatsit, those are all empty, ludicrous assertions. Your demeanor and chosen screen-name reflect extremist hysteria, as if you’re afraid of being conscripted into a housing project against your will. Perhaps you’ve overlooked that this is merely the vision of a group of people who are *willingly* buying into something they like? Don’t confuse “no one wants” with “I don’t want.”
It’s sad that places like this are illegal (the government won’t let you build news ones), but the few surviving ones are almost uniformly, ridiculously overpriced due to high demand. If no one wanted to live in Boston’s North End, then shouldn’t it be a dirt-cheap, mostly-vacant district by now?
So living in a car-free ‘urban’ environment automatically makes it a SLUM? REALLY? Cleaner air, residents with more disposable income, and a greater regard for each other’s spaces is ‘ghetto misery’, eh? The very idea that you directly tie the private auto to PROGRESS, moving FORWARD, is nauseating.
The delusional one here is the one that believes the CAR is the end-all, be-all of civilization.
If you don’t wish to cut the slave chain that attaches you to the oil companies, by all means, remain in servitude to them, as you are now. I have not been required to purchase gasoline for anything bigger than a lawn mower in 8 years, and my life is better for it.
Go live in your dismally myopic ‘future’, where you believe everyone embraces toxic technology — or better yet, crawl back under your bridge and wait for the next sucker to come by. “thatsitivehadenough”, good name for you — I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU, TOO!
There is more to a village than real-estate and parking on the perimeter. What is the economic reason for this village to exist where you want to put it? The kinds of Old World villages you are thinking about existed where they were for very important reasons in the context of their times – monastery was located there for religious reasons and the people who interacted with them grew up around it, a pilgrimage route or trade route went through there and travellers would stop for services, there was productive farming or mining surrounding the village and it was a market place, it was a strategic defence point, like a mountain or river crossing, it had a university, it had a port, it had one or more specialist industries…
If your housing development is really just supposed to be an exclusive bedroom community for some urban area around there, then it is not a nice commentary on our society. If it is actually a retirement home then it might make sense except for the idea that old people should be segregated and contribute nothing to society – which I think is destructive.
I would absolutely love your concept if it were proposed for an old, worn out part of a city, a tornado damaged part of a city, a flood or hurricane damaged part of a city… Brilliant! Especially if it could be connected into the urban transit or public transport networks so people who do want to live carless (which there are actually many and growing number “thatsit”) could actually do so in a real carless development, not a pretend one.
I vote for the “government” of which you speak not to change your development regulations and allow this. They probably have very good reasons to leave this area rural. For one – the sewer, trash, police, schools, libraries, dog licenses… all the services that an urban area needs are provided by the “government” and that has to be paid for by property taxes. My guess is that because you are rural you won’t pay the taxes but will demand the services. Your neighbours would be right to complain. I’m sure you could get cooperation in New Orleans!
Susan-We agree with you that an “old, worn out part of a city, a tornado damaged part of a city, a flood or hurricane damaged part of a city” would all be great places for a project like this. Unfortunately though, we think a vote against our project would be a case of “abandoning the very good in the pursuit of unattainable perfection”. We’re familiar with a number of projects (most recently with the Gaslight Village project proposed in Philadelphia and advocated for by J.H. Crawford the author of Carfree Cities and now one of our investors), that just couldn’t even get to first base toward implementation. So far, no project that we know of in the USA has been able to overcome skepticism or NIMBYism in the type of areas that you suggest would be ideal for this project.
New Urbanism in the USA got a start in an unlikely place with the village of Seaside in rural Florida, 25 miles from the nearest town. With that successful living example on the ground, New Urbanism was able to go on to make inroads and be approved in just the sort of existing places that you describe. Considering the hundreds of acres in the USA that are probably being turned into parking lots by the hour, a 125 acre development site that may prove to be the living example needed to convince people of the value of “Old Urbanism” seems a worthwhile sacrifice even though located in a site perhaps not considered ideal. We agree with you that most settlements are where they are for a reason. But why wouldn’t the traditionally patterned design style be one of those reasons sufficient to attract residents in a country of 300 million where it doesn’t exist?
The Piscataquis Village Project is in no way a political organization and has no comment on such things as the proper extent of the role of government in society. It is a fact though, that obtaining the regulatory approval for a project of this kind is one our our tallest hurdles. Very briefly, the state of Maine is entirely divided into towns. Homeowners pay property taxes based on the valuation of their property whether they are in an urbanized area of the town or in a rural area of the town. It’s quite impossible to imagine that a town would pick up the tab for road maintenance for example within the Piscataquis Village. So residents of Piscataquis Village would pay their fair share of taxes like everyone else, and additionally have to pick up the road maintenance and other fees need to fund services within the village. Additional tax revenue for the town with less commensurate expense is actually one of the reasons for town residents to vote in favor of a project such as ours
But I don’t think you’ve answered Susan’s question. What is the economic driving force that is allowing these people to take care of their daily needs within a 125 acre Devlopment? It is all well and good that cars need to be parked at the edge of town, but it’s not so good if the residents need to hop in their car to drive to the nearby town/city for their jobs. How are people getting food if they live in this town? I know you said that there will be surrounding land that will have gardens and small farming, but that might not be enough for self sustenance (unless everyone is a vegetarian. Being dependent upon deliveries of food from trucks/vans/cars, etc. is not helping to achieve your goal of “car-free”. There needs to be a “total” approach to living car free if it is to truly be so.
I would love to hear your responses to these questions. And all of this being said, I think that this project is a great idea. I wish being in graduate school allowed me to have $10,000 to spare
Lol @ the absolute idiot troll who calls this beautiful place and idea a “slum”. What an unsophisticated troglodyte.
Ps people in germany and paris love their lovely towns. in fact so do the rest of the inhabitants Of earth who spend money to visit them
I love the idea – but I agree with those who commented that this project needs an economy to survive. How will you ensure that all the services a real village needs will be provided – when it sounds vaguely like rich retirees are the only ones will be able to afford to live there? What is being done to attract farmers, doctors, grocers, shopkeepers (of real goods, not tourist trinkets), tradespeople, etc?
I love the vision. As soon as I have the money I will be investing. And when the time comes I see it as a great opportunity for me to further my career as a builder interested in old-world techniques and pro-community design. That said – I too wonder what river of energy is going to flow through here. Surely, good design will attract certain people to invest on charm alone. Many will be affluent, retired, independently wealthy or have hi-tech careers they can pursue with just an internet connection. Maybe those folks will create enough demand for goods and services to support a community of artisans and tradespeople who rent shop space, and maybe there will be economic support for small diversified farms in the area to provide food and textiles, as is the case in other villages worldwide. But all that optimism, to me, still points in the direction of a retirement community or off-season vacation home, not a vibrant all-ages village. I have to reiterate Susan’s concerns, and ask what will the economics of this village be? How does money flow into the community from the outside world, and what does this village export? Arcosanti in AZ is an experimental community which has cultivated cottage industry producing wind chimes that pay the bills, in a somewhat feudal arrangement. Communes like the Farm in TN have embraced private ownership and micro-enterprise among their members. But Arcosanti had heavy industry built into the design – a foundry, a ceramics studio, metal shops, access for truckloads of raw materials. The farm allows members access to land, resources, and encourages profitable use of the commons. So will you allow sheep on the remaining acreage? Will you allow a metal fabricator to exist in town? Will there be housing in the village for the poor laborers who build it, but can’t afford to buy in? Where will the children go to school? Why should anyone who doesn’t live there come and spend money?
This is a very interesting discussion. Do you have a model village in a northern lattitude in mind where you might think about who shovels the snow off those narrow walks five months of the year and where they put it? I don’t expect that you will want gas or diesel powered equipment rumbling through to scoop it into trucks to haul it to the 325 acre countryside. Most of the models mentioned so far in the discussion seem to be located in snowless climates. Of course, global warming may help with that, but in Piscataquis County “snowless” may be a while coming.
All very interesting your idea, although it captured some very well meaningful pov.
The snow one I particularly have an explanation to. The City of Mound, MN created a feature that allowed for snow melt to transfer through the ground to an underground pool and be used in irrigation in better seasons. This was a model for the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District to preserve water in the Lake Minnetonka area, for more information; http://www.minnehahacreek.org/project/downtown-mound-redevelopment