How to Build a Village (Paperback)

by Claude Lewenz (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
SUBURBS WERE INVENTED TO SELL CARS.

Toward the end of World War II, American business and government leaders saw a second Great Depression looming if government spending ended and millions of soldiers returned home. They decided to turn the war-winning industries of oil, jeeps and tanks into the post-war civilian industries of oil, cars and bulldozers - to go from fighting a war to building the new American suburbs. To make the shift they legislated a radical change in how humans live - spreading out human activities so the mundane chores of daily life required a car.
The economic plan worked and for over half a century the US economy boomed. "What's good for General Motors is good for America". Without understanding why, other countries adopted the American way - even countries that did not make cars or pump oil. While the plan was good for America's post-war economy, suburbs proved to be an immeasurably bad use of resources - both natural and in how people live.

VILLAGES ARE DESIGNED FOR QUALITY OF LIFE

What happens if we design for quality of life rather than to sell cars? What would the zoning look like? How would it work? In this 256 page book with over 400 color photographs, this question is examined in detail. The answer is a "Village" defined as a 5,000 to 10,000 population, self-contained, high-density community built on 100-400 acres around multiple plazas with cafes, shops, workplaces and artist guilds and no cars within - all is within a 10-minute walk with a motorpool for the cars, outside the Village gates. Local governments can think of the Village as an environmentally, socially, culturally and economically sustainable, self-contained, billion-dollar, greenfield, mainstream investment that brings in over 2,000 new, quality jobs worth over $100 million a year. Future residents of the Village can think of it as a wonderful, thriving and fulfilling place to live.
Each part of a Village makes another part work. The keystone is its own local economy. With a local economy, the Village is micro-zoned - everything people need is within walking distance... homes, work, shops, cafés, schools and recreation. This removes need for cars, which lowers pollution and cost of living. No cars results in smaller roads, more human-scaled, lower-cost and better land-use. Elders need not move to retirement homes when they no longer drive. Children can play in the streets and plazas where working adults keep an eye on them. Small streets require fireproof buildings (no large fire trucks), thus the book proposes a design that is also rot-free and super-insulated. Plazas provide the perfect setting to Slow Food - enriching social interaction. Add the cultural enrichment of arts guildhalls and the Village becomes more interesting. Another social element include parallel market affordable housing, homes for service workers, teachers, youth, elders, artists - the glue that holds a community together.
This book is necessary to challenge a mindset. The ideas are simple, conservative, (meaning proven, time-tested, not risky) and should be obvious. However, experts spent 50 years inventing a complex, radical, and problem-ridden way for people to live now so embedded in mainstream thinking that it takes a book, with systematic details, to show a way out. Once the book resets that mindset, www.villageforum.com provides the forum to build the Villages. The book will be judged not on numbers of copies sold but Villages built.

From the Publisher
The idea of building a habitat to not only be a wonderful place to live, but also solve all sorts of social, economic and environmental challenges facing modern society took author, Claude Lewenz about 20 years, and considerable research, dialogue, focus groups and real-life testing to refine.

Then, shortly before the book was published, global warming and affordable housing became political hot topics. Good timing. However, if one looks at the proposals people and organisations are making to solve greenhouse gas emissions, for example, they focus on making cars more efficient, or mixing in biofuel to reduce the adverse effects of a car-based society. For long-distance transport this makes sense. But within local habitat we have better choices, ones which How to Build a Village puts forward.

What happens if instead we build human habitat where we don't need to drive? We don't reduce or offset CO₂ emissions, we stop emitting. We burn no fuel - zero emissions. Design to remove the need for cars as local transport.

In the 1990's the new urbanism movement began to advocate more human scaled habits. Among other things, it sought to domesticate the car. How to Build a Village, goes three steps further:

First, it identifies the essential requirement that we create a thriving local economy that sells local to global and buys local. This becomes possible thanks to advances in telecommunications, especially high-speed broadband. This makes it possible for its residents to walk to work.

Next, it places everything people need... work, shopping, schooling, cafés, recreation and a wide range of housing, all within a 10-minute walk surrounded by a greenbelt. Within the habitat, ban all cars. Not needed. Build a motorpool outside the village walls for longer distance transport. Banning cars within allows a completely different, human-scaled design. Old people need not move to retirement homes when they lose their driver license. Children play in the streets safely. People connect on plazas, no appointment needed; quality of life goes up. Streets are narrower, cost less to build and maintain. The development costs less to build, needs less land, yet is more charming.

Third, it builds to a critical mass, 5,000 to 10,000 persons, and it creates parallel housing markets to provide permanent, non-bureaucratic affordable housing for key sectors of the community... youth, elders, teachers, public servants, artists and so on.

The book offers hundreds of other design patterns that fit together in the Village concept. Yet, in providing them, the book does not dictate a master plan - no cookie cutter design. Instead, it provides a process in which the people who will live there, the professionals with expertise, the approving governmental authorities, and the attributes of the land work together to produce an authentic design reflecting the distinct character of the people and place. This assures each Village is distinctive, reflecting the authentic character of its people, and that it remain interesting and fulfilling for a lifetime.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Jackson House Publishing Company (August 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0473121883
• ISBN-13: 978-0473121884
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,157,034 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good habitat for humanity, April 5, 2008

By	R. Austerberry (Brisbane, AU) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Book Review - 'How to build a village'.

"From questions a dialogue began, first as an interest, and then as a passion, and now as a mission. Why can't we live in places that offer a good life for all, for all ages and incomes; places that remain interesting and beautiful?"

After 40 years of asking questions, Claude Lewenz offers his distilled wisdom on building a better place to live; a place called a village. This village majors in quality of life; and the design reflects centuries of practical wisdom. Claude's vision assumes design for sustainablity, and enduring appeal; when established it will personify the phrase "A thing of beauty is a joy forever".

Building good human habitat is a lofty goal, a forgotten art, a policy minefield and a daunting task. Claude presents an attractive vision, dodges most of the mines and offers enough information to substantially assist anyone wishing to get started.

The book is written for the intelligent layman, with specific chapters addressed to potential residents of varying demographics, policy makers, regulators, professionals, farmers and investors. In this it works fairly well, although it may be a little inaccessible for those who aren't used to reading 240 pages on the same topic. 'How to build a village' is not yet the handy brochure you can give to everyone, but it is an excellent manifesto for those willing to really 'get it'.

'Get what?' I hear you ask... Simply this: that to thrive from now on, our best course is to ditch suburbia as we know it, and set up our lives in convivial walkable villages wherein cars are verboten. These villages are not just ecovillage or cohousing enclaves for 50 or 100 people, but bustling small townships of five to ten thousand, so well designed that they could replace current cookie-cutter housing development as the primary way of catering for population growth.

'How to build a village' is a comprehensive rethink of how we live, solving multiple problems in its design. Without cars it is charming and pollution free; leading edge design ensures connectivity and sustainability; multiple plazas give character and focus; nearby farmers ensure nutritious local organic food; 5000+ people ensure a strong economic base; careful design allows aging in place; smart process cuts establishment time to less than 10 years; thoughtful planning looks to see the village last beyond seven generations; parallel markets ensure artists or young parents are never priced out of a home; a budget for artists ensures beauty in surroundings.. This is generic human settlement design, done well.

For those who consider ecovillages or cohousing to be a similarly comprehensive rethink there are three points worth noting: scale, governance and intentionality.

1.Scale. A Village holds about 100 times as many people as an ecovillage, giving it economic gravitas; we're talking about a settlement that can become close to self-sufficient in its own right; one where you have a very good chance of finding a job.
2.Governance. Small communities often operate on some variant of consensus, which gets very hard to manage for more than 30 or so people. Realising this, Claude proposes the more mainstream idea of representative democracy, with legislative, executive and judicial branches of government and attendant checks and balances. He does note that "one weakness of representative democracy shows up in the inability to listen" (p130), and provides a process to address that. I would however prefer processes of dialogue and listening to be embedded more deeply in the governance structure (perhaps using the emerging system of sociocracy) so we can move on from the current oppositional politics of mainstream. That said, any system of governance in a community of 7000 will be more accessible to its occupants than our existing national system of democracy.
3.Intentionality. Ecovillages, communes, cohousing developments and the like often require residents to live by some sort of creed, which immediately restricts who comes in. In a village there is no such restriction; the streetscape itself will encourage a sense of community, and connection with place. This is good human habitat by design, not decree...

'How to Build a Village' is an inspiring and close to comprehensive take on quality human habitat which will go a long way to enabling anyone to become a founder. When the next edition comes out however, I'd like to see a discussion of options for renters, a wider discourse on governance, and an integration of the principles of Permaculture. As a design system which sets out how to live within the energy flows of nature, Permaculture has no peer - and can scale from a back yard to a continent if required.

You can purchase a paperback version from Amazon; otherwise buy a case of the hardcovers from Claude himself and redistribute them. For further information visit www.villageforum.com.

Buy the book. Then found a village. Someone's got to do it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make a village the center of your world, January 4, 2009

By	Donna Long "Naturalist, Nature Writer and Li... (SE Pennsylvania United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I received my copy of this book about two days ago. I can barely stop reading to eat or sleep.

This is a great book. It gives concrete ideas and places to start. The information on plazas is particularly useful and enlightening. If you have a A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series), this book will make even more sense as, How to Build a Village expands on the "patterns" with contemporary photographs.

There is also a section on village planning by indigenous communities. How to Build a Village might be highly useful in helping to eliminate poverty and build viable culturally reflective communities.

If you are an ordinary citizen involved with town planning, a community activist, a builder or landowner, this book will help you and your colleagues create beautiful sustainable places to live.


I remember a quote I read when I was a young girl: "Run away to a village and make it the center of your world." If that seems ideal to you, you'll love this book.