User:Horton

Off Matrix Communities (OMCs).

Such a community could be an example of an "Interstead," a land based community that seeks negotiated political autonomy.

An OMC would seek the following characteristics:

1. Energy independence.

2. As much political autonomy as possible.

3. Carbon neutral.

4. Agricultural independence, i.e. you grow your own food and don't import it.

5. All municipal functions are either contracted to private parties or carried out through labor exchange. For instance police services would be either contracted with competitive bids or via volunteering. Same would go for fire, schools, sewer maintenance, libraries, etc.

6. Long term property leans are forbidden, i.e. no long term mortgages on real estate. This may sound like a strange characteristic, but the base issue is stability. It's difficult to build a stable society when the citizens are slaves to banks and you have major capital outflows to banks.

7. Encourage governments to grant political autonomy based on bringing some sort of economic advantage to a region.

An example of an OMC would be a "Corporate Commune."

Ideally:

1. Corporate owned land, private property, so the base entity is private. Sort of like a gated community, but most likely not fenced in. The idea is that entry to the community is at the discretion of the community. Also, individual real estate ownership would technically be a contract between the corporate entity and the private party. In the event that the corporate entity fails, real estate reverts to private parties.

2. Ask for property tax exemption or else simplification from the hosting state. This is a common aspect of "redevelopment" areas in many cities in California for instance. It's likely that many cities or counties might grant this for economic development reasons.

3. Ask for simplified environmental and planning review of construction projects. Again, many communities may grant this for economic development reasons.

4. Ask to become "off grid" in terms of fire, police, schools, etc. Unions will scream bloody murder, but this is a very important aspect of such a community. You'd want to meet these needs yourself without massively inefficient government unions controlling it.

5. Set aside land for farms to meet agricultural and food needs.

6. Preferably automobiles would be parked at the community boundaries. Automobiles extract an immense expense on communities.

7. Build solar arrays or some other form of sustainable energy method to obtain energy independence.

Basically you have a community where you meet all your base needs with labor exchange or contracting. Schools are communal. Fire departments are volunteer or labor exchange. Same for public works, police, and farming. A requirement for being part of the community would be that if you're under 65, you contribute labor to the workings of the community.

Such a venture would have a high fixed cost. You'd have to buy a relatively large piece of land somewhere and negotiate the development of it with the surrounding community. However, with maybe 10 or 20 people contributing smaller amounts of money it's probably doable. Either that or get a corporate sponsor.

Many areas might be open and suitable to such a community. For instance areas in Central California along its new high speed rail corridor are economically challenged and might be open to hosting these communities. The high speed rail would be an added bonus for the convenience of travel.