Village People, the Future of Suburbs

Faye Baker
22 min readNov 15, 2022

I want to talk about villages and village life.

An English Village. Photo by Jonathan Farber on Unsplash

We are living in an age where we need to question where we are going as a society and as a civilisation if we are going to survive the oncoming ecological collapse and climate breakdown. It is clear to me that ‘business as usual’ is not going to be a successful strategy given that ultimately we are going to run out of resources and liveable land. So we are going to need an alternative approach to living, one that does not include enforced serfdom (slavery) or devastating de-population.

We need to create more sustainable living spaces, ones that can succeed in the post capitalist and post industrial age. We have already seen the failures due to rampant capitalism or totalitarian communism, so we really need something that can walk the line between these two extremes while allowing a more equitable society to arise. To my mind this means embracing something I call ‘villaging’ and adopting a village people perspective. This is where we adapt to living in small self-sustaining communities that rely on community and compassion.

What do I mean by village people

What exactly do I mean by village people. It is certainly does not entail prancing around like the band “Village People”, that’s for sure. Though ironically, it may entail embracing…

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Faye Baker
Faye Baker

Written by Faye Baker

Writer, thinker and inveterate maker. Part-time Cognitive scientist. Retired technical author and software developer. Avid reader about climate and ecosystems.