Humans Are Built For Community
We humans are wired to live in communal, mutually-supportive groups of several hundred people. In this way, needs are met, resources are shared, and everyone has a place that fits within the whole. Communities formed this way are a microcosm of the larger community of global humanity.
How Humans Became Less Community-Oriented
Over the past several hundred years, however, exacerbated and accelerated by the advent of the industrial revolution and especially brought on by the introduction of capitalism, we began to specialize and individuate. Every man is for himself. We no longer live in awareness of our connection to the whole. This is how we live now, and we are at the brink of a huge shift in how we live in community with others.
How A Shift Towards Community-Based Living Will Occur
Rising ocean levels will cause massive slow flooding of coastal areas, prompting a huge global exodus. Some people will attempt to rebuild and re-create the lifestyle they experienced before the move, but other factors (economic, technological, socio-political) will influence decision-makers to create multitudes of smaller, more heterogenous communities.
What Will the New Communities Will Be Like?
Interwoven & Interconnected
Reminiscent of village life as evidenced in Middle Ages Europe and turn-of-the-twentieth-century small towns in Midwestern America, these communities will become microcosms of larger society, each with the requisite "butcher, baker, and candlestick maker". All members of these communities will support it through their labors, and the communities will become internally interwoven, with each member contributing their personal speciality of focus.
Self-Sustainable
Communities will be far more self sustainable than our present towns and cities. Each community will create and maintain gardens and orchards, capable of feeding that community, although communities will also trade foodstuffs with other communities to make best use of available resources. Energy for electricity and other uses will be derived locally from small local power-making units that use nanotechnology.
Self-Governing With Power Coming From the Bottom Up
Politically, power focus will revert to individual communities, although because of the level of personal and communal evolution expected by that time, very few people will be interested in wielding power over others. The efforts pf people who attempt to wield power over other will be quickly modulated by other community members. Communities will be self-governing, styled similarly to a true democracy (example: Quaker Friends Meeting), where each individual, young and old, has a voice in the proceedings of the community.
Some Communities Will Specialize
Many communities will begin to specialize in various areas of focus. Community members will gravitate to the community that best supports their particular area of focus in life. In this way, these communities will develop and pursue a shared destiny that harmonizes and utilizes each member’s individual destiny.
A Place For Everyone & Everyone Is Valued
Perahps the most important thing about these new communities is the value and worth of each of its members. People only contribute to the overall community as they wish to. Everyone has a place, and no person's life or contribution is worth more than another's.
