damn ! Apartment situations ?

[HoneyBadger]

Well I think the important distiction here is that everyone MUST be responsible for their own food, water, and shelter. Sharing resources is a good-neighbor thing to do, but could NEVER be required or demanded. The ONLY exception, is that everyone would have to participate in the security/safety of the community. Safety and security is the only reason I would want to team up with anyone anyway.

ETA: Does anyone agree with the above statement?

[Omicron]

Agree 100% with that statement, except it wouldn't work for everyone. For instance, I could see a hippie-liberal type saying

"I'm happy with the level of protection the police can give me, man. If someone gets to me before the police can help, I'll just offer them a bong hit and sing koombaya with them. Besides, everyone else here has guns, I'm safe among all of you people."

So I'd say it needs to go a step further: "...everyone would have to BE ARMED AND TRAINED and participate in the security/safety of the community."

I think it'd take a developer to build such a community, with an eye toward defensibility (ie, on a hilltop, and using the natural terrain where possible to aid in defense, with visible and defensible road into it, etc) then lay out where the houses are with an eye toward defense (fields of fire, minimal blind spots with natural obstacles like bushes in those that can't be avoided, etc) build the houses with defensible construction (ie each house has it's own well, solar and low voltage lighting throughout, brick or block or rock walls, non-flammable roofs, corner windows that double as firing positions, full basements with lots of storage space, etc) then add community features (ie, clubhouse meeting area with more underground storage, perhaps a network of utility tunnels that connect all the houses underground, community game fields that could be used for larger events, fields around outer perimeter that could be planted with crops, extra wells already sunk and with windmill water pumps for irrigation if needed,etc).

Then people have to sign bylaws before they can purchase there, agreeing to the above.

This is the kinda thing I'm thinking of, and I suspect if someone built it they would come. I'd sure as hell look at a community like this waaaaaaay faster at this point than I would any other kind of neighborhood. And all those community facilities/fields etc wouldn't be that expensive if spread across the purchase price of many homes .

[Great-Kazoo]

Well I think the important distiction here is that everyone MUST be responsible for their own food, water, and shelter. Sharing resources is a good-neighbor thing to do, but could NEVER be required or demanded. The ONLY exception, is that everyone would have to participate in the security/safety of the community. Safety and security is the only reason I would want to team up with anyone anyway.

ETA: Does anyone agree with the above statement?

More like. Why does anyone disagree. Sounds good to me.

[HoneyBadger]

Agree 100% with that statement, except it wouldn't work for everyone. For instance, I could see a hippie-liberal type saying

"I'm happy with the level of protection the police can give me, man. If someone gets to me before the police can help, I'll just offer them a bong hit and sing koombaya with them. Besides, everyone else here has guns, I'm safe among all of you people."

So I'd say it needs to go a step further: "...everyone would have to BE ARMED AND TRAINED and participate in the security/safety of the community."

I think it'd take a developer to build such a community, with an eye toward defensibility (ie, on a hilltop, and using the natural terrain where possible to aid in defense, with visible and defensible road into it, etc) then lay out where the houses are with an eye toward defense (fields of fire, minimal blind spots with natural obstacles like bushes in those that can't be avoided, etc) build the houses with defensible construction (ie each house has it's own well, solar and low voltage lighting throughout, brick or block or rock walls, non-flammable roofs, corner windows that double as firing positions, full basements with lots of storage space, etc) then add community features (ie, clubhouse meeting area with more underground storage, perhaps a network of utility tunnels that connect all the houses underground, community game fields that could be used for larger events, fields around outer perimeter that could be planted with crops, extra wells already sunk and with windmill water pumps for irrigation if needed,etc).

Then people have to sign bylaws before they can purchase there, agreeing to the above.

This is the kinda thing I'm thinking of, and I suspect if someone built it they would come. I'd sure as hell look at a community like this waaaaaaay faster at this point than I would any other kind of neighborhood. And all those community facilities/fields etc wouldn't be that expensive if spread across the purchase price of many homes .

I'm not sure where you are planning on building this, but when you do, PLEASE CALL ME. I completely agree with defensive training and defensive planning/construction. Building the main floor [mostly] out of concrete would offer lots of protection and thermal insulation. I'll post an interesting link on efficient and hardened construction here in a few minutes, I have to find it again.

[HoneyBadger]

Found it. Check this out! This is a billionaire's pet project, but could be executed just as well on a smaller scale. I'm mostly interested in the "natural disaster resistant" construction and the thermal efficiency for the varying summer and winter temps in Colorado. But hell, it's a friggin CASTLE!

[Omicron]

I'm not sure where you are planning on building this, but when you do, PLEASE CALL ME. I completely agree with defensive training and defensive planning/construction. Building the main floor [mostly] out of concrete would offer lots of protection and thermal insulation. I'll post an interesting link on efficient and hardened construction here in a few minutes, I have to find it again.

I'm not a developer, but some day I may track one down and see if they'd be interested in setting something like this up. If I do, you can be sure I'll get the message out.

[Omicron]

Found it. Check this out! This is a billionaire's pet project, but could be executed just as well on a smaller scale. I'm mostly interested in the "natural disaster resistant" construction and the thermal efficiency for the varying summer and winter temps in Colorado. But hell, it's a friggin CASTLE!

This is very cool stuff, duly noted. Love it.

Another possibility is ICF (insulated concrete form) structures. Basically the walls are a foot thick. 3" styrofoam insulation inside & out and a 6" concrete center. Rebar gets put throughout as well. There are many different ICF manufacturers, for instance http://www.superblocks.com/

[Wulf202]

monolithic dome.

when my gc business gets farther along ill be making communities out of farm land.

[Omicron]

monolithic dome.

when my gc business gets farther along ill be making communities out of farm land.

Yes these are interesting too http://www.monolithic.com/

Not sure what your gc business is, but if you mean "general contractor" then you're way closer to being a developer than I am and having you here paying attention is a step in the right direction. I do have an architect lined up who could draw up neighborhood plans as discussed above, as well as individual house designs.

[Wulf202]

monolithic domes have withstood moab bombs and f4 tornadoes. but they're unconventional construction so financing is problematic