Why such a fuss about Saudi Arabia?! I mean, why don't you just view it as a sort of exclusive Gated Denominational Community? Here's a hint....
In Search Of The Village
Yvette Brackman
'A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.'
Oscar Wilde
'The route to community is through joint ownership of private property by an exclusive group living by its own rules.'
Urban Land Institute
Utopia is at the next intersection. At the entrance, there is a sign that reads 'NO OUTLET.' Beyond, there is a guard house and gate blocking the road. The guard asks who I am here to see and if they are expecting me. 'I just want to look around at the community. Is that all right?' 'No. This is a private community, no uninvited guests.' The guard slides the house window shut. I stand there thinking, would Robert Owen, William Morris, Saint-Simon, Ebenezer Howard, Charles Fourier, Proudhon or Ann Lee have invited me in? I look over at the guard, disgusted. He stares back. 'Move on. This is private property.' Utopia isn't private, or shouldn't be. The guard moves to open the door, 'If you don't move on right now, You will be forced to leave.'
Lost in thought, instead of the fortress before me, I imagine an open society, where everyone is a member, realizing their potential and talents while maintaining the aspirations of community--unalienated existence. In a Utopia, people make authentic experience possible through group participation in which everyone values each other equally. Everything is solar and recycled. There is no waste; all products are useful. People no longer work in factories. Manual labor is no longer necessary. There is total technological efficiency. Everyone has a skill that they contribute to the community. The community has agreed to do away with race, gender and ethnicity. Everyone is neuter, only taking on a gender in order to procreate. Private property, poverty, overpopulation, pollution and crime no longer exist--Utopia, a society where people have been able to unleash desire, offering an authentic escape from the inequities of the real world.
My reverie collapses the divergent Utopian aspirations for society that many European immigrants had when they came to the U.S. during the 19th century to establish Utopian communities across the country. Ann Lee, Ebenezer Howard, and Robert Owen are three Utopians who contributed greatly to the shaping of this country's conception of community. In the beginning of the 1800's, the United States was in the throes of a social and political revolution later described as the age of the common man. In Indiana, Robert Owen realized his vision for a new industrial society in the community of New Harmony, founding what he promised to be a worker's paradise. Following the egalitarian and communistic implications of the Christian church, over 100,000 people arrived in America from Europe, creating over 100 model communities. Ann Lee led the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing (better known as the Shakers) to the States to found the first Shaker Community that grew into 19 communities across the country with over six thousand members. Ebenezer Howard envisioned a Utopian transformation of human society that would come painlessly through urban planning alone--without revolution or authoritarian national government. His vision incorporated socialist and capitalist elements to form small cooperative interconnected communities that were contained by surrounding farms and woodlands. He realized his dream in England with the planned communities of Welwyn and Letchworth, which he called 'new towns' or 'garden cities.' His book, Garden Cities of Tomorrow profoundly influenced the growth of planned communities both in England and the United States.
Today's Utopias--extensions of the suburban dream--are Common-Interest-Developments (also known as C.I.D.s), gated, private and locked communities. Ebenezer Howard's ideas were cleverly absorbed by private developers and businessmen who have gradually become the dominant forces in American urban planning. Bypassing governmental controls and adjusting Howard's ideas, housing developers created the modern C.I.D. Founded on property ownership and wealth, C.I.D.s offer exclusive security to those who can afford the freedom and agree to conform to the rules. In the US, these private towns have grown by more than 10% a year since 1960. Today, 12% of Americans live in them.1 The roots of the gated communities date back to early 19th century England. In New York, Gramercy Park was established as a common-interest community in 1831.
[snip]
Excerpted from:
zingmagazine.com |
