A new partnership between Rainbird Development Company, BLLC and Rainbird Village Municipality aims to revolutionize community living with a $400 million project in Utah County. The planned ‘Home Rule’ community seeks to create a prototype for what author Michelle Holliday terms ‘Thrivability’ – a concept focused on fostering life’s ability to thrive at every level within a living system.
The project, which draws inspiration from successful cooperative models like the Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, intends to address long-standing societal challenges by implementing a unique governance model. This model combines limited hierarchy, employee ownership, and liquid democracy to create a regenerative living system that goes beyond mere sustainability.
At the heart of this innovative community design is the concept of a municipal producer cooperative. All residents will be employee-owners of this cooperative, which will provide a wide range of products and services for the public good. These services include municipal operations management, food production through regenerative agriculture, education, health and wellness services, and recreation and hospitality offerings.
One of the most significant features of this community model is its approach to housing. Instead of traditional homeownership, housing will be provided and maintained by the cooperative as a benefit of employee-ownership. This arrangement aims to eliminate what is typically the largest expense for most individuals – housing costs, which often account for about 50% of take-home pay.
Harrison Quigley, Co-founder of Rainbird Development Company, explains the potential impact: ‘People could free themselves from the parasitic economic treadmill in which conventional society is trapped as the only option for maintaining a barely livable lifestyle on credit. This would enable them to truly thrive in vocations that align with their purpose for being in a convivial community that supports and celebrates their successes.’
The community will also feature its own education system, healthcare facilities, and banking services through a municipal credit union. By integrating these essential services within the cooperative structure, the project aims to mitigate costs and improve accessibility for residents.
This ambitious project is not without precedent. The developers conducted an extensive SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of various community models, including ecovillages, co-housing, communes, and company towns. The Mondragon Cooperative emerged as the most successful model in terms of longevity, scalability, and performance on OECD Well-being Framework metrics.
Colleen Grant Dick, Rainbird Village Founder, noted, ‘Starting off as small manufacturing cooperative in the rural backwaters of the Basque country of post-war Spain, over its 70 years of existence the Mondragon Cooperative worked through and resolved most of the weaknesses and fatal flaws we identified in our SWOT analysis of community types to evolve into a global network of producer cooperatives.’
While the concept may seem utopian to some, the developers prefer to describe it as ‘protopian,’ a term coined by futurist Kevin Kelly. Unlike a static utopia, a protopia is defined as a society where people are free to actively improve life and incrementally better their conditions.
The project is currently in its initial phase, with Rainbird Development seeking funding for land acquisition, development, and the launch of immediate municipal operations. If successful, this innovative community could serve as a model for future developments, potentially reshaping our understanding of sustainable, equitable, and thriving communities.
For more information about the project and Rainbird Development Co., BLLC, visit their website at https://www.rainbirddev.com.
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