| | The system of projects for our like-minded people
Here we will briefly describe in which areas of activity and in which projects we would offer participation to those who share our views on what principles a free and self-respecting person should adhere to, and what kind of relationships between people in society we should strive for. This is something you can do together with like-minded people while also achieving your own individual goals. We will only consider what could be implemented in today's conditions, when there are enough people willing to do it. We are talking about the concept of interconnected projects, which, as already mentioned, are intended to produce a synergistic effect. These projects are at different stages: some of them are still in the final stages of conceptual design, while others are already in the process of detailed development or practical implementation. Of course, the projects that are implemented online start earlier than others, which, in addition to their direct tasks, also help to gather like-minded people interested in participating in other projects.
The core of the project system is a project for the development of a relatively small new town not very far from a large city. The town should be designed in such a way as to become an attractive place for people from different countries who speak English well enough, participants in other system projects that have a good long-term perspective and don't compete, but complement each other and develop various forms of cooperation. The first project of this type is expected to be implemented in one of the non-English speaking countries, where the necessary basic conditions for this can be provided. The language of everyday and business communication of the town's residents, as well as the language of the trade and service sector, should be English. The property complex will be built using money from a closed-end mutual fund, and both residential and commercial properties will be only rented out, but not sold. Those tenants who wish to obtain the right to reside for an unlimited period may be required to gradually buy out a certain number of shares in the fund. In this case, the income from shares can be used to compensate for housing rental costs.
The proposed method of meeting the need for housing gives a person a higher degree of freedom compared to purchasing an apartment or house as property. For example, it will be easier to change housing within the town if needs and financial capabilities change. When plans for the future change, requiring a change of residence, a person doesn't face the problem of what to do with his own property, which is no longer needed. In this case, the accumulated share in the fund's capital can be left as part of one's investment portfolio or this share will be bought out at a price calculated according to market criteria. The return and capitalization of investments in this fund will be approximately in line with the indicators of other long-term investments that have moderate returns but very high reliability. This will be ensured by the influence of the market on the level of rent for the lease of real estate owned by the fund and on the conditions for attracting third-party investments for the development of the project.
The above-described basic scheme will allow the team managing the system of projects to implement the most effective policy for attracting like-minded, motivated people for the development of strategically necessary areas of activity. A fundamental task of these projects is also the development of a community in which the views of the participants and the relationships between them will, as far as possible today, correspond to those described in the articles on the cultural code of liberal society and its advanced model.
The admission of participants to the project system will be carried out by the management team. This may include those who are ready to continue their existing business in one of the needed areas using the provided infrastructure, as well as participants in new necessary business projects as entrepreneurs, key specialists, employees or investors. When forming the composition of project participants, criteria will be used that determine the degree of their understanding and interest in the implementation of the planned development strategy and their ability to make a sufficient contribution to the supported types of activities. Of course, for the success of the projects it would be important that as many citizens as possible of the country where the creation of the mentioned territorial base became possible could participate in these projects. The results of efforts to attract high-quality ''human capital'', to create a favourable environment for the development of selected areas of activity and everyday life will determine the ability to attract new participants who are valuable to the previously formed community.
There will be no preliminary or entry fees, in particular, legal support for obtaining a residence permit will be provided free of charge to anyone with whom an agreement is reached on their participation in any of the projects. The management team's income will be generated from a very small portion of the regular rental payments paid by the users of the property objects. Consequently, the amount of this income will depend mainly on the number of permanent users of the created infrastructure who are satisfied with the terms of participation in the projects, but not on the amount of their own income. This eliminates conflicts of interest associated with the distribution of income between direct income producers and those who ensure the functioning of the infrastructure, which corresponds to the previously formulated general principles for such systems. Thus, a project with the described management system is designed to compete with other options for realizing the potential of people who can be successful in useful and promising activities. It's a competition to attract the right people, where they ''vote with their feet.''
The project envisages the construction of all real estate and infrastructure for the comfortable life of the families of the town's residents, including, if necessary, elderly members of these families and pets, as well as for the implementation of the planned types of activities. A town built and populated as a result of implementing this type of project will be able to provide its residents belonging to ''middle-class'' with a level of comfort and security unattainable in any other town or city with a longer history, usually having inherited social ills and infrastructural problems.
One of the key criteria for the appropriateness of providing infrastructure and other support to any particular business will be its undeniable usefulness for the growth and improvement of the structure of the economy in the country the country where this system of the projects will begin to be realized. Its implementation will allow the immigration of people useful for the country's development to be ''put on a conveyor belt'' from any other places where the conditions for realizing the potential of such people are less favourable. The project will also provide certain additional benefits to residents and property owners in the areas adjacent to its development zone.
The final choice of the country and the specific location for the implementation of the first project of this type is a very complex task that requires to study and agree many conditions, starting with the most fundamental ones. There is no doubt that it must be a country where state intervention in the economy and other spheres of public life is not unacceptably active, and where there is a tendency towards liberalization. One of important conditions, perhaps even the most important is the possibility of implementing within the jurisdiction of the country our educational concept for children of the town's residents, which is described separately in the next article. It is possible that the implementation of the project may require obtaining the status of a special economic zone for the selected territory.
Below we describe the main components and features of the project that will be inherent to it regardless of the location chosen for it.
It will be a compact town, the majority of whose population has a job, business or study within its boundaries and can get everywhere without any transport. Not far from the town there will be its own thermal power plant, blocked with an area for industrial and agro-industrial businesses whose activities are safe for the environment. These industries will also make the consumption of electrical energy more uniform throughout the day. There will be no transit highways passing through the town. Transport links to the big city for those who don't have personal transport will be provided mainly by electric vehicles in modern service formats and shared use options.
The residential real estate of the town will mainly consist of not very tall apartment buildings of several standard designs. Groups of several neighboring houses will have enclosed common courtyards. Each home will also have an open courtyard on its roof where residents can exercise, sunbathe, walk their cats, barbecue, etc. The range of these standard projects will provide suitable housing options for most people wishing to join the community and will allow for easy changes in housing conditions as family or financial circumstances change. As the town gradually grows, it will be possible to regulate the quantitative ratio of different types of housing in accordance with evolving needs. It will also be possible to build other types of housing on the territory allocated for the growth of the town, in addition to those originally planned, if there is a significant need for this.
Standard housing provides maximum convenience in using internal and adjacent space, but creates the problem of architectural and aesthetic attractiveness of the living environment. The things decorating the town will be green spaces, non-residential buildings and structures of non-standard architecture, elements of small architecture and landscape design, etc. Maximum attention will also be paid to the convenience of the common infrastructure for residents. The town will have all the necessary buildings, premises and open areas for public needs, trade and services, sports and recreation, cultural and entertainment purposes, including restaurants and clubs for native speakers of certain languages, etc. There will definitely be such necessary attributes as a town park and a swimming pond with a beach area. There will also be convenient paths for transport, separate sidewalks for walking with no dogs, separate paths for walking dogs, as well as micro-parks along the paths. A multi-level automated parking lot will be built for car owners, where and from where their cars can be delivered using an autopilot.
The design of commercial and other public real estate is linked to strategic plans. We see a number of areas of business and non-profit activity that need to be consistently developed and in which it is necessary to have top-level experts, based on the long-term, strategic interests of the community of our like-minded people. This is the set of areas of activity within which almost every resident of the town will be able to choose the most suitable ones for them personally at different periods of their life. Here, the principles of constructing a personal career strategy for a member of a liberal society, described in the article on the structure of such a society, can be largely implemented. In particular, community members need to have business niches, equity stakes, and jobs in sectors of the economy that provide quite important needs for civilized people. In conquering these market positions, it is not the current market situation and profitability that matter, but the confidence in the existence of long-term demand for services and other products in the chosen business areas. These are areas in which acceptable results can be achieved even without inventing one’s own innovations, but only through competent management. However, this will create a favourable environment in which new innovative startups can also emerge and develop, and regional and even global leaders can grow in certain market segments. We consider the following areas of activity to be strategically necessary and requiring system support.
One of the always in-demand areas of business is definitely the
construction business and related activities (production of materials and components, maintenance and repair of constructed facilities, etc.). An important prerequisite for the development of these areas as one of the priority projects in the system is the community’s own need for a large volume of these services. When implementing a major construction project, there will be a large amount of design work required at the very beginning, then several years of mass construction, and there will be a constant need for maintenance of everything that has been built. All this gives entrepreneurs and specialists implementing the project a unique opportunity to accumulate potential for gaining positions in the markets of nearby and other regions. In particular, after the completion of mass construction in the pilot project, it would be possible to offer one of the other regions of the same country a set of services for the development of a similar project to create a town where the language of everyday communication would not be English, but the native language of the country's citizens.
Another strategically important set of activities is everything related to the automation and robotization of production processes. We believe it is absolutely essential for the community to have specialists and entrepreneurs in the field of design, manufacture, adjustment and operation of automated production systems. This will be used, among other things, in the production of individual types of products for our own needs and for prompt response to some new market needs. The community's own construction industry, which will become a fairly large and interested customer, will be able to help accelerate the development of these types of businesses at the start. There will be a need for serial production of high-precision parts for housing construction according to new standard designs, specialized equipment for the mechanization and partial automation of construction and installation works, etc. And in the long term, the importance of these types of businesses will only increase, covering more and more new areas of their application.
To ensure successful operation and development of its own production of goods and services, and to obtain sources of income as such, the community needs to develop trade and procurement, intermediary and logistics types of business. This is a complex of areas of activity related to each other and to production businesses, which cannot be listed and described in detail in a brief overview. In particular, it is planned to develop network structures for the sale of certain types of services and products, using some modern optimized formats. Service to customers living in other cities and regions should also be available in English.
The community strategically needs to develop various forms of participation in business areas related to national and international information, communication and financial infrastructure.
Services and products for maintaining health and treating diseases may be needed by the members of the community themselves, and the production and sale of certain services and products from this area will also become a business or job for some of them. The development of production activities in this area, which includes medicine, pharmacology, fitness, etc., will start with consumer cooperation and be carried out on its basis. This includes, in particular, information cooperation for an objective assessment of what is offered on the market, and consumer cooperation for the acquisition of the highest quality services and products on optimal terms. This approach is especially relevant in medicine and pharmacology, since in these areas, unfortunately, there are quite a few abuses that lead, at best, to overpayment. The development needs of these types of activities will be fully taken into account in the design and construction of the real estate complex, which will have the necessary premises both for the placement of establishments and for the temporary accommodation of clients and their accompanying persons.
Ensuring a prosperous existence in old age, including at the final stage of life, is largely connected with the area mentioned in the previous paragraph, but this area has many aspects of its own. There are a number of special problems that may arise in people who have reached a certain age and in their loved ones. Finding the best solutions and providing professional assistance in solving these problems may become a business specialization for some community members. Here, the possibilities of information and other forms of consumer cooperation should also be used.
The town should have a well-developed local services and retail sector, providing a fairly complete range of high-quality services (except those mentioned separately in other paragraphs), including in convenient modern formats to residents of the town and the surrounding area. This is an integral part of the general cultural environment, which includes, in particular, catering and leisure establishments. The leasing of premises for business of this sector will be carried out taking into account as a decisive factor the opinion of town's residents about the need for certain services and about quality of those services.
The city will constantly need services to maintain the proper condition of its engineering infrastructure and the entire urban environment, including ensuring public order and safety. These services will be provided by private firms and professionals in close cooperation with other members of the local community. The customer and coordinator of this activity will be the project management company, which will be one of its main functions.
The community will need experts in investment activities. Their services will be required for the development of strategically necessary types of business, as well as for the reliable and profitable placement of reserves and savings. But, of course, their activities will not be limited to the needs of only community members, their businesses and projects.
Quite a few participants of the projects will be able to use the acquired knowledge and experience in the future for consulting services and other forms of support for similar projects elsewhere, both in their own and other countries.
In conclusion of a brief overview of strategically necessary areas of activity, let us mention activities in the educational sphere - for the needs of the community members and just as one of businesses. The proposed approach to building an education system for the children of the town's residents is described in a separate article below. However, in addition to children's education, there will be a fairly wide range of opportunities for continuing education after school, for adults to acquire and update their knowledge. This will be necessary for the preparation of participants in the above-mentioned types of entrepreneurial and non-commercial activities and as a business for providing educational services to others interested in this. Optimized forms of training will be used, allowing for a significant reduction in training costs while maintaining high quality. To organize necessary educational processes, either branches of existing universities and vocational schools will be opened, or, if advisable, new educational institutions can be founded by our community members.
To develop the listed areas of activity, all necessary infrastructure will be created in the town and its environs, starting with specially adapted buildings, premises and sites. In addition to the previously mentioned industrial and agro-industrial zone, educational, sports and health, medical facilities, including an institution for veterans requiring special care will be built. There will be sufficient suitable accommodation for students from other regions, as well as for those who come to the city to receive certain services from local business. In particular, compact studio apartments, which form some part of the housing stock in “economy class” buildings, will be used for this purpose. Spaces for coworking and certain types of businesses will also be located on the ground floor of some residential buildings.
The houses will be built according to several standard projects and will have a rather modest external architectural appearance, since more important is the interior layout (including the placement of windows) - with priority given to creating the maximum range of amenities with optimal use of space. These will be energy-efficient buildings, apartments in which are well soundproofed and equipped with automated systems, including ventilation and air conditioning, as well as built-in household appliances and built-in wardrobes. All apartments in these projects will have a rather conservative, close to classical or even old-fashioned interior design, which gives a feeling of home comfort. They will have a fairly large room height (2.7-2.95 m) and high, but not very wide windows. Characteristic elements of the interior design will be white matt ceilings with moldings along the contour, classic ceiling lamps hanging over the centre of the dining table and over the centre of the seating area with upholstered furniture, floors and doors made of wood or having such a covering, etc. The windows will be fitted with horizontal metal blinds, and the windows in the bedrooms will also have vertically lowering completely blackout curtains. Tenants will be offered stylistically compatible furniture and accessories specifically designed to suit the optimal furnishing options shown in the figures below. A choice of colours and patterns will also be available for wall finishes and coverings for some furniture items and accessories offered. Please note that the furniture items are shown in the figures schematically and their images don't give a specific idea of their real appearance, but only their sizes.
One of the basic ones is a project of a 5-storey ''economy class'' house. On each of its floors, except for the ground floor, there is one two-room apartment (about 53 sq. m), one one-room apartment (42 sq. m), and three studio apartments of 14-16 sq. m each, used for permanent residence or for temporary accommodation of guests. On the ground floor, in place of one of the studios, a shared kitchen and laundry room has been set up. It has electric stoves with ovens for cooking dishes with strong and fatty fumes, which are not advisable to cook in apartments, as well as washing machines for residents of studios who don't have their own. Each of the two-room and one-room apartments on the ground floor, instead of a balcony, has an adjacent fenced area, which is part of the inner courtyard common to a block of four buildings of this type. This makes such apartments particularly suitable for the oldest residents. On the roof of such a house, as well as other types of houses, there is a common courtyard, which has already been mentioned. The figure below shows the layout of a two-room apartment (the one-room apartment differs only in the absence of a second room).
 In a two- or one-room apartment in a house of this project, in addition to a standard set of equipment (only the stove with no oven) and the previously mentioned ventilation and air conditioning systems, there are built-in appliances (refrigerator, washing machine and microwave oven), as well as built-in wardrobes (two in the corners of the room and one in the hallway). The dining table for 4-6 persons can be extended to accommodate 8-10 persons, and the bed can be folded into a sofa to increase party space. The TV can be placed on a special compact, mobile and height adjustable stand, which allows you to move and orient it for viewing from the table, sofa or bed. There is a mobile electric fireplace on casters, which stands in the front corner, but can be moved, for example, closer to those sitting on the sofa. This fireplace can also be used as a TV stand.
This project will also have one more modification, in which a 3-room apartment of about 59 sq. m will be located in place of a one-room apartment and an adjoining studio apartment. This apartment will have the same layout as the 2-room apartment pictured above, but instead of the second bedroom there will be two smaller children's bedrooms with a total area several sq. m larger. In such an apartment, it will also not be possible to place a built-in wardrobe in the hallway.
The second of the main types of residential building projects is the project of a 4-storey two-entrance ''comfort class'' building. There are two variants of this type of project: with two 4-room and two 3-room apartments on the floor, as well as with two 4-room and two 5-room apartments (on each floor except ground floor). The 3-, 4- and 5-room apartments (appr. 100-130 sq. m) shown below all have the same basic layout and differ only in the number of rooms. As you can see, the large bedroom of an apartment of this design has its own bathroom and dressing room. Unlike the ''economy class'' apartments, these apartments also have a built-in dishwasher and a built-in oven in the electric stove. The table pictured in the corner of the common room can be extended to seat up to 12 persons. For the duration of a party with a larger number of guests, the double bed in the large bedroom can be folded into a sofa.
The plan of a 3-room apartment shows the recommended furniture arrangement for everyday life in the main premises:
 The plan of a 4-room apartment shows a possible arrangement of furniture when receiving guests (permanent locations of furniture items are shown by a dotted line). In such cases, the kitchen table can be used for a children's company. This model of table is height adjustable and can be used both as a table for children and as an additional cooking desk. In the figure, the door between the common room and the kitchen is shown without a door leaf, which is removable.
 In the plan of the 5-room apartment you can see the use of mobile armchairs on wheels to increase the number of seats in the upholstered furniture area.
 Each block of two houses of this type has a common closed courtyard. On the ground floor of each of the houses there are two studio apartments (about 34 sq. m) for elderly residents with access to their own fenced yards, which are part of the common courtyard. The remaining, larger portion of the ground floor area is available for rent for different businesses that don't interfere with residents and has separate entrances from the outside of the block.
The third type of standard housing is a separate house on its own plot, intended for quite a large family, consisting of three generations. The house according to this project has two main floors and an attic floor. The figures below show the layout of the main floors with possible arrangement of some key furniture.
On the ground floor there is a kitchen, common rooms for family use and for receiving guests, a guest toilet, and a large grandparents' bedroom with a bathroom and dressing room. At the entrance there is a small dressing room with a coat rack, where you can also wash your shoes or hands. There is a large terrace, part of which is used as a porch. Part of the ground level is occupied by a garage for two cars, and under the interfloor staircase there is space for engineering equipment of the house.
 On the upper floor there is a parent's bedroom with two adjoining small rooms that can be used as their personal offices. There are also three small children's/guest bedrooms with private bathrooms. Another large bedroom with a bathroom and a minimum of kitchen equipment can be used for the accommodation of domestic servants or for a young couple belonging to the family. This bedroom is located a few steps lower, as it is above the garage, which is lower than the rest of the ground floor rooms. The large balcony on the right is located directly above the ground floor terrace and also serves as its roof. On this floor there is also another small terrace on the right.
 The total area of the house is about 380 sq. m, and the area without the attic, terraces, balcony and garage is about 260 sq. m.
It is possible that in addition to housing according of the projects described above, it will be advisable to build a small number of higher residential buildings, but this will become clearer after the specific territory for the construction of the town has been agreed upon.
The town will gradually grow on an area that allows for the construction of a sufficient amount of housing for 15-20 thousand residents. It will begin to live after the first batch of a small number of houses is populated, and it will take several years to grow to its maximum boundaries and complete the construction of all non-residential buildings. A significant portion of the residents of the first houses built will be the town's ordinary construction workers. These will be young or not old people who, during the mass construction period, will be able to accumulate a significant share in the capital of the fund financing the construction (the income from the share will partially or fully cover their apartment rent), and prepare to begin some other suitable activity that can be done without changing their residence. It cannot be ruled out that at the very initial stage of the project’s implementation, some of its participants will have to temporarily live in housing rented from local residents or in a modular mobile home. During the period of active construction, part-time employment in assembly and finishing work will also be possible, combined with other work or business. This will give some young and energetic people, whose main activity leaves them with free time, the opportunity to accelerate the accumulation of a share in the fund’s capital, financially equivalent to buying their own apartment, which will allow to fully compensate for the rent payments for the apartment they occupy.
We are also exploring the possibility of implementing development projects of a much smaller scale than the one described above in some existing cities where the ideas of this basic project could be partially but much more quickly realized. Implementing relatively small projects will help us and our partners to be better prepared to manage the implementation of the main one.
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