It's been a hectic week so far. I took my kids on a road trip to D.C. which isn't really that far away from us when you consider D,C, is only three and a half hours away but it felt like forever! We actually went to DC for a college tour which could have been conducted online via a panoramic pan around of the campus because we learned absolutely nothing about the college from our visit. It was freezing outside so our attention was on how cold it was while the college senior ran us around showing us trees with sorority and fraternity letters on them. He also pointed out buildings but the buildings all had labels on them so if you could read, then you already knew which classes were held where. When asked if we could physically see inside the buildings to get a better overview for the prospective students, we were told that it would make the tour too long. How could a visit possibly be too long? We've visited Columbia as well and although it was a bit longer they took us throughout the campus. We went inside most building and visited a lab in progress. It piques the interest further and you're actually able to see first hand how life on campus could be. If you're traveling from out of state to visit then I personally think it's expected. Needless to say we weren't impressed.
Despite the lack luster college tour, we did manage to visit some tourist spots and took my 6 year old to see the White House to make the day a bit more fun for her. At 6 you could care less about a college tour. Although we've been to D.C. plenty of times you can't help but to notice all the building taking place. I counted 9 cranes in about a 3 block radius and that is insane by itself and it made me think back to one of the shows that I saw while binge watching television on Sunday. It was actually an HBO documentary called San Francisco 2.0. If you've never seen the documentary it's about the gentrification of San Francisco and how tech companies are forcing out the middle class. The bigger story line of the documentary for me was the increasing evidence of classism forming in major cities throughout America and knowing what D.C. looked like just 15 years ago and seeing it now, it's definitely obvious of what's ahead for us all. We've all known for some time now that the middle class is becoming non-existent. Soon it will be the haves and the have-nots. This is why we must start to think long term in our planning. We must think beyond gaining a few more bucks and think smart about what we want long term. I personally don't want the stress of being house poor as inflation leads us with less options. I've had a vision for some time now where living communities will become more and more relevant.
Let me explain this vision of a living community. I wrote a post recently about round homes and their layout but it's deeper than just round homes. I envision entire communities made of circular homes as they are more energy efficient. I envision each unit to have a greenroom for growing your own herbs and vegetables. Seriously if I had the financial means these communities would be decked out with ponds to grow fish, farm land, a herbalist and multiple holistic businesses. These homes would have their own water purification system and contamination indicators. With situations like the water contamination of Flint Michigan, we increasingly hear of these stories where drinking water becomes an issue. These scenarios shouldn't happen at all in 2016 and theirs started in 2014 and no one did anything. Building communities where everyone contributes to their community in some way encourages people to have stronger bonds with people and the land. Imagine if you lived in a community such as this where someone helped grow the food and in return their living expenses for the unit were less. Then someone helped the kids by teaching them coding or agriculture for a few hours per week. Or someone in the community offered cleaning and healthy cooking services to help ease the burden on the other people and in return, their paid by the community. It would really thrive in my opinion. I think we'll eventually get to this point in time where we'll have little option but to develop communities such as these and I think it can be a beautiful thing.