Transcript of Regen Villages as In Situ Urbanisation (unedited raw version)

all is good all is good dear James glad to meet you again uh shortly before my speech uh on insight to urbanization uh the new idea that all we know as the qualities and abilities of the city to come to the village now for me regen villages is uh kind of sort of the should I say uh the leading edge of this development i think uh uh the way uh you do uh conceptualize and uh and plan for human settlement for human habitat is really related to the land to the local resources to the uh abilities of humans to coexist with nature so all these uh requirements of uh what is called insight to urbanization we don't want to leave the land anymore we want to bring uh the uh resources the the opportunities to people where they live basically the United Nations has said we want to bring people out of poverty we cannot bring them out of poverty by bringing them uh to the edge uh settlements of uh overcrowded metropolises like people like Stuart Bran and others uh have postulated if you bring them to uh Kolkata or Mumbai or uh uh in Kenya uh Buri know Kinshaza uh sorry then uh automatically there will be a lot of ingenuity creativity and people will uh be electrified urbanized uh mobilized and they will bootstrap themselves out of poverty this is an old myth that has been debunked so uh we need to reconsider the way humans settle and we have to accept the many many parts of the world still have working rural areas that are waiting uh for a new solution instead of young people fleeing to the cities uh they can have the best of both worlds in the rural area in the rural arena where they live but how is this possible this is this is uh this is the question and it's in the discussion that we had uh we have discussed that it's not uh by how should I say by simply uh creating a kind of a second representation of the urban or the suburban uh the whole uh uh supply chain and uh and all those uh and all those warehouses and supermarkets it's it's it's it's far beyond that it's uh it's creating the intrinsic capability of people uh to to uh take life into their own hands with the help of the of the intelligence of the world and also the new elements of artificial intelligence so-called artificial intelligence so and that is you cannot talk about that uh without talking about region villages because this is the most the most thought through through and the most uh complex uh design uh that exists in the present world and still a lot of people don't even know it so uh I invite you to give us uh a short overview about the capacities of what you call the village OS the village operating system from the very beginning to the very end and by the very beginning I really mean that so you can show us that even the immersions the even the planning of the villages of the future is done by this artificial intelligence why and how please tell us absolutely well it's it's always lovely to to connect with you and reconnect with you and this is a topic that we have um devoted our lives to so we're we're a missiondriven um Stanford University spin-off company that I founded in the Netherlands um in 2016 and so regen villages holding um is a Dutch company uh and and the village OS software is the expression of um our our goal which is to apply machine learning software to the Gen AI or generative design of um especially newbuilt green field uh townships town and and village locations but also that the software once the community has been designed the software can live on as a kind of insitue server software to help run the regenerative and resilient infrastructure of those communities and what is regenerative what is resiliency right we we have transcended from the word sustainability uh from about 50 60 years ago which was kind of holding back uh what we needed to do uh to to hold back and make sure that we're preserving certain things um and we've kind of missed the boat on that so now we have to to really leapfrog ourselves into a place where we're using resiliency and regeneration and we look at critical life support infrastructure um clean water uh renewable energy high yield organic food production at the neighborhood scale waste to resource management in a circularity flow and smart mobility solutions and all of those things interconnected with passive home building hypology design right but the most important thing and I'll go ahead and share my screen because I think sometimes that the the the captivating part of course is to share um you know what what we're actually working on is this idea that um we can actually use software to invert the design process to look at the natural world first we can say what is this piece of land in this particular case this is a 300 hectare parcel of land um in an extreme climate area uh just outside of Riad in Saudi Arabia and what is it that we think we can do first and foremost with this land uh that um more than 23 of the land grant can be attributed to water energy food production uh waste to resource management connectivity to turning those waist streams into asset classes that actually benefit those communities and and therefore that these communities are then capable of being breakaway in case of I like to say when now not if anymore but when district utilities fail district utilities are interrupted okay and by utility we could mean power we can mean war water we could mean um even food it could be sewer systems we you know any kind of anomaly now that we're experiencing and we're seeing whether they're floods whether they're droughts and that kind of thing um moreover how can we use the software to to understand the different kinds of complexities in um in terms of the built environment related to which is critical of course to um rates of return but also what does it mean for for a community like this to be able to um to imagine its own footprint what does it need in terms of of infrastructure and in terms of looking at um everything it needs to empower itself in terms of solar arrays wind turbines um biomass bio gas other kinds of of um waste to energy systems and services but also how many days do we think these communities can be islanded um in case of interruption but it's amazing because this is where we also get to to connect with um with these foundation and large language models you know i.e uh chat GPT like engagement right so you can have natural language dialogue with the software um ask it questions it can ask you questions about the the project and and the development but also where we can start to to see these sort of indigenous uh objective overlays like for instance where would be the right systems and services uh what would they be where would they be placed um how would we understand you know the the logistics behind those systems and services um and then I think what's really exciting is is our ability to then take these these virtual uh we call them primitive models right sort of skeletal models and start to express um very real simulations of what it's like to live in this community uh and what it's like to model for extreme weather conditions when it does rain how do we deal with water flow sisterning um recharging aquifers etc or if there's other kinds of uh wind anomalies or sandstorms or things like this in part of the world how do we model for those kinds of things um I think what's also particularly exciting and interesting about the village OS software is the fact that we can be predictive in what does this neighborhood look like through an ESG climate carbon framework right so what does it look like um in terms of uh this neighborhood at groundbreaking what does it look like 5 10 15 50 100 years later in terms of all of these uh metrics now what's amazing about this is of course it gives an access portal to sovereign wealth pension and institutional funds who can see that these assetbacked land developments have been derisked in terms of the planning approvals but moreover where they can see that the carbon exchanges or the ESG SDG metrics fully support um their their vision and their mission going forward also we can show the local neighbors how community design like this virtually will improve their property values will improve their living condition will give them this opportunity to have a place to go to when not if again that their services and systems are interrupted in other words there's this like oasis community where they can grab a cup of coffee charge their phone have a meal go to a cultural event live their life um knowing that this community is there for them in support of them and that then starts to reduce the local neighbor rhetoric which is a huge issue wherever you go pretty much around the world and so again looking at how machine learning software can rapidly invert the design process look at the environment first what is its natural resource capacity and capability to feed hydrate empower digest waste for how many families on that land then start to create this lovely um generated design process like Sim City if you will about the the land itself and the and the housing typologies but then the ability for the software once the community has been built like I mentioned before it can go and live on as a kind of autonomous facilities manager and watch what's happening in the neighborhood not only to monitor it but to look at gee how can I improve this system or that service how can I mitigate against this kind of risk and again how can I predict or suggest new and emerging technologies that could come and support how this neighborhood could be better and better so um that's a brief overview and snapshot of the village OS software there's a lot under the hood there's a lot more that we're developing including dealing with local regional national federal ingestion of rule books and being able to make um everybody's life just easier town planners governments um land owners residential developers most importantly people how can people live and work and be in community that um actually has its back in terms of supporting safety food security water security energy security waste to resource management we can start to all calm down a bit wait a second now all of a sudden AI and machine learning is there for us in the right ways um and just as as a final point on this I continue my affiliation at Stanford University in the school of medicine we cut our teeth through the school of mechanical engineering and all the nuts and bolts of the village OS uh research but uh where we are now is is in the compassion center CCARE center at Stanford University which is um how we live and where we live that reduces amydala response and cortisol release and allows us to feel and be healthier in very simple ways so what does that mean it reduces burdens on governments it reduces burdens on health care systems it brokers peaceful happier places it stems climate migration from um from developing economic areas around the world it also can handle and deal with refugee crisis so yes the village OS is we think one of the not only but the best solutions for uh for the future of living on earth so I'll leave it there and happy to speak more to you now my dear friend France yeah wonderful uh so uh I like the term oasis yeah uh that uh that really rings a bell you know uh so you said it's not a gated community as we know them from uh from the real estate developments all around suburbia um it's it's it's it's it's it's quite the opposite it's uh it's an environment that not only feeds its inhabitants but has like uh kind of affluence uh um in every respect you know in terms of the physical aspects uh uh the also the uh intelligence the computational aspects so it is uh it is on one side it is an oasis because it it it has this uh this it produces this abundance uh by by applying the principles of regeneration by saying local resources have are an incredible treasure biomass is an incredible treasure and we we we cherish that treasure we care for that treasure and it it rewards us for that well that's that's one thing but it is also it is also like a uh like a cell in a network uh if you wish uh of connected communities around the world it's it's it's like a it's like a place where you can also have uh cultural connections it's a it's a place where you can learn from other places about other places uh uh as I said it's it's it's uh it's a it's a kind of sort of access point to a network of sharing experiences and improving together if I'm right uh absolutely I think the the key word that I love is abundance um in my research uh before I came to Stanford in 2012 I spent about 16 17 years in a lovely journey all around the world studying being eco villages and intentional communities co-housing co-living um but they were all centrally a pretty much farm-to-table communities so I like to say that my research was sort of stomach driven i was traveling around and eating all this delicious food um and so the word abundance really resonates with me because when you're sitting in a long farm-to-table meal in the actual farm where that food was sourced from and you're sitting at that table and you don't even have to be able to speak the same language as what's being spoken at that table but you're smelling the aromomas you're tasting these flavors you're experiencing these recipes which reflect the ancestry and the storytelling of this community okay the authenticity of place and that empowers you you feel happier you feel healthier you feel more calm and more relaxed and we have been unfortunately never more disassociated from our natural world than we are now and so this is a modern interpretation a modern way this has always been our goal to reimagine the um the the strong community sense of village and town um but to use technology to to design it to to help operate it to make it easier for especially the future of robotics and other kinds of interventions that we're seeing coming um faster uh each day but to to h for humanity moreover to leverage um its creative spirit and its soul to be the ones in charge of informing the AI with indigenous wisdom especially about all of this data climate weather all the different patterns related to topography contour soil sediment right um all of that is indigenous wisdom at the end of the day and to to take all of that information and to be able to suggest the best kind of of communities that can be sprouted in those places to me is really really exciting use of of software it basically it puts us back in the driver's seat it puts us back in a position where heart and soul is um is the driving model and not just about um greed and dependence so that's that's my um you know my my my current thought process on those things okay uh now many people that watch this presentation may say okay this is another uh this is another instance and repetition of old uh illusionary dreams of humans living together in community not becoming uh isolated jealous uh aggressive towards each other not sharing uh uh not not experiencing all kind of uh of uh separations between them uh we have not learned to to to work together in community how can uh how do you think uh technology help us uh to become more aware of the opportunities of community but I think this is the this is a fantastic uh question well it's like this um everything that we've been doing and working on all these years have been based on nature okay and and we are based on nature we forget that somehow i don't know why but we do we are natural living organisms on a beautiful robust u sphere that's floating um magically in many ways out in the cosmos okay we forget about all those things and then what grounds me you know are the sort of the sort of 20th century mindsets rudolph Steiner um Buckminister Fuller um Bill Mullison in the 1970s on permaculture and this design thinking of of land um that speaks to us about what it's capable of um I'm also really inspired by the work of Dr suzanne Samard um and Paul Stamuts on um myial networks and the kernel of our village OS software it really is all about mycelial networks and if you're not familiar with mycelial networks they are um the large very large fungi networks right that are um under the forest floor typically that can span sort of 30 40 radial kilometers in in in size a single organism it is an organism one organism at that size um but it doesn't have a central brain right and as intelligence at the point of sensing as those those um those hi-fi threads um spread out under the forest floor um it's sensing things and it's sharing it with its wider self okay it's a organism that also inoculates into the root structure of plants of trees of bushes of of cultivars plants everywhere around that that that large area and it it's mother earth's original I call it ledger right because what it does is it understands every single plant's needs there's a have need network i have this I need this and the fungal network acts as a real time electrochemically signaling broker of carbon minerals sugar nitrogen phosphorus even water across that whole vast distance and so it's a neural network number one and if you can also say that this point of sensing could be referred to something nowadays called edge AI so that at the moment of sensing something that it's capable in that moment of making a decision and doing something about it so we've designed our framework of the village OS based on this so as a neighborhood is um designed and then built and is operating it's actually learning and improving and getting better at that word abundance you mentioned before um every single day every single month every single year so maybe you can give us a little idea how how these things are intertwined uh on one side you talk about uh the miselia network which means that uh we have not just single plants uh we have not just single trees we have uh uh like a large organism that we even are in a way connected to uh it is the base of our life and uh and yet we uh we have uh this uh approach via technology uh that senses uh you said sensing is very important for making decisions so how do we sense uh the need of nature that is the one question and the other question is how do we sense the needs of people and how can we uh help people uh to find optimal solutions in their daily lives so so going back to what you were saying before and I didn't mean to wax over it because I did it did hit me which was about this idea of um the history of of visionaries who were talking about utopian communities right there's no such thing as utopia first of all okay what we can do and this is really part of human nature as well is to try to strive to something called homeostasis right which is balance that's what that word means and and from our perspective the Maslo hierarchy of needs right which is essentially you know there's this Maslo pyramid of um well you have to have you know your your your food your water you have to have your um your shelter uh you know certain things that you go up into the to the pyramid to get to the top of the pyramid which eventually is some kind of self-actualization what does that mean self-worth right um now our work is really focused in many ways on the infrastructure of that pyramid how can we feed people hydrate them empower them digest their waste put them into dignified energy positive passive home that are that are really comfortable um and by doing that in such a way that there's a path for more people to to realize living like this then it it it inspires people to live in a more generous way that's that's our that's what we posit that's what we believe will happen because we've seen it in in these eco villages around the world people have a tendency to be um calmer warmer more open to each other um more willing to be um have empathy and and therefore um they're they're they're deeply connected to each other they they establish deeper connections with each other it's never perfect there's never a situation where everyone's going to love each other or or even like each other uh that's not that's not that's not natural right however we can get to a place where if your basic needs are being met and with the revolution of all these new technologies that are coming there might need be need for some universal basic income you know to fill that delta that gap but somehow or another this will spur I really believe new economic models new kinds of inventions innovations um it will allow people to engage with each other in ways that they're not doing right now as by way of example when I go into an eco village around the world and I go into the community center doesn't matter where you are in the world you go into the community center of an eco village or intentional community and there are message boards birth announcements um celebrations birthdays graduations you know work accomplishments retirement um hospice care and death notices okay as a full story arc you have you walk out into the gardens and you see uh elderly people with walkers you know smiling and laughing with with the parents with with the pram you know with the babies you see people coming together in ways where currently our modern civilization quote unquote is wanting to separate everybody we want to put the old people here we want to put the babies with people here we want to put the middle class or the hardworking single people here and what's happening is disconnection and a lack of knowledge and wisdom sharing right uh if you look at the Netherlands they've done some magical things where they've started to create these nursing homes and elder care that are married to nursery schools so you have two year olds and 90 year olds and and there's a magic I will just tell you there's a definite I've them yes yes there's a magic that happens there um and and we are depriving ourselves in our quote unquote modern world of these celebrations these life celebrations so what I'm trying to say to you is that if we can create the guts if you will of the infrastructure that can support that abundance and that surplus then organically these communities can start to improve be healthier and start to reconnect with each other in more natural ways that's that's our primary thesis okay but uh uh nevertheless uh the question remains how people really develop this capacity to work together um we had uh we had Dian Lee Christian uh a very experienced uh person from the eco village scene uh coming to us in Europe and reporting about the long history of uh American eco villages and and other communities intentional communities and saying that uh basically uh there is the requirement uh of also a kind of cultural vision sometimes developed by a very few people um and uh what you say it rings a bell with me because I spent uh uh four uh visits in Arosanti in Arizona a kind of experimental city and I have this I also met Paola Soleri and I have all this all the time I have this uh this sentence that he repeated like a mantra um we built the instrument but people have to play the music uh that was that was Solar's uh kind of uh uh answer to the question of is it uh is it necessary to install uh kind of so social design or whatever uh uh you mean and of course I am as a so sociologist um I'm really really much moved by this question how can we how can we uh really find ways to support people in uh maybe even uh uh kind of sort of defining core principles visions diverse villages with diverse values i think the villages are places to live all kinds of of the human uh of the human experience and there are many many incompatible ways that's why uh sing simple multiculturalism is not really a way to build a village you know uh it can be sometimes there are there are there are examples of of multicultural uh village situations but uh there is also a strong tendency to say okay we want to have it in a certain way we want to have it uh in a way that we can comprehend and that connects us and that identifies us so what are you thinking about these questions of cultural identity and what role do they possibly play in uh this larger vision of uh network of villages i mean it's a great point i mean maybe you you saw from the demo that I presented that the project uh that we've been working on uh in in in Riyad um is culturally centered around mosque right i mean the walkable distance in in this township plan of not one mosque but five or six of them so that they're walkable uh you know uh to to for prayer five times a day uh if those people are so inclined to do that um but that it's it is it's it's one guiding principle for the data to think about that for that particular place in other places it could be um you know other kinds of spiritual um um facilities or it could be other kinds of of um cultural activities or sports or other kinds of things um and and I think there's a cultural millure or aesthetic if you will that will be pervasive to the software to help us design what makes sense for that place um but it's not a prescription that people must live a certain way that they have to be a farmer like right feeling a genius okay uh just feeling the the spirit of a place and suggesting uh how uh this place could be uh run successfully that that that is that's that's the to us it's u I don't want to say it's the icing on the cake but it kind of is but the cake itself is the urgency of this moment that we're living in on planet Earth the urgency is that we are paving over arable farmland at breakneck speed at the urban edge and it's not that those those pieces of land that are currently handcuffed under agricultural or open or ranch land um zoning conditions aren't going to be um developed at some point they will be uh and most of that land a lot of that land is owned by wealthy family offices around the world to be perfectly honest um hedge funds and others etc institutional sovereign wealth you know that kind of thing um governments typically don't own that much land anymore just little strange pieces here and there um in in the context of regional and and and local planning but what can we do urgently in this moment to create a framework that is that enables us to create a new rule book for these places that rapidly develops and designs and puts in place um critically needed housing for social affordable middle class and of course some market rate to bend the the rate of return in the right direction right but for the most part addressing housing shortages but that doesn't compromise the open space but rather celebrates its capacity to be biodiverse and productive and that is a really really interesting nut that we feel like the software the village OS software is attempting to crack that's exactly at the core of my question uh also for this speech uh The ability of uh region villages to adapt to the place to the land makes them more place independent than every other urban development scheme that is so they can they also can be a solution for rural areas it is absolutely our intent and our objective beyond the urban edge to look at the Perry urban and the rural areas um we saw in COVID for instance that there was this this this uh palpable move and exodus from the urban areas to the countryside the problem is these areas have been abandoned and neglected for so long that the issue is that they weren't capable of accepting this exodus uh because of the fact that they were missing the the ability to support it right so if we can get to these places and create these turnkey designed communities that have light clinical health medical dental that have you know the farm-to-table markets that have the cultural events that have shared work uh online work capability people can they don't need to commute from those places to go to an urban place to work they can actually live and work in that place um the new generation of mobility autonomous mobility where I am here at Stanford uh we now have you know the Whimos and the robo taxis taking people around without drivers so the idea of needing cars and driveways and parking spaces and to and to widen roads um now is is really going to be less and less of a demand for for planning urban planning um drone deliveries drone taxis we're seeing now an emergence of this happening within the next 10 years in other words the idea is that you'll be able to have locally produced ingredients right be able to fulfill food security supply chains within the local context um by drones by drone taxis by drone vehicles whatever it may be um it's not Star Trek it's not the future it's happening right now so that is going to really change how we design communities how we can live further and further away from from cities um and actually it will be places where people will want more and more to to live in and be in and we'll actually be able to see a solution then for um for the more people coming to earth being able to live in more effective ways so that's really our goal with with the village OS software is to supplant suburban sprawl uh and moreover to look at how do we stem climate migration and and refugee crisis that's a I think a a worthwhile mission for us to be on yeah I I think thank you very much for that you know um so you have given us uh quite a comprehensive view about the future that region wages imag is imagining uh but I want to conclude still with this question you know I have this thick book by Leonardo Benolo the history of the city and it is really really thick book you know uh with a lot of pages and through all ages and uh in the in the in the preface he says that the cities are an expression of power uh the cities are expression of human dominance uh and they are basically the power centers uh and uh the rural areas are basically the the the subdued the lower classes they are powerless and so this this this idea that uh the city uh is influencing the countryside from the village in Venice you know the whole history uh we have an increasing pressure of the cities on the countryside and uh Ram Kas with his uh New York exhibition countryside is the future he might have also showed us how incredibly stronger that grip of the of the resource hungry city on the countryside can become so the at the core of the practical question is how can we get the real decision makers interested in these models how can we how can we avoid that this uh idea that command and control bring them back to the cities don't want people to work at home anymore this this this this strong trend of the present area uh age you know where suddenly all the authoritarian the the the worst uh sites come out and uh and uh all that we we we talk about here seems kind of sort of lofty dreams how can we really make this happen i'm really critical to get to get uh people to the realization what an immense potential this also has for the economic and financial world absolutely look so so uh I I agree that there's a there's an urgency to look at the rural areas um not for being less than but actually being our actually one of our last greatest hopes right for the future of humanity on this planet i really feel that way and I felt that way for for for many years traveling around the world um that there is a celebration of the rural areas that has been diminished and um depleted in a way uh by by its talent and by its youth and these kinds of things however um it has the capability just like in any kind of permaculture scenario even in the middle of a desert we're able to see life emerge again we're able to see sustenance and even abundance emerge again so what we do is we patiently persevere we keep telling the story we look at the fact that um we will get to a place where it's very clear that we simply must be designing these kinds of communities as fast as possible to support u this next era or generation of people coming even out of college with no ability to employ themselves to no for no ability to pay for systems services housing and things like this why because of technology that has taken those those roles and of course industry is very happy to have that but the issue is um that industry also needs a certain kind of consumer isn't it to support them so there is a there is a um uh a positive feedback loop that I'd much rather hop on to and and frequency that I'd like to promote which is gosh you know we can actually use these technologies for human flourishing and for benefiting the natural world planetary boundaries but being able to enhance improve and increase those things um my May I just may I just interrupt for a moment sure i think for the last 40 50 years uh we already have simulated business success but in fact we have just created debt because uh the system is not working anymore as you said uh we are already in a in a a society that uh does not really has no capacity to uh to align itself with automation uh automation wants to connect but everybody wants to compete so we have capacities everywhere uh in in all countries of the world in incredible industrial capacities but they don't pay off the the prices of uh products get lower and lower so what what can we do this is this is really well that's that's changing dramatically now you know in terms of inflation and everything else you know I look at this example of let's say rural India right where there have been some communities that have taken the steps to do very simple things in terms of permaculture right they've recarved even the most arid land in let's say southeast India where it's almost like desert at this point and they've recarved the land so that when the rain does come when the monsoon season does come it can actually be channeled and flowed through these BMS and these guilds and these swailes into recharging aquifers into loading up these sistns and um and also starting to plant the right kinds of more droughtresistant um flora and fauna creating biomass and and then starting to create these soil layers and profiles etc my point is as follows that these communities over in a very short period of time even within the first year or two are able to start to um re- imagine the the productivity of that land in such a way that they don't have to then migrate during the drought season to the city to the urban um poverty rings to find the worst kind of work which then traps them there and then the cycle of poverty that traps their children there and then the cycle of poverty that then forces people to get on boats and planes and who knows what to try to get to Europe to try to get to the US to try to get to Canada to try to get wherever where they feel that they can can take care of their families the converse is when those communities start to actually produce for themselves those people stay in those villages they don't go to the city for uh for for the for the work they stay in those communities their children are able to be educated they're starting to see uh life improvement all from basically moving the earth around in permaculture planning okay so that's a low tech version really of what we're talking about and and that's something we also celebrate we celebrate this idea of of using you know earn processes and building materials and other kinds of things and if we can start to stem the climate migration and we can start to create these oasis like I said or lily pads of self-reliant communities around the world especially in developing economic areas rural India subsar Africa Aon right uh Mina all of a sudden we can see the solution because it can start to draw the people back from those rings of poverty in the cities start to repopulate their villages right because all of a sudden their their communities have the ability through nature to support them so there is a logic there to this which is really really critical and over the next you know 10 15 20 50 100 years whatever it is I strongly believe that the things that we are talking about now coming to fruition will be the solutions for for those communities living I totally agree with you that that's not the point the the point is how can we convince those in power those who make the decisions uh that today we have to shift direction uh and to to stop thinking about uh how should I say uh geopolitics uh in in the old ways uh and stop thinking about competition and uh amassing resources and things like that it really comes down to this it you know we have to invert the business models and we have to say that that by by reducing burdens on government reducing burdens on health care systems brokering peaceful happier places okay we end up um being very investable by sovereign wealth pension institutional funds by large philanthropies and uh the UN and others we see that then all of a sudden that that we can start to really build and replicate these models around the world and so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy we can't continue to speak the real estate language the real estate business language of 25 35% rate of return you know for these kinds of neighborhoods we have to be saying look if you're able to get two or 3% or 5% over a long period of time annualized rate of return that's really very interesting for those more patient larger funds okay um and they're interested in that it's also assetbacked real estate it's also uh a better story for them to tell for for their um for their stakeholders so there there is a there is actually a solution from the economic fiscal perspective of telling the right story about this um and the same way in in a developed economic context that we can show similar in the UK to what's called council housing that you have this ramp you have social you have affordable you have middle class you have middle upper class and then you have wealthier people all living in the same village town whatever it is but then the wealthier population uh slope helps to offset the the social affordable middle class units um but everyone nonetheless is living together in the same community and and it works and it's offering a totally different quality of life uh many many things that come out of the separation uh suddenly are not necessary anymore well we see I've seen it in Denmark i've seen it in other of course egalitarian places i've seen it in the UK i know it's challenging in places like for instance Saudi Arabia or maybe in some places in in in you know Latin America because you know this whole cultural context of people who have less uh versus people who have more um is still gated right they want to gate themselves in South Africa where we have a big project we're working on right now it's very challenging because of course we need to a have the balance of social affordable market rate housing but at the same time we really do need the gates we do because of the fact that crime and and and um the the issue of imbalance is so stark there that you simply have to design the community for for those kinds of protective measures so believe me it's not perfect and there's issues everywhere around the world but we have to be looking at this through the lens of infrastructure if we build the right infrastructure based on nature and it's ever improving right like if you look at an apple orchard when you first plant it you don't come you know trying to bake an apple pie year one it takes by year five maybe you can start to go out there but by year seven you have more apples than you know what to do with okay you simply can't make enough strudel you just can't right so then what happens um you start to invite people to take some of the apples off your hands or do other things you barter whatever it is you also note that as the pests start to come who want to eat those apples on year three and year four Okay but all of a sudden by year 5 to year 7 you start to get what's called the natural healing cycle which means that the predators who know that those pests are going to be there for that fruit they'll start to come and they'll eat those those pests so you don't need pesticides herbicides fungicides etc my point being it's almost biblical that when you build a community like this by year seven or so somewhere between year five to year seven it becomes self-healing becomes capable of abundant surplus and that infrastructure then enables people to start to think about culture socialization um anthropology new business ideas they there's all these different things that they all of a sudden have the luxury to imagine because they don't have the stress this manufactured stress i will tell you that our current system places on everybody so that's that's the the maximum utopian you know uh conversation I'm willing to have thank you very much for that it's always a pleasure to speak with you and and I'm and I'm always grateful that that somehow or another between us um that our words can be wellreceived um you know we met in in you know presentation right before in 2018 before went to go to present to the EU uh parliament on this topic um and we're still telling this story and and and what's interesting is like the new bow house if you're familiar with this new EU bow house movement you know what what did they do they picked you know a 100 plus cities to focus on and I was yelling and screaming "What about the rural areas why are you continuing to to not discuss that there are there are people and farmers and communities who um are are essential to this full network so anyway I keep telling the same story and I appreciate that you enable us to continue to tell this story so thank you thank you okay I'm going to stop the recording