A World of Villages
Reimagining Community and Family Life: A Vision for the Future
Take a drive through the desolate wastelands of East London’s Excel, and you’ll soon come upon a grimly dense housing development. Not a tree in sight. Flats upon flats, stacked high and squeezed tight, stand starkly out of scale with their surroundings. The claustrophobia is palpable. As Douglas Murray has vividly described, the environment around the Excel centre is the epitome of soulless urban sprawl – a monument to poor planning and profit-driven design. In the same talk he also coined the idea that we can be “the age of reconstruction”. And that we should not be afraid to look backwards for inspiration.
With that in mind, we can look backwards to a time when one salary was enough to sustain a family, and we relied on our neighbours and extended family more.
In another talk at the ARC Conference, Stephen Shaw outlined the demographic crisis facing us as birth rates across the world fall below replacement levels. This is a real problem, but one that is difficult to engage with if one lives in a palpably overcrowded nation.
Across the UK, the housing crisis is not merely one of supply and demand but of vision and purpose. We are building more homes but not building communities. Property prices soar, and young families are priced out of areas where they grew up, pushed into cramped apartments or distant commuter belts. Meanwhile, family farmers are squeezed out by taxes inspired by envy allowing asset funds to buy up their land, their inheritance lost to corporate greed. We are losing not just homes but roots.
High Density, Low Humanity
Urban planners often cite the need for high-density housing to meet demand, but density need not mean dreariness. The elegant Georgian crescents of Bath or the Regency terraces of Hove demonstrate that high-density living can be beautiful, functional, and humane. These areas thrive because they are designed with people in mind. Contrast this with the harsh, impersonal high-rises that now define much of urban Britain. In Glasgow, the destruction of tenements could have been an opportunity for renovation, preserving community networks and architectural heritage. Instead, they were replaced by brutalist tower blocks that isolated families and eroded social cohesion.
High-density housing has its place – for those starting out in life or downsizing in later years. But most people in their prime do not dream of raising children in a poky flat. They want a detached family home, with a decent sized garden or even a couple of acres. There is no good reason why this should be out of reach for so many.
Fragmented Families, Fragmented Communities
The decline of the village – both as a physical space and a social construct – has fractured the extended family. In the past, multigenerational living provided support networks crucial for raising children and caring for the elderly. Today, young families are scattered, elderly parents live miles away, and community ties are severed. If an emergency arose, could you rely on a neighbour to look after your toddlers for a few days? Would you even know them well enough to ask?
This fragmentation is not merely inconvenient; it undermines societal trust. When we do not know our neighbours, when they are not of our ‘tribe’, we retreat into isolation. The bonds that once held communities together are frayed, and loneliness is epidemic. A return to village life – to roots, not diaspora – could restore this trust.
Overpopulation or Underpopulation?
The current population of Earth is about 8 billion. While our planet can easily feed that many, the real challenge is not about food sustainability but about societal structures. If you live in a clearly overpopulated country such as the United Kingdom, you can feel the problem. Overcrowding is uncomfortable. Raising a multigenerational family is difficult. Fragmentation of communities leads to a breakdown of trust. We don’t know our neighbours, and they are not even of our tribe.
Interestingly, countries where tribal and clan structures remain intact tend to maintain birth rates above replacement levels. This suggests that a sense of rootedness, community cohesion, and shared identity play significant roles in sustaining population growth. In contrast, the atomisation seen in Western societies contributes to demographic decline.
The challenge for Western nations is stark. Declining birth rates mean fewer people to support social welfare systems, including pensions and healthcare. Yet, this demographic shift also presents an opportunity to reimagine society. As demand for housing decreases, the cost of living could fall, enabling a more balanced, community-centric way of life. Advances in technology mean fewer people need to live in urban centres, potentially reversing the trend towards high-density city living. After all, it was industrialisation that drove the mass migration from country to city. The post-industrial age offers the possibility of returning to more dispersed, sustainable communities.
This shift is not without its challenges. As Stephen Shaw eloquently argued at the ARC Conference, societies facing rapid population decline must find ways to stabilise birth rates to avoid collapse. Yet, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. While Shaw emphasises the urgency of reversing the birth rate crisis to sustain current societal structures, this article suggests a complementary perspective: embracing demographic change as an opportunity to rethink how we live, work, and relate to each other.
If done thoughtfully, a world with fewer people could be a better one – not through enforced population control but through a natural, voluntary rebalancing supported by sustainable community models. This requires bold leadership, innovative policies, and a cultural shift towards valuing multigenerational family life, community ties, and long-term sustainability.?
Amidst alarmism about declining birth rates, little attention is paid to how housing and community impact family formation. In the UK, overcrowding and high living costs discourage childbearing. The irony is stark: developed nations fear underpopulation, yet the lived experience is one of overpopulation – not of raw numbers but of density, congestion, and competition for space and resources.
The Case for Optimism
There is hope. Making it easier for people to reproduce at or beyond replacement levels, while targeting an optimal global population of about four billion, is achievable. It begins with rebuilding community support structures. Free childcare in the form of aunts and grandmothers. Proper tax breaks for families, as seen in Hungary. Restoring and upholding men's role as primary providers and risk-takers, ensuring they can support their families without the fear of financial ruin. A cultural shift towards early motherhood – beginning, on average, in a woman’s mid-twenties – supported by marriage stability and responsible sexual behaviour. Unwin's research demonstrated civilisations collapse when their sexual mores descend into hedonism.
People need to live in houses the right size for their stage of life, in a village with their extended family nearby, safe in the knowledge that they shall be supported by their immediate community from birth until death at a ripe old age. This is not nostalgia; it is pragmatism. The future of our societies depends on it.
Sustainable Villages: A Blueprint for Community Revival
We should embrace population decline and use it to destroy bad housing and reconstruct a world of villages.
It is possible to build sustainable villages that balance high-density and low-density housing, integrating functional community spaces and local amenities. Imagine villages centred around a primary school, a convenience store, and a couple of pubs – places designed to foster community interactions and social cohesion. High-density housing can accommodate young families and downsizers, while low-density homes with gardens support growing families. Small-scale farms and green spaces around the village provide food security, recreational opportunities, and environmental benefits. This blend encourages multigenerational living, reducing isolation and building trust..
The village model is not merely nostalgic; it is an adaptable, sustainable solution to modern societal challenges. By rethinking zoning laws and planning regulations, we can create communities that are walkable, liveable, and resilient. Such villages can maintain high population densities while preserving personal space and community identity, striking the right balance between privacy and social interaction.
Towards a Policy Agenda
To achieve this vision, policies must encourage:
Housing Reform: Zoning laws that prioritise community over profit, enabling the building of family homes with gardens. Incentives for multigenerational living arrangements.
Tax Incentives and Family Support: Substantial tax breaks for families, particularly those with young children. Support for stay-at-home parents and flexible work arrangements.
Community Rebuilding: Urban planning focused on village-style communities with local schools, shops, and social spaces. Encouragement of localism and place-based identity.
Cultural Change: Promotion of marriage stability, responsible sexual behaviour, and societal respect for motherhood and fatherhood.
This vision is not utopian. It is achievable, but it requires courage from policymakers and cultural leaders. It requires a rejection of transient consumerism in favour of rooted communities. And, above all, it requires a return to the fundamental truth that people are not economic units or social experiments. They are human beings, born to belong. We should look to a future when the UK population is about 50 million people, then it can stabilise at that level with sustainable birth rates, and those people (for I shall be long dead) will live in high-trust communities in the spaces that they want (and need). This is doubtless a centuries long project, but the sooner we start, the sooner we can get there.