Utopia???

 

 

Have you ever dreamed of the perfect community? Chemically-free houses in a chemically-free neighborhood surrounded by chemically-free neighbors who are like-minded and GET IT? Living together, respecting each other's needs for a safe, unpolluted, non-electromagnetic environment with organic food at the local grocery store? That's my dream. I've been looking...

 

 

 

 

I think I found one! There is a community in Snowflake, Arizona that started in the late 1990s and it is now up to thirty houses. I've heard many of the houses are on their own twenty acres. Organic food stores, no commercial agriculture in the area, and plenty proactive committees writing and signing petitions to control the government use of herbicides and pesticides. MY PEOPLE! I've been told land runs about $1,000 per acre. Granted, its location is in the high desert, but with some creative landscaping I could live in a cute little adobe house with a brick patio surrounded by fruit trees! My own personal oasis.

I lived in Arizona once so I'm somewhat aware of desert living. I asked about icky things one might find in a desert like rattlesnakes, scorpions, and poisonous spiders. The real estate agent I spoke with said they have bull snakes (eeewww!) but bull snakes are good because they are harmless and eat the rattlesnakes so there are very few rattlesnakes. I would like it if they ate dogs, too. The elevation is too high for scorpions. They have tarantulas, but they are more ugly than dangerous. Maybe they'd eat dogs, too.

 

OK!! I'm ready!

Oh, wait a minute. The real estate agent says he gets calls from all over the country from people who are looking for non-toxic housing options. There are long waiting lists for rentals and even longer waiting lists for contractors. I'm brainstorming options. Buy a chemically-free trailer and live in it? Or a tiny house on wheels? I'd rather live in a cute adobe house like a modern Anasazi.

Every now and then I search online for updates on chemically-sensitive housing to see what's new. This is the first full-scale community I've found, but there are some chemically-free apartment houses here and there. All of them have long, long waiting lists, so long the waiting lists are closed. This is a huge, untapped market. It surprises me a developer doesn't buy up some land, build some cute little sustainably "green" houses and sell them. Many of us are willing to buy....maybe there isn't enough money in it since so many MCSers are disabled and low income? If I had lots of money or a whole bunch of land, this is what I would do. But even now if I could just find a group of like-minded people, we could get one started. If I am willing to do this, there must be others? All we'd need to do is decide on a location and call others to us. I'd build two little houses on my lot. One to live in and one to rent. There is cheap land in eastern Oregon, but I don't know if it's cheaper than Arizona.

I also found an online snippet about a community in the process of forming called the Portland Tox-Free Community, but there isn't much information. I'm hoping someone will answer my requests for information so I can find out more.

If any of you would be interested in joining a chemically-free utopia, let it be known in the comments.