The Micro Enterprise Village- Putting ‘Community’ Back Into The Community

Why MEVs? (Micro Enterprise Village)

Over the last century the Australian dream home gave way from tightly terraced streets of Sydney and Melbourne to the grand brick and quarter acre. Now, as blocks of land accessible to employment have become more sort after, larger more lightly constructed dwellings dominate ever-smaller blocks.

Image by David Shankbone

Modern housing provides both independence and separation from the immediate environment and the surrounding community.

Potted sub-tropical plants are ubiquitous and whilst they alleviate the oppressiveness of the built environs, the variety in local ecologies is denied or at best, relegated to token nature-park status.

Similarly, variety in human activity and lifestyles are segregated. Skills, trades, crafts and arts are vanquished to industrial “parks” or to the semi-rural.

The rarity of a suburban veggie garden is concealed in a tiny backyard with other “guilty secrets”.

Much has been lost to us, and in quest for quality we seek that thriving bustle of relevant village atmosphere. We brave disjunctive public transport and nightmarish parking problems in the few remaining eclectic suburbs.

Or, we drive many kilometers to remote rural towns where shared respect still lingers for both “place”, and associated, dignified, pleasurable human activity.

In traditional village life, tools and other valued possessions were repaired and maintained. Older people remember the skills and learned from observing them.

In our suburbs such things are more often “consumed” and disposed with, then replaced.

The mysteries of inoperative parts in our gadgets disappear unexplored and unexplained, as has, the associated inspiration for the gadget’s original conception.

The skill of description, the creativity for initial construction and the understanding awareness required for repair and maintenance have disappeared from our locale as well.

The subtle intricacies of effective dialogue can only achieved through familiarity. That familiarity is the keystone of village life.

The facilitators of humanity’s greatest scientific and cultural achievements have had a clear understanding of this and have been at great pains to invoke village atmosphere.

MEVs are about identifying the uniqueness of each place and reawakening the village way of life. Each village differs according to the incumbent community and the natural surroundings.