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Click to see the bigger picture! with an empowering, more sustainable lifestyle, where you and your neighbors thrive. Learning is lifelong and readily accessible, and you can mentor each other to acquire empowering skills that enable you to transform your lifestyle and the planet. You feel deep satisfaction from contributing to “The Solution” – of doing your part. Imaging living …

Click to see the bigger picture! We’ve been working with an elementary school in Santa Fe that was threatened with closure as it is old (75 yrs), small (150 capacity), under enrolled (120 or so), and a prime piece of real estate that could be turned into a rental property to help the District’s budget. The Parent Teacher committee (PTC) …

Click to see the bigger picture! We don’t have to have to do the boring, dead-end, painful, global-warming, isolating, suburban sprawl “thing” any longer! If you feel your neighborhood is missing the vitality and connection that you long for, take the leap to a place beyond suburbia where you and your neighbors can live, work, shop, play, age in place …

Multi-Use Options   Single Use House Design Live/work, short commute! Lowers family’s need for car vs. Every adult needs a car to get everywhere Affordable homes with shared kitchens and private baths vs. Single family dwellings Attached greenhouses, with cisterns vs. Food driven long distances Live/Work Walk to work, safer neighborhood with “eyes on the street” vs. “The Commute,” stress, …

Click to see the bigger picture! Village Development of America LLC (ViDA!) is a for-profit development company that facilitates the establishment of sustainable and empowering mixed-used, mixed-income neighborhoods, so that we can all live in vibrant, alive communities, and prosper. First our design team listens for the collective wisdom of your group, gathering a vision of the highest common denominator. …

Click to see the bigger picture!    The 21st Century finds Americans waking to the Reality of our unintended consequences of our car-dependant suburban sprawl lifestyle; over consumption of a dwindling supply of natural resources and cheap oil, a health crises of obesity and diabetes, a spiritual crises and lack of purpose, social isolation and lack of connection, increasingly catastrophic …

Click to see the bigger picture! Village Development of America LLC (ViDA!) is a for-profit development company that facilitates the establishment of sustainable and empowering mixed-used, mixed-income neighborhoods, so that we can all live in vibrant, alive communities, and prosper. Out of the 2002 International Making Cities Livable Conference, held at the Santa Fe Hilton, Ken Hughes, Jan Kindel and …

Click to see the bigger picture! The Sustainable Santa Fe Neighborhoods Group (SFSNG) came up with the idea of giving as a key to a more abundant lifestyle. Currently, infill and new development often give very little to neighborhoods, usually a loss of views and open space, more traffic, and a deadness associated with second homes and single use neighborhoods. …

The SFSNG existed to brainstorm and design a mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhood development. The group also functioned to explore and disseminate new ideas around sustainability and to mutually support our efforts. We met (roughly) monthly, and all ages were welcomed. Previous meetings have focused on visioning around live/work, art studio and craftsman shop space, shared community facilities, neighborhood businesses and amenities. …

PROFIT SHARING COOPERATIVELY OWNED COMMERCIAL In Cotati, California, there is a thirty-home cohousing neighborhood called “FrogSong.” One of their eight buildings is mixed-use, with eight two-story lofts above and leased commercial frontage below. I heard about their commercial space, owned by the homeowner’s association, and got a contact number for Stephen, the property manager, who lives in FrogSong. Stephen graciously …