Human settlements arranged as networks of regenerative villages with nature-based infrastructure ecosystems

ABSTRACT Civil infrastructures have historically been developed as highly centralised, extensive, and complicated systems. Electricity, water, buildings, transport networks, and communication systems are each delivered separately. Recent advancements in the development of energy micro-grids have opened the possibility of localised, intensive, and complex, nature-based infrastructure ecosystems. Designed at the scale of a village, such systems would integrate different types of infrastructure. For example, an energy micro-grid can provide electricity to buildings, power electric vehicles and cycle water through a precinct. In turn, the water system can store energy and irrigate a diverse, regenerative food system. Providing housing close to food production reduces transport costs, supply chain losses and packaging. The significant land area required for each village would result in a dispersal of populations, creating networks of villages, each with integrated infrastructure ecosystems. This challenges the orthodoxy in town planning and regional economics that accepts ever-increasing urbanisation. To synthesise ideas developed in different disciplines we adopt the epistemology of consilience. That is, a conclusion can be confirmed when different disciplines arrive at that same position. We show that literature in town planning, regional economics, ecological economics, and public health all support the argument for dispersal reached through civil engineering systems.