Como, West Virginia

🇺🇸 It takes a village. That is why we intend to build one in the Appalachian Mountains. It's the perfect location for our new eco-friendly and sustainable textile industry. When you are building something with a huge footprint, like an entire village, you need an area with lots of inexpensive, uninhabited land. Unlike other mountainous regions in the USA, West Virginia meets that criteria. West Virginia also has the perfect climate, and all of the natural resources we require, such as mulberry trees, are native to the region. Of course the Mountain State's proximity to the East Coast, where almost all of our clients are located, is also a big factor in our decision making process. Not to mention our workforce needs, which I believe West Virginia will be able to satisfy better than other states. West Virginia is really the only state that meets all of our criteria, and we believe it is our responsibility to provide West Virginia with new green industries, since we are asking them to give up the coal industry, which many West Virginians depend on for their livelihood. For all of these reasons, I decided to take a trip there two years ago and visit the state for the very first time. It was lovely. I really enjoyed it.

But I still have some misgivings about creating my biggest project to date in a state I have never lived in and know very little about. For instance, I'm a little worried about religious extremists and gay bashing. Are the contractors or government officials in that state going to create issues throughout the construction process because I am gay or simply because I am a woman? Are there going to be anti-gay protests in front of my business after we are up and running? Are white hooded men going to show up in the middle of the night and try to burn it all down after we build it? Are any of these concerns even valid in this day and age or are they just urban myths about rural life from long ago? I am fairly certain they are mostly myths, but there might be some truth in these tales. I remember the images from the rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which is proof that people with that mentality still exist in the USA.¹ So how do I protect my business from these issues if I build it in a state that is not gay friendly and not very progressive? That's what the law is for, but what if the men in the white hoods are the law? By that I mean what if the men in white hoods are the police officers and judges and other members of the government in that locale? How do you protect your business from these people if you build it right in the middle of their turf? I don't know enough about the Mountain State yet or the people living there to really know if this is a valid concern or not.

But it's really not fair for me to paint West Virginia in such a negative light over a rally that happened in another state—all of these concerns I mentioned above may prove to be totally unfounded. Besides the East Coast and West Coast have their political extremists too, mostly from the far-left. I was in New York City during the protests and riots in 2020.² Extremists were looting and destroying businesses regardless of who owned them: white, black, male, female, straight, or gay. The Mayor of New York City had to enact a curfew to protect people from the rioters. Businesses in New York City also have to contend with mafia scum and other malicious groups, not to mention unvetted migrants from countries like Haiti and Mexico, where violence against gays and women are the cultural norms.³ And the New York Police Department is notoriously corrupt⁴ with numerous reports that the NYPD has even been infiltrated by Russian, Chinese and other foreign agents.⁵ You can only blame one person for that, the former police chief, and he has been named by the current Mayor of New York City, a former police captain himself, as the Deputy Mayor of Public Safety,⁶ while the mayor is apparently very eager to turn the city into a mini surveillance state as his "solution" to crime.⁷

All of these issues play a huge part in the USA's rapid decline in international rankings.⁸ With countries like Japan and the Scandinavians ranking much higher than the USA these days at virtually everything but gross domestic product and military spending. It can seem like a tough choice for centrists, who are looking for a culture of peace and harmony, rather than trying to run a business in the middle of a never-ending culture war battleground of political extremists from the left and the right, to even stay in the USA. For those who do, the daily political and nonpolitical violence, crime, and corruption in cities across the USA far outweighs any of the dangers in rural locations.

Nevertheless, we are designing our entire village with cutting-edge security features in mind to protect ourselves from extremists, left or right, and even against local governments that may try to interfere in our business, while still protecting the privacy of our employees and residents. We're creating an eco-friendly, futuristic, hi-tech textile factory town inspired by Toyota's Woven City in Japan.⁹ We believe this new development will also become a tourist attraction, and bring a lot of new revenue to the state, helping small, local businesses not only thrive but evolve.

The fun part of designing and creating a whole new village is that you also get to design a new social experiment. I am spending much of my time studying the government policies of Scandinavian countries, which are the happiest countries in the world.¹⁰ Finland and Norway's education policies are the most interesting, because they consistently rank at the top of the world in education.¹¹ Our little village in WV will adopt many of their education policies, and perhaps become a blueprint for the rest of the Mountain State and possibly the entire USA.

West Virginia has a total state population of less than 2 million people - that is less than many of the cities in the USA. Transforming West Virginia from one of the lowest performing states to one of the top ranking states is feasible. It can be done in a very short time frame with the right strategy, and it's a challenge that we are interested in undertaking. We have a lot of really big ideas for West Virginia and we are super excited to transform the Mountain State into one of the coolest states in the USA. xo

Update: All of our designs our still conceptual, and they may be for some time. It's not unusual for artists, architects, and urban designers to create conceptual designs for large projects which may never be realized until after their death.

Notes:

1. White Nationalist Rally: https://www.foxnews.com/us/charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-blamed-for-3-deaths-dozens-of-injuries
2. 2020 Protests and Riots: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-killed-protests-political-unrest-acled
3. Unvetted Migrants: https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2021/september/allowing-thousands-of-unvetted-migrants-into-us-congressman-says-texas-overrun-by-whats-happening-at-the-border More on Unvetted Migrants: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/nearly-600000-migrants-crossed-border-released-inside-us-rcna68687 Haiti Gangs Use Rape in Spiraling Violence: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/14/haiti-gangs-violence-women-rape Haiti: Gender-Based and LGBT Violence: https://cgrs.uchastings.edu/our-work/haiti-gender-based-violence-and-rule-law Femicide in Mexico: https://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/a32998348/mexico-femicide-crisis-what-to-know/
4. NYPD Corruption: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-nypd-sergeant-pleads-guilty-embezzlement-scheme-0 More on NYPD Corruption: https://nypost.com/2021/03/17/rampant-corruption-in-nypds-internal-affairs-bureau-lawsuit/
5. NYPD Foreign Agent Infiltration: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/01/13/how-foreign-spies-infiltrate-us-police.html More on NYPD Foreign Agent Infiltration: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-arrested-acting-united-states-agent-egyptian-government More on NYPD Foreign Agent Infiltration: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/chinese-prosecutor-ex-nypd-cop-charged-with-stalking-us-residents.html
6. Former NYPD Police Chief is Named Deputy Mayor of Public Safety: https://nypost.com/2022/01/07/mayor-eric-adams-hires-ex-nypd-chief-philip-banks-as-deputy/
7. New York City is Becoming a Mini Surveillance State: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/24/eric-adams-policing-technology-new-york-00075359 More on New York City is Becoming a Mini Surveillance State: https://reason.com/2022/12/30/new-york-city-mayor-eric-adams-wants-you-to-love-big-brother/
8. The USA's Freedom Score is Far Below Most of Our Allies: https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-net/scores
9. Toyota's Woven City in Japan: https://www.woven-city.global/ More on Toyota's Woven City in Japan: https://www.dezeen.com/2020/01/07/big-toyota-woven-city-future-mount-fuji-japan/
10. Happiest Countries in the World: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-countries-in-the-world
11. United Nations Education Index: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index