We chat with Matt Prewitt from RadicalxChange about rethinking communities through intentional design and social technology. The conversation explores various types of intentional communities, including affinity communities, individualist escape communities, and responsible experimenters.

Matt highlights how responsible experimentation can create more sustainable and impactful spaces and argues that mutual vulnerability is essential for building trust and shared identity. This is illustrated by RadicalxChange's use of community currencies like "∈dges" at Edge City’s pop-up villages, an experiment to incentivize local exchange and keeping value circulating in the community.

The chat closes with ideas on how such social technologies can cultivate human flourishing by combining global connectedness with robust, locally supportive systems.

Matt Prewitt: https://x.com/m_t_prewitt

Timour Kosters: https://x.com/timourxyz

RadicalxChange: https://www.radicalxchange.org/

Edge City: https://twitter.com/joinedgecity

Edge City Lanna: https://www.edgecity.live/lanna

(00:00) Introduction (02:14) RadicalxChange’s Mission and Theory of Change (06:45) Georg Simmel and the Power of Secrecy in Communities (14:23) Three Types of New Community Initiatives (24:53) The Importance of Social Technology (33:29) Associative Obligations and Mutual Vulnerability (47:42) Reimagining Money: Community Currencies (59:35) Lessons from Community Currency Experiments (1:11:36) Community Currency Experiment at Edge City (1:21:43) Pop-up Villages and the Future of Intentional Communities (1:24:53) Human Flourishing

In this inaugural episode of the Edge City Podcast, host Timour Kosters sits down with Devon Zuegel and Janine Leger to explore Edge Esmeralda, a pop-up village experiment they organized in June 2024 that brought together 1,300 people who believe the future can be better and are actively working to make it happen.

Devon is an accomplished writer and thinker with a background in software engineering and a deep passion for cities. She’s currently working on Esmeralda, a new town project in Northern California. Janine, Timour’s co-founder at Edge City, previously led the grants program at Gitcoin and was a co-creator of Zuzalu, a pioneering popup city that explored new models of communal living and collaboration.

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction

(02:40) What was Edge Esmeralda?

(05:30) Inspiration and historical context

(10:37) Building community and culture

(17:41) Highlights of Edge Esmeralda

(29:03) Challenges and learnings

(36:54) Looking ahead: future plans

Links

Devon Zuegel: https://x.com/devonzuegel

Janine Leger: https://x.com/JanineLeger

Timour Kosters: https://x.com/timourxyz

Edge Esmeralda Recap: https://edgeesmeralda.com/2024

Esmeralda: https://esmeralda.org/

Edge City: https://twitter.com/joinedgecity

Edge City Lanna: https://www.edgecity.live/lanna