The environment—many savings in personal cost of living because of the environmental goodies incorporated into the plans.

The suburban sprawl eats up bushland and habitats—and the village model obviates the need for everyone to own a 1/4 acre block.

The mental health of people these days—this model plans to house people in close proximity in a village atmosphere with a café, etc., and this allows for residents to at least nod to each other; and a nod, interestingly, counts as one of the six points of contact humans need for continued mental health.

Village support for children who have a sense of belonging rather than simply being dependent on the nuclear family and day care.

The practical advantages of ageing in place—and again the model has answers, a little too complex to list here, but the book gives full details.

Our survival is presently based on money alone—and it may seem too good to be true, but this book explains how it’s achievable and necessary to have the support of a complementary currency. Moreover, as you’ll read, it’s been proven to work already.

The amount of money that banks and super funds take from the average person totals $62 billion per year with a population of 25 million—and that could be avoided by having the ordinary person group together with another three people and put their super in a self-managed super fund that then invests in the model. (The Australian Government allows up to four people to do this and the economics of setting up such a fund make it worthwhile if the fund totals at least $250,000, which can be made up of different amounts from each member if needs be.) Again, details in the book.

Perhaps this should have been the first point, but you’ll read that in this decade the price of housing will likely be out of the reach of the majority of Australians, leaving us to rent from large corporations.