{ "version": 2, "scope": "Continuous illustrative landscape, not a population chart or calibrated economic model. Historical examples mainly United States. The urban exodus is an editorial design proposal. Disruption disables a shared distribution hub in this simplified scenario; it is not a comparison of measured system reliability.", "sources": [ { "id": "farm-work", "label": "Economic History Association · agricultural workforce, 1800–1900", "url": "https://eh.net/database/u-s-agricultural-workforce1800-1900/" }, { "id": "rural-exodus", "label": "NPS · from farms and villages to Lowell’s mills", "url": "https://www.nps.gov/lowe/learn/historyculture/the-mill-girls-of-lowell.htm" }, { "id": "energy", "label": "EIA · US energy history", "url": "https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=10" }, { "id": "water", "label": "CDC · water treatment and public health", "url": "https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/healthywater/drinking/history.html" }, { "id": "supply", "label": "OECD · supply-chain resilience, 2025", "url": "https://www.oecd.org/en/about/news/press-releases/2025/06/elevated-risks-require-co-ordinated-efforts-to-strengthen-supply-chains-oecd-evidence-shows.html" }, { "id": "wages", "label": "OECD · real wages, 2026", "url": "https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-employment-outlook-2026_7e710f54-en/full-report/from-resilience-to-risk-employment-and-wages-under-pressure_b599ad83.html" }, { "id": "agroecology", "label": "FAO · local knowledge, diversity and agroecology", "url": "https://www.fao.org/agroecology/overview" }, { "id": "microgrids", "label": "DOE · solar, storage and village microgrids", "url": "https://www.energy.gov/cmei/systems/solar-integration-distributed-energy-resources-and-microgrids-basics" }, { "id": "wind", "label": "DOE · small wind and suitable sites", "url": "https://www.energy.gov/cmei/systems/windexchange/small-wind-guidebook" }, { "id": "urbanisation", "label": "UN · the changing geography of population", "url": "https://population.un.org/wup/" } ], "stages": [ { "id": "land", "period": "Around 1800 · land & local life", "title": "Life within reach", "description": "Fields, woodland, animals, water and neighbours surround the household. Food is grown and preserved; materials are gathered, made and repaired. In agrarian societies, farming shapes much of everyday work. Self-reliance is a web of relationships, not a lone household doing everything.", "insight": "Watch the short routes: land, practical knowledge and nearby people meet everyday needs. Harvest failure, unequal land access and hard physical work are part of this history too.", "scene": "A rural house among fields, sheep, forest, a well and neighbouring homes. Short supply routes converge on the household.", "evidence": "Historical reconstructions document the large US agricultural workforce in the nineteenth century. NPS describes farm households combining farming and home production before factory employment. This scene is illustrative, not a universal portrait of life in 1800.", "sources": [ "farm-work", "rural-exodus", "energy" ] }, { "id": "exodus", "period": "1800s–early 1900s · industrialisation", "title": "The rural exodus", "description": "The countryside empties into growing towns and cities. Across the industrial age, millions leave farms and villages as factories and wage work draw people into urban centres. A transformation compressed into a few generations reshapes where people live, what they do and who they depend on.", "insight": "The rural exodus is the turning point. Follow the people crossing the landscape: families, skills and everyday life moving away from the land.", "scene": "Villagers move from fields toward factories and denser housing. The household follows them as longer supply routes emerge.", "evidence": "Lowell’s textile companies recruited women from New England farms and villages from the 1820s. NPS documents cash wages and new independence alongside harsh conditions, wage cuts and labour organising. Experiences and timing differed across societies.", "sources": [ "rural-exodus", "energy", "water", "urbanisation" ] }, { "id": "networks", "period": "1900s–2000s · specialised networks", "title": "A remarkable, intricate ballet", "description": "Factories, utilities, freight and specialised services multiply what society can make and deliver. Fewer households produce their own essentials. Food, water, energy and goods arrive through separate systems that depend on one another — often through the same hubs.", "insight": "Just-in-time delivery — flux tendus — reduces stock held in reserve. When alternatives and buffers are thin, a delayed input can interrupt many other activities.", "scene": "Towers, factories and distribution buildings grow around the household. Food, water, energy and goods travel through a shared distant hub.", "evidence": "EIA documents the shift from wood toward industrial fuels. Water treatment brought major health benefits. OECD’s supply-chain work identifies risks from concentrated dependencies and supports diversification while recognising the benefits of trade.", "sources": [ "energy", "water", "supply" ] }, { "id": "pressure", "period": "Today · efficiency under pressure", "title": "More connected. How much more free?", "description": "What makes a life feel worth living? Meaningful work, time with others, belonging to a place and a say in how we meet our needs. A household can be surrounded by technology yet feel distant from its food, its neighbours and the purpose of its work. When every essential must be bought, wages, rent and debt shape the room left to live.", "insight": "MEZZO asks what the usual measures leave out: the pleasure of growing food, being useful to others, knowing a landscape and having time to care for it. What would we build if those things came first?", "scene": "Most people and the household are concentrated near the city. Long supply routes share a hub; a disruption interrupts those deliveries.", "evidence": "The questions of meaning, belonging and autonomy express MEZZO’s perspective. The historical and economic sources provide context, not a score for a good life. OECD’s 2026 account documents a recent real-wage squeeze in many countries; its supply-chain research examines concentrated dependencies.", "sources": [ "wages", "supply" ] }, { "id": "return", "period": "A direction we can choose · urban exodus", "title": "Back to the land. Forward in possibility.", "description": "People return with new tools and old knowledge. Growing delicious food, caring for animals and woodland, building, repairing and learning together reconnect daily work with a place and a purpose. A home has solar panels and stored energy, access to suitable small wind and a village microgrid — with neighbours ready to lend a hand.", "insight": "More than one way to meet a need. Share electricity, keep food and water reserves, diversify crops and pass on repair skills. Redundancy is also human: someone who can help when you are ill, teach what you do not know or work beside you.", "scene": "People spread back into a village. Solar roofs, a wind turbine, batteries and a shared microgrid connect the homes. Gardens, animals, water storage, trees and helping neighbours offer several local ways to meet everyday needs.", "evidence": "The urban exodus shown here is MEZZO’s proposed direction. FAO describes agroecology combining local knowledge and biodiversity. DOE explains that microgrids can combine solar, wind and storage; backup during an outage requires appropriate controls and islanding capability. Small wind needs a suitable site. The routes illustrate alternatives, not guaranteed power or measured reliability.", "sources": [ "agroecology", "microgrids", "wind" ] } ] }