Scalable Cost of Living

One key tenet of the NewVistas system is that it must sustain a prosperous living standard at a cost that’s scalable to the entire world.

In developed Western society, this means reducing the cost of living to one quarter of today’s average cost.

In more impoverished parts of the world, it means providing more and better jobs and creating a superior economic system so the standard of living can increase to support the NewVistas approach.

In Western society, housing, transportation, and health costs are three of today’s main cost-of-living drivers. Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, over half of average U.S. household expenditures go toward housing and transportation. Counting utilities and other housing-related expenses, housing eats up an average 33% of household income, and transportation takes another 17.5%.¹

Most households must get loans for homes and automobiles, so these expenses include financing costs.

Housing

By standardizing and administering housing at the scale of 75,000–100,000 participants, a community can maximize housing efficiency and minimize costs. In NewVistas, housing is much cheaper because houses are smaller and mass-produced, with no wasted space and more efficient utilities.

All participants pay flat lease rates, with no additional mortgage, insurance, tax, repair, or maintenance costs. These short-term leases cover all utilities, including digital services.

Transportation

Transportation in NewVistas costs less because participants primarily walk or rent small, personal, robotic “mules” to get places.

Participants don’t continually pay for car loans, fuel, insurance, maintenance, and repairs. When they want to leave the community, they occasionally spend money to use conveyances such as public transportation, bicycles, taxi services featuring self-driving pods, or car rentals.

The NewVistas system will eventually include fast, efficient vacuum tubes for continental and even worldwide travel.

Healthcare

Healthcare is another area where a physical NewVistas community reduces cost of living. With increased walking, clean air, and healthy, locally grown food, NewVistas residents generally enjoy better health.

The community’s excess-footprint fees discourage consumption of sugar, flour, red meat, tobacco, alcohol, and recreational drugs, which not only cost money to consume but also contribute to health and social costs for both the individual and the community.

In addition, community businesses make new medical technologies widely available to help people monitor their own health, prevent potential problems, and get earlier, more effective medical intervention when health problems arise.

When it comes to accessing health insurance, NewVistas communities decrease expenses by self-insuring and by enabling consumers to shop wisely for medical services. For more details about the NewVistas approach to healthcare, visit this page.

Amenities & Luxuries

NewVistas further reduces cost of living by providing access to amenities that, in today’s world, cost too much and are unsustainable for most people to own individually. For example, all participants have walkable access to community sports and entertainment, so there’s less need to spend money on home entertainment.

Rather than people owning luxury items like boats and motorhomes that usually sit idle, VistaBizzes rent these luxuries to community members on an occasional basis. With less housing space, most individuals are less inclined to spend money on unnecessary furniture and items to fill the space.

More Disposable Time & Income

By reducing pressure to pay for expensive necessities and unsustainable luxuries, the community enables participants to enjoy more disposable income.

Households avoid personal and consumer debt while increasing their expenditures on goods and services that enhance the quality of life, including healthier food, personal services, entertainment, education, family activities, and cash contributions to charities.

Another benefit of lower cost of living is more time flexibility, so people can do more things and avoid the burnout that comes from doing too much of one thing.

With less pressure to earn income, individuals can vary their careers or choose to reduce their business or contractor activities, allowing more time for things like arts and volunteering.

1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Consumer Expenditures – 2015,” https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cesan.pdf.[↩]