Ethnocracy, Civilization & States of Nature
It was splendid while it lasted.
This post is inspired by Eric Orwoll’s Whites-Only intentional Back To The Land community.
"You want a white nation? Build a white town … it can be done. We're doing it." — Eric Orwoll, co-founder of Return To The Land.
Return To The Land—private membership association
Live and let live, say the founders of a Whites-Only community. Just do it somewhere else.
Exclusive communities are not new. From the Amish, the Unification Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to Hippie Communes, forms of cooperative business relationships, and ‘intentional communities,’ there are numerous examples today, especially in the United States. Since the dawn of civilization, people have developed unique ways of organizing things. Consider the diverse range of religions, myths, governance structures, and belief systems that have existed worldwide throughout history. Our species evolved from a common ancestor long ago. Our stories and ways of life are all derivative of one another. Human groups have been migrating for various reasons, mostly to survive for millions of years. H. sapiens are super survivors that have populated almost every environmental niche across the globe. We are highly cooperative tool makers and masters of our habitats, innovative, inventive, emotional, and imaginative, with many powerful traits that make us distinct from other animals.
I won’t go into it all here; there are tens of thousands of articles, studies, and numerous good books and sources of information about H. sapiens from across domains of inquiry, dating back to stories around fires, after the hunt, and before entering the cave to create art. Studying anthropology, mythology, history, religion, and the natural sciences (natural philosophy) is one of my great pleasures. I am so happy I have the time to do it.
Later, I'll explore comparative legal structures for chartered private communities and emerging governance models in the USA.
A few years ago, I wanted to explore various right-wing and conservative movements, so I started reading on the subject from a fairly broad perspective. I followed and conversed with Eric Orwoll mainly through his YouTube channel and email. I wanted to know what he was striving for and why. I did this out of curiosity. I’m not a journalist. I had to stop taking my worldview for granted, since I had noticed for 30 years or more that things weren’t ‘progressing’ like I thought they should. I needed to make an effort to understand more about what others were passionate about and thought was worth fighting for. I was always doing that to some degree, but for many years, I was too enamoured with my own worldview to empathize with people I thought were terribly misguided, wilfully ignorant, or worse. After a lifetime of being a wishy-washy eco-humanist, or whatever, I had to admit that we were still in the same pickle, and despite living in a relatively peaceful world of potential abundance for all, things were getting more precarious and dangerous. ‘Modern Techno-Industrial, Financialized, Global Capitalism’ is clearly ecocidal, genocidal, and catastrophic. We’re playing out the same dramas with different, more disasterously life-shattering tools.
My research broadened my understanding and perspective, but it didn’t change my way of seeing, feeling, and thinking about our world. I’m still a cosmopolitan. Labels don’t attract me. I have never tried too hard to fit in. I traveled extensively from childhood and have lived and worked in more than a few countries, so I suppose I am more broad-minded than most. If I could formulate and articulate a better way for diverse cultures worldwide to coexist in peace within the limits of biophysical reality and in loving relationships with living systems and one another, I would, but would anyone care? I’ve known more than a few ‘movement makers,’ and none of them are remotely close to overthrowing business as usual. Even if I could prove beyond a reasonable doubt from a theological, metaphysical, empirical, ontological, epistemological, engineering, technical, and scientific perspectives, complete with data, fine-grained intuitive information, art, music, literature, with beautifully satisfying emotional and endocrine affect, there’d probably be lots of people and communities out there ready to kill me for my efforts.
My way is different, but this still sells in a million iterations worldwide.
I've lived and worked with people from diverse backgrounds and walks of life. It's easier to have a relationship with an extremist when they are an expatriate, working abroad. In that context, we are all out of our element and must be more tolerant of those who are unlike ourselves if we want to enjoy the experience and succeed. A friend of mine said to me once in Hong Kong that if we were back in Texas, he'd probably lynch me, but he thought I was a great guy. Yep, I call him a 'friend.' I have a philosophy about friendliness and deep, intimate friendship, but I won't go into that now. Let me just say that it's easier to thrive if you are friendly. (See, the OG of seminar grift, Dale Carnegie.)
Anyway, I love culture, and I'm glad there are many.
Eric Orwoll and his compatriots are doing it; they are building their kind of community. Good for them. I sincerely wish them well. However, I am too cosmopolitan to find Eric’s labored Neoplatonism, combined with Jesus and Western European Traditions, attractive, and I’ve read too much history not to know how this ends. I can imagine that by the campfire, they are strategizing about how to turn ten or fifteen states into a Caucasians-only ‘Western Civilized’ federation that can protect itself from outside influences and live happily ever after, according to sets of values rooted in European culture, however ill-defined Euroculture may be. They might want to read more European history. The concept of Western Civilization didn’t catch on for a long time. Europe has been at war for almost all of its recorded history, spanning thousands of years. As cheap energy becomes more scarce, how do you think things might look in a Balkanized USA?
No Blacks, No Gays: A 'White Only' Community Has Been Built In Arkansas
* I’ve pasted an article below to give you some context surrounding the subject. Follow the hyperlinks in the text for more information.
An Arkansas group’s effort to build a white ethnostate forms part of a wider US movement inspired by white supremacy
Published: September 5, 2025, 2.48 pm CEST
In October 2023, a group calling itself Return to the Land established its first “Whites only community” in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. They followed that with a second enclave nearby in 2025.
The group, which describes itself as a “private membership association” that helps groups form “European heritage communities,” plans to build four more sites, including another location in the Ozarks and two in Appalachia.
Return to the Land believes that by calling themselves a private membership association they can create a white ethnostate – a type of state in which residence is limited to white people – and legally exclude people based on race, religion and sexual orientation.
If you read the words of Eric Orwoll, the group’s co-founder, its mission is clear: “You want a white nation? Build a white town … it can be done. We’re doing it.”
As a scholar of right-wing extremism, I have examined several groups calling for a white homeland in America. The creation of a white ethnostate is often seen as an ultimate goal of such white nationalism, which argues that white people form part of a genetically and culturally superior race deserving of protection and preservation. While Return to the Land doesn’t identify as white nationalists, their statements often align with the ideology.
Proponents of the plan argued that these states were already majority white and contained large tracts of undeveloped land, making the territory ideal for white-only settlement. High-profile extremists of the time such as Richard Butler, Robert Mathews and David Lane supported the plan.
Still today, groups such as the Northwest Front, a white nationalist group founded in 2009 and located in the Pacific Northwest, continue to promote variations of this idea.
While the Pacific Northwest has a long history with right-wing extremist organizing, the proponents of whites-only communities have also targeted areas of the Northeast as possible locations for a white ethnostate.
In 2018, for example, Tom Kawczynski, town manager of Jackman, Maine, was fired when his views came to light, including views that have been characterized as “pro-white.”
More recently, in 2023, the People’s Initiative of New England, a splinter group of the neo-Nazi organization National Socialist Club-131, introduced themselves on the online platform Substack. There, the group laid out its goal of establishing the six states of New England – Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont – as white-only.
The goal of gaining control of multiple states is unrealistic, of course, at least peacefully. Therefore, a popular alternative, along the lines of Return to the Land’s actions, is to establish smaller all-white communities.
In 2013, media outlets reported that neo-Nazi Craig Cobb was buying land in the small town of Leith, North Dakota, to build a white nationalist community. The town rallied to oppose this attempt.
Later that year, Cobb was charged with seven felonies related to confronting residents with a gun. He was sentenced to probation for four years and deeded the property back to the town in 2014.
And in 2021, leaked Telegram chats revealed that Christopher Pohlhaus, a former U.S. Marine and founder of the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, wanted to establish a whites-only community in Springfield, Maine. Pohlhaus was developing a military training facility as part of these efforts when media coverage led him to sell the property and move out of state.
The danger of a white ethnostate
These various attempts to develop a white ethnostate are not simply individual, isolated cases. They form part of a larger movement toward achieving white nationalism.
A major part of white nationalism today is focused on anti-immigrant hatred. That has spurred major acts of extreme violence such as the 2019 murders of 23 people in El Paso, Texas, the majority of whom were Hispanic.
White ethnostates, big and small
One of the best-known plans for a white ethnostate is the Northwest Imperative, popularized by white nationalists during the 1970s and ’80s. The plan involved certain citizens taking 10% of the United States – the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana – and excluding all nonwhite people from living there.
The “great replacement theory,” a conspiracy theory popular among white nationalists, argues that various policies are leading to the destruction of the white race. This theory inspired the 2022 mass killing of 10 Black Americans in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
The shooter selected the supermarket because of its location in a predominantly Black neighborhood and left behind a white supremacy manifesto.
Communities across the U.S. have successfully resisted the establishment of white ethnostates.
The residents of Leith, North Dakota, did this by creating a website informing people about what was happening in their community. Public outcry also met Pohlhaus in Maine.
As for Return to the Land, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said in July 2025 that his office is reviewing the group’s actions and whether they violate the law.
“Racism has no place in a free society,” he said, “but from a legal perspective, we have not seen anything that would indicate any state or federal laws have been broken.”
People really work hard to protect their wilful ignorance, blind spots, and biases. You can have had a wonderful upbringing, received the finest education, and earned a Ph.D., and still be stuck in erroneous ways of thinking when attempting to understand a wider, more grounded interpretation of how the world works. The most intelligent people are the most adept at finding justifications for all manner of terrible ideas and ventures.
It takes time, focus, courage, and love to become wise.
Eric Orwoll and his partners appear to be rigorous thinkers. Eric seems like an earnest, inspired, eloquent leader. For now, it appears that they are acting lawfully. The ‘Trad’ thing is still ill-informed, in my opinion, because their vision is too narrow.
How are their intentional communities going to tackle the polycrisis, global heating, weapons of mass destruction, the seven deadly sins, dark tetrad oligarchs, ecocide, genocide, War, and Peace? People may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in them. If they want to take over, they’ll have to have it all figured out. And when you pick up your cross, sacrifices are made.
Another version of these kinds of musings I’m familiar with is Jim Rutt’s Game B network. Although their approaches are different in many ways, I’d like to see Jim and Eric have a conversation.
It’s fascinating to me how fragile institutions like the United Nations, the European Union, the International Criminal Court, and other global institutions are. People think they can live off-grid in the modern techno-industrial world and forget about how the world works. Some people like ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’ and some people hate it. People in the civilized world have always been willing to kill each other over the devilish details. It’s beyond me why some people hate Greta Thunberg, an activist who’s only doing what she believes is right and not hurting anyone.
It’s interesting to note that United Federation of Planets (UFP), a fictional world and much loved story, requires galactic and intergalactic enemies.
We come in peace, we do not interfear or cause harm. Unfortunately, Klingons, The Borg, Romulans, Cardassians, Xindi, and The Emerald Chain are full of very bad people who don’t want to pay by the rules of United Federation of Planets. Hense, we have Star Ships armed with Transphasic Torpedoes, Thalaron Radiation, Krenim Temporal Weapon, Phaser Arrays & Pulse Phasers, Nanoprobe Assimilation, The Doomsday Machine, Energy Dissipators, Shield Tunneling and the like. It’s hard to imagine an intelligent technological species that isn’t fighting for controll over the Universe with its energy sources and materials that can be transformed into our ‘cultural machine,’ not yours.
The United States of America is in many ways a fiction that requires real enemies; Uncle Sam’s business model is predicated on maintaining global conflict.
How can we persuade people to accept a global legal system that can accommodate a multipolar world, comprising carefully defined and structured ethno-cultural states, which can coexist and trade in peace within biophysical limits to growth? Forgive me, but RUFing kidding me?
Currently, our leaders are severely lacking in faith, trust, intellect, and imagination, and as a result, they are yearning for War. When the big Players’ status is threatened, their only way to hang on to their power is to hurl the plebs, proles, and untouchables into battle, destroy everything, so they can profit from rebuilding the world. It’s a really F’ed up debt jubilee. This is their way of achieving a ‘reset.’ As we accelerate MTI civilization, this way of doing business will eventually self-destruct as it gradually and painfully becomes unsustainable.
Let’s try it again. Shall we? FFS!
People can come up with all sorts of good reasons to believe almost anything. Small communities tend to cohere better, but most of these communal experiments fail within the context of modern techno-industrial civilization.
The crisis we face as a species transcends race and other divisions. We can come together and solve them, or continue business as usual and face a horrific reset. Hanging out in the back woods with your comrades online, yearning for a Fourth Reich, won’t help one bit.
Sadly, after we have utterly destroyed our habitat, we may reach a level of population where it’s much harder to encounter anyone but ‘your kin.’ You won’t be able to imagine what life is like for people across the valley, much less in Iberia.
The TESCREAL and SINGULARITY Ayn Randian, Zero to One, Warfighter individuals may establish their crypto-intentional-decentralized communities with proprietary tokens and closed systems of reserved technology, competing among themselves to score points for doing some such vandalism still available to their class. Still, ultimately, the biophysical laws of nature will determine the rules and the constitution of life on Earth, as well as the long-term viability of their supercomputer farms. In the end, I’d bet my life they won’t be living on their own planets in a hundred years after achieving immortality in a fabricated AGSI machine of some sort. The whole thing is a grift, much like Elon convincing people that old technologies like electric cars and rockets were innovative due to the vaporware.
Biophysical Reality in the context of Natural Living Systems refers to the non-negotiable, fundamental constraints and possibilities imposed by the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology that govern Earth’s natural environment and, by extension, all life within it.
In simpler terms, it is the planet’s “operating manual” that sets the ultimate limits for all biological activity.
For a natural living system (from a single cell to a global ecosystem), the Biophysical Reality includes:
Fixed Limits and Capacities: The objective, quantifiable boundaries of Earth’s systems, often conceptualized as Planetary Boundaries. Examples include:
The maximum rate at which the atmosphere can absorb carbon dioxide.
The finite availability of resources, such as freshwater and phosphorus.
The rate at which productive soil can naturally regenerate.
Laws of Thermodynamics: These govern the energy and material flows essential for life. Living systems are open, non-equilibrium thermodynamic systems that must continuously do work (metabolism) to maintain their highly organized structure and prevent an increase in internal entropy, as per the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Biogeochemical Cycles: The core processes (carbon, nitrogen, water, phosphorus cycles) that living systems rely on and actively shape. The stability and integrity of these cycles are part of the Reality that determines the planet’s habitability.
Interplay of Biotic and Abiotic Factors: The dynamic interaction between the biological world (the biosphere) and the physical world (geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere), forming complex, interdependent biophysical systems.
Why is life the way it is? Bacteria evolved into complex life just once in four billion years of life on earth-and all complex life shares many strange properties, from sex to ageing and death. If life evolved on other planets, would it be the same or completely different?
In The Vital Question, Nick Lane radically reframes evolutionary history, putting forward a cogent solution to conundrums that have troubled scientists for decades. The answer, he argues, lies in energy: how all life on Earth lives off a voltage with the strength of a bolt of lightning. In unravelling these scientific enigmas, making sense of life's quirks, Lane's explanation provides a solution to life's vital questions: why are we as we are, and why are we here at all?
This is ground-breaking science in an accessible form, in the tradition of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel.
How well will the Whites-only community be able to trade with those other communities that don’t adhere to their values? Will various identitarian communities evolve into a kumbaya patchwork of isolated echo-ethno-communities using proprietary systems to trade trinkets and squash? The Global system and infrastructure upon which these communities depend won’t disappear, and they will still have to rely on the United States for security and various types of infrastructure. They will be taxpayers, citizens. WOKE, LGBTQ+, Immigrants, etc., won’t disappear because you know better at the ranch. You need all sorts of people to make Global-MTI civilization go around. The United States would Balkanize rapidly if it weren’t in control of vast global resources. Sooner or later, the other tribe will want to take your shit, or you will want to take the other tribes shit. History rhymes. We all know what happens next.
Still, we can learn something from the Return to the Land efforts. The future might look more like that intentional community in Arkensaw than New York City.
When the global population is 50 million, we can have all the blood and soil our little tribes, settlements, and bands can handle, whatever is left after we’ve crashed.
Good White Western European Neoplatonic Christians can pray that they will still have animals to hunt after global heating, ecocide, and the sixth extinction follows its unstoppable course. They can pray that there will be enough wood to burn to keep all the intentional communities in the Balkanized Federations of North America warm in the winter, so there will always be peace. God or the Replicator will provide. They can pray that the TESCREAL folks upriver don’t pollute their fish stock with toxic waste from their server farms. They can pray that climate change isn’t real, the world is flat, and their Lord and Savior is coming for them during their lifetimes. All will be well; stay focused on our project here and now. Keep your heads down, don’t look up, unless it’s to acknowledge that God is Great.
I have a secret intentional community. I'll share the concept with you now.
NAVEL GAZING FARMS
Just Pretend The Rest Of The World And Biophysical Laws Of Nature Do Not Exist, And Live According To Your Perfect Philosophy
I do declare, the Disunited States of New Miracles is an exotic country.
Comparative Legal Structures for Chartered Private Communities and Emerging Governance Models in the USA
I am familiar with some permaculture communities in Portugal. They are focused on building their business and lifestyles, but without the racial elements and all the mythological weight of identitarianism. The people I know have a balanced, reality-based, science-driven, nature-focused, and loving approach to organizing their communities and governance. These communities want to live the good life; it’s as simple as that.
I’ve conducted research using Web resources and consulted with my LLM librarian, and have vetted and edited the information below. I am not a professional advisor, so this information should be considered a basic introduction. As always, you should conduct your own research and consult with a lawyer, accountant, and other experts familiar with the kinds of strategic structures you are interested in developing in your location.
The Chartered Private Community Defined (The CID Model)
Conceptual Framework and the Meaning of “Chartered” in the US Context
A private community in the United States is fundamentally a residential association or proprietary organization designed to provide services and governance, typically financed by payments from its members rather than broad public taxation. Historically, private communities emerged as early as the mid-19th century, such as Lucas Place in St. Louis, Missouri. Today, these communities are widespread, with an estimated 60 million people residing in approximately 300,000 such organizations across the nation.
The designation “chartered” in this context does not generally refer to a special grant of sovereignty by a federal or municipal government, unlike a formal municipal charter. Instead, it signifies that the private entity is a Common Interest Development (CID), legally established by adhering to state-specific corporate registration requirements and enabling real estate statutes. CIDs are a general legal term for property ownership involving “common areas”—such as private roads, pools, or tennis courts—and they encompass various forms, including condominiums, cooperatives, and homeowner associations (HOAs).
A key category of CID is the Planned Unit Development (PUD). In a PUD, homeowners typically own their individual lot and the improvements situated on it, while the association (the HOA) maintains the common areas. Owners possess appurtenant rights, usually in the form of easements, that grant them beneficial use and enjoyment of these common areas. The legal framework for creating and governing CIDs is rooted in state legislation, such as the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA)—or state-specific variants like the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act in California or the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act (CCIOA)—which dictates the necessary procedures for formation, management, and termination.
The formation of a private community entails a dual regulatory framework, comprising corporate law and real estate law. The entity requires legal recognition as a “fictitious person” to hold assets, enter contracts, and manage legal affairs—a function achieved through incorporation. Simultaneously, for the rules and financial obligations to bind the land and all future purchasers indefinitely, the property must be submitted to the state’s common interest ownership act through a recorded Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs). The legally established status, derived from the interplay of corporate structure and real estate servitude that runs with the land, fundamentally constitutes the community’s legal charter.
Corporate Structure: The Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Model
The standard foundational legal framework for HOAs and CIDs across the United States is the Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporation. Incorporation is essential, as it establishes the association as a distinct legal person, which, critically, extends personal liability protection to its members.
The process begins with the filing of Articles of Incorporation with the state’s Secretary of State. The developer’s attorney prepares these articles and must include mandatory components such as the corporation’s legal name, its purpose, the principal place of business, and the identity of the registered agent who accepts service of process. In states like Florida, the name must explicitly include a designation such as “Corporation,” “Incorporated,” or an abbreviation thereof.
The power center of the chartered community is the Board of Directors or Governors, elected by the homeowners. This Board holds the legal authority to enforce the rules, manage the community’s finances, impose assessments and fines, and initiate litigation as necessary. Given this broad authority over property and financial matters, state laws—as codified in corporate and CID statutes—impose the highest standard of legal responsibility on board members: the fiduciary duty.
Fiduciary duties generally encompass the Duty of Care and the Duty of Loyalty. The duty of care requires directors to act diligently, in good faith, and to make well-informed decisions based on available facts, legal advice, and community input. The duty of loyalty mandates that directors act solely in the best interest of the entire community, conserving and protecting the association’s assets, and avoiding self-dealing or conflicts of interest that could benefit themselves, their family, or friends at the association’s expense.
A significant legal nuance arises during the period when the developer still controls the association. Specific case law and state statutes, such as those found in Colorado, impose heightened fiduciary standards on developer-appointed board members during this transition. This practice acknowledges the inherent conflict between a developer’s profit objective and the association’s long-term operational needs. By requiring developer-appointed directors to owe fiduciary duties directly to the association and its members, the legal structure prevents the developer from using the Board solely to advance private interests, thus protecting the long-term stability and interests of the community before control is formally transferred to the resident owners. A clear, documented transition plan is therefore a critical component of the initial community chartering process.
The Hierarchy of Governing Documents
A CID operates under a rigid legal hierarchy where documents at lower levels must yield to those at higher levels, ensuring statutory compliance and clear property rights.
The foundation of governance rests upon Federal and State Laws and Statutes. This includes federal requirements, such as the Fair Employment and Housing Act (prohibiting discrimination), and state CID acts, which govern board elections, financial disclosures, maintenance responsibilities, and dispute resolution procedures. State law establishes the fundamental legal standards for all association operations, and no internal community rule can supersede these overriding laws.
Next in precedence are the Recorded Documents, specifically the Plat Map and the Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs). These documents are recorded with the county recorder’s office and bind the land itself. The CC&Rs establish the core identity and financial structure of the development, taking precedence over the association’s internal operational rules and regulations.
Following the CC&Rs, the Articles of Incorporation establish the corporate status and legal name of the entity, providing the legal personhood necessary for operation. The Bylaws outline the internal mechanics of association decision-making and management, including meeting protocols, voting procedures, and the structure of the Board of Directors. Finally, Rules and Regulations sit at the bottom of the hierarchy. These provide specific guidelines for daily life, such as parking restrictions, pet policies, or use of common areas. These rules are typically the most flexible, as they are often created and amended by the Board alone, but they must always remain consistent with the CC&Rs and Bylaws.
Drafting the Foundation: CC&Rs and Bylaws
The foundational legal documents of a chartered community are drafted to serve complementary functions: the CC&Rs establish the permanent property rights and restrictions (the community’s constitution), while the Bylaws establish the operational structure (the administrative rules).
The Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs)
The CC&Rs are the most important legal instrument for property governance. They are recorded with the county and create a legal servitude that runs with the land, meaning every purchaser is bound by the restrictions and obligations upon taking title to the property.
The Declaration defines the development’s identity and sets forth the name of the association, a legal description of the real estate, and the required restrictions on the use or enjoyment of the property. Unlike Bylaws, which focus on corporate mechanics, CC&Rs address overarching matters related to the property itself, including enforcement powers, insurance duties, maintenance obligations, and assessment obligations.
The restrictions outlined in the CC&Rs are often subject to a strong presumption of validity because homeowners purchase the property with prior knowledge and acceptance of these binding limitations. However, invalid provisions, such as those that violate state law or federal acts like the Fair Housing Act, can be challenged in court.
Bylaws: Operationalizing the Community
The Bylaws are the organizational chart and administrative procedures manual for the chartered community. While the CC&Rs dictate
what owners must or must not do with their property, the Bylaws define how the association operates internally. The Board or membership adopts them and governs the association’s corporate affairs.
Mandatory content within the Bylaws typically includes:
Governance Structure: Defines the number of board members, their terms, and the methods for their nomination and election. It also outlines the duties and responsibilities of the officers.
Meetings and Voting: Specifies the frequency of Board and general membership meetings, along with detailed procedures for notice, conduct, and quorum requirements. They must also define membership voting rights, which may include guidelines for proxy collection and electronic voting.
Financial Management: Sets forth procedures for dues management, budgeting, and reserve fund maintenance.
Records and Disclosure: Mandates association record-keeping standards and defines unit owner access rights to corporate records, minutes, and financial disclosures.
The operational relationship between the core documents establishes the limit of the Board’s legislative authority. The CC&Rs grant the foundational legal right to govern and impose fundamental restrictions, which are difficult to change (requiring a supermajority vote of the members). The Bylaws and the Rules and Regulations, by contrast, are easier to amend, often requiring only a simple membership vote or even just a board vote. This legal architecture ensures that fundamental restrictions defining the physical and financial identity of the community—such as architectural standards or assessment liability—are protected from arbitrary changes. In contrast, day-to-day logistics (e.g., meeting frequency or pet application processes) can be managed with the necessary flexibility.
Cooperative and Intentional Community Structures
Beyond the standard HOA/CID model, founders seeking specific goals—such as long-term affordability, intense shared values, or collective stewardship—often utilize alternative legal structures, including cooperatives and land trusts.
The Cooperative Housing Model (Co-op)
Cooperative housing communities (Co-ops) share the goal of managing common areas and enforcing rules similar to those of HOAs, but their ownership structure is fundamentally different.
In a condominium or PUD, the individual owner holds the deed to their unit or lot. In a cooperative, a single corporate entity or trust holds the title to the entire property (the land and all structures). Members do not own their unit in fee simple; instead, they own shares in the corporation or trust. This shareholding grants them the right to occupy a specific unit through a legally binding
Proprietary Lease Agreement. The proprietary Lease, along with the certificate of incorporation and bylaws, defines the rights and obligations of the member and the corporation. Because the corporation owns all the real estate, the Co-op board typically assumes a broader scope of maintenance and management responsibilities compared to an HOA board.
A specific application of this structure is the Limited Equity Cooperative (LEC). LECs are explicitly designed to promote and maintain long-term affordability. They achieve this by implementing price restrictions built into the resale formula. When a member sells their ownership share, the resale price is restricted by a predetermined formula that limits the equity gain, often balancing personal wealth creation (allowing for inflation and documented improvements) with the cooperative’s mission to keep the unit affordable for the next low- or moderate-income buyer.
Community Land Trusts (CLTs) and Permanent Affordability
Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are nonprofit organizations that utilize a split-ownership model to ensure permanent affordability of housing and community control. CLTs are nonprofit organizations governed by a balanced tripartite board consisting of CLT residents, broader community residents, and public representatives.
The core mechanism of the CLT structure is the separation of land ownership from home ownership. The CLT acquires land through purchase or donation—often utilizing public and private investment funds—and retains title to the land in perpetuity, effectively removing it from the speculative market. The resident purchases only the house (the improvements) situated on the land. The CLT then grants the homeowner a low-cost, long-term (e.g., 99-year), renewable Ground Lease for the land beneath the home.
The Ground Lease functions as the critical governing instrument. It imposes strict rules, most importantly a restricted resale formula. This formula caps the profit the homeowner can realize upon selling the home, thus ensuring that the house remains affordable for succeeding generations of lower-income families. While this limits speculative gain, it still allows homeowners to build equity and provides stability, as well as opportunities for generational wealth transfer.
The CLT structure is viewed as a robust mechanism for enforcing long-term policy, offering greater resilience against policy drift compared to passive deed restrictions. Unlike traditional HOA covenants, which, while running with the land, may be challenged or become difficult to enforce over decades as underlying property values increase dramatically, the CLT maintains an active, perpetual ownership interest in the fundamental asset (the land). The Ground Lease serves as a dynamic, contractual, and immediately enforceable tool, enabling the nonprofit CLT to regulate improvements, ensure maintenance standards, and uphold the restrictive resale formula, thereby ensuring the lasting benefit of public resources invested in achieving the affordability goal.
Other Intentional Community Legal Entities
Intentional Communities (ICs) and cooperative agricultural properties may employ a variety of legal structures tailored to liability, shared asset management, and philosophical alignment.
One common approach is Tenancy in Common (TIC), where multiple individuals own undivided fractional interests in a single property. Because a TIC arrangement alone does not define governance or use, this structure often requires a supplemental, detailed Co-Ownership Agreement to stipulate rules for maintenance, shared use, management, and dispute resolution.
For groups that emphasize unique shared values and seek to separate themselves from specific public regulations, the Private Membership Association (PMA) is sometimes utilized. PMAs are complex to establish legally but aim to create a private domain where transactions and relationships among members may not be fully subject to laws that apply strictly to the “public” realm.
Furthermore, property may be held in a Contractual Trust (or Land Trust) where Ownership is transferred to a trustee (often a nonprofit) to administer the land for specific purposes, such as conservation or shared communal use. Less complex arrangements include
Single-Entity Ownership + Lease, where one owner or entity holds the property title but enters into leases with co-tenants, granting the lessees specified powers, such as joint decision-making on tenant selection.
Part IV: The Future of Governance: Chartered Crypto Cities and DAOs
The concept of a “chartered crypto city” involves utilizing blockchain technology and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) to govern real estate assets and community operations, moving governance from an elected human board to an automated, transparent, and token-based system.
The Regulatory Imperative: Why DAOs Need Legal Wrappers
In the United States, DAOs currently operate without a unified federal regulatory framework for digital assets, resulting in significant legal ambiguity regarding jurisdiction, token security classification, taxation, and contract enforcement.
The primary risk faced by members of an “unwrapped” DAO is personal unlimited liability. Without a recognized legal entity, DAO members risk being treated legally as partners in a general partnership, making them personally liable for the organization’s debts, contractual failures, or lawsuits (e.g., from property accidents or non-compliance).
Moreover, a decentralized, unincorporated DAO cannot efficiently transact in the physical world. It lacks the separate legal personality required to hold formal title to real property, enter into binding legal contracts, or open traditional bank accounts. Therefore, for a crypto city to engage in real estate development, Ownership, or management within the US legal system, it must utilize a legal wrapper—an existing, jurisdictionally recognized corporate form (such as an LLC or Trust)—to acquire legal recognition, limit personal liability, and facilitate asset ownership.
Case Study: The Wyoming DAO LLC Model
Wyoming has established itself as the most explicit US jurisdiction for incorporating a DAO, offering a specialized form of Limited Liability Company (LLC) under the Wyoming DAO Act. This statutory model provides the most straightforward path for a “chartered” crypto community to achieve legitimacy while still operating algorithmically.
To form a DAO LLC, the Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State must contain specific disclosures that acknowledge the decentralized nature of the management:
A clear statement that the entity is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization.
A publicly available identifier for any smart contract used directly to manage or operate the DAO.
A statement establishing the specific method by which the DAO shall be managed by its members, explicitly detailing the extent to which that management will be conducted algorithmically.
The entity’s name must include a statutory designation such as “DAO,” “LAO,” or “DAO LLC”.
This structure enables the DAO LLC to hold title to real property legally, similar to a standard corporate entity. Tokenized real estate platforms, for example, leverage this corporate structure by holding fractional Ownership in US properties within a legal entity, where tokens represent shares in that entity.
The establishment of a legal wrapper, such as the Wyoming DAO LLC, necessitates a critical legal “translation layer.” This layer addresses how the outcome of an on-chain, decentralized, token-based vote (the algorithmic decision) is formally recognized as the decision of the legal corporate entity when dealing with physical assets or municipal compliance. Suppose the DAO votes to acquire a parcel of land. In that case, the Operating Agreement (OA) must explicitly link the algorithmic output to the LLC’s management mandate, legally authorizing a specific human agent (manager or officer) to execute the property deed on behalf of the LLC. This mechanism ensures that decentralized consensus can be lawfully executed in the centralized, real-world DAO Governance Documents: The Algorithmic Manifesto.
While the Articles of Incorporation establish the corporate entity, the Operating Agreement (OA) serves as the DAO’s operational governance manifesto, much like the Bylaws and CC&Rs of an HOA, but designed to accommodate smart contract governance.
The OA must detail the internal mechanisms of the DAO, defining the relationship between token holders (members) and the algorithmic or manager-run management structure.
Outline of DAO Operating Agreement/Manifesto (Focusing on Real Estate)
Definitions and Scope: Defining key concepts like “Token Holder,” “Governance Token,” “Smart Contract Identifier,” and the scope of real estate holdings and community services.
Management Delegation: Explicit statement detailing the management structure—whether member-managed algorithmically or manager-managed, subject to token holder votes.
Voting Mechanisms (The Algorithmic Mandate): Detailed rules governing proposal submission, quorum requirements (often measured by token weight), and the specific smart contract function that translates voting results into binding directives for the LLC.
Tokenization and Membership Rights: Defines the nature of the governance token (addressing securities compliance issues), voting weights, and transfer restrictions.
Asset Management and Legal Execution: Procedures for real estate acquisition, maintenance, and disposal, explicitly linking on-chain governance decisions to the required execution of physical legal documents (deeds, contracts) by designated, legally empowered human managers.
Conflict Resolution: Mechanisms for addressing code flaws, smart contract disputes, and conflicts between members, combining on-chain resolution mechanisms with traditional legal arbitration provisions.
In this nascent legal framework, the hierarchy of governing documents undergoes a shift. The legal precedence is generally established as Law > Operating Agreement (OA) > Smart Contract Code. This ordering is vital because it establishes that the formal legal documents (the OA and state statute) supersede the automated code in the event of conflict, malfunction, or illegality. The regulatory wrapper exists precisely to ensure that the DAO remains jurisdictionally compliant, forcing the algorithmic management layer to operate within the constraints of US corporate and property law.
Alright, folks, enough already. First, you complexify everything to simplify everything, and then things crash and everything simplifies back to a Hobbesian State of Nature.
The formation of a private community in the USA, whether a traditional residential development or an emerging digitally governed system, requires navigating specialized state-level corporate and real estate laws to acquire a formal legal charter.
It’s a long road to establishing your own etho federation, complete with all the bells and whistles of a governance structure, legal system, security apparatus, and more. You want out? You still have to deal with State and Federal bureaucracies, politics, the government, and people you don’t like and who don’t like you. If you think ‘your kind’ will be kinder to you, I suggest you are more than naive, and should hit the history books.
Traditional private communities (CIDs) are chartered through a standardized, dual mechanism: incorporation as a state-governed Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporation, combined with the recording of a Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs) that runs with the land. The power of these entities rests on a strict hierarchy of governing documents, wherein the CC&Rs impose permanent property restrictions and financial servitudes, while the Bylaws regulate the Board’s operational mechanics. Developers and board members must recognize the severe legal duties imposed upon them, particularly the heightened fiduciary standards during the community transition phase, to avoid personal liability.
For intentional communities focusing on policy goals like permanent affordability, structures like Limited Equity Cooperatives (LECs) and Community Land Trusts (CLTs) utilize distinct legal instruments—proprietary leases and long-term ground leases, respectively—to contractually limit equity appreciation. The CLT model’s retention of perpetual land ownership offers an enforcement mechanism superior to traditional passive covenants for ensuring long-term policy adherence.
For emerging models like “chartered crypto cities,” formal legal recognition necessitates the use of a traditional US corporate entity—a legal wrapper—such as the Wyoming DAO LLC. The primary legal challenge is bridging the gap between decentralized algorithmic decisions and the centralized, physical requirements of real estate and contract law. Founders must draft Operating Agreements that explicitly delegate execution authority to human managers upon the completion of a verifiable on-chain vote, ensuring that the algorithmic mandate can be lawfully translated into enforceable actions regarding property title and external compliance. This integration is critical to obtaining the necessary liability protection and legal recognition required for any real property governance structure in the United States.
And when you’ve done all that, and are starting to get along well with your people, you might still have to summon your generals from far and wide to harangue them about how soft and ineffectual they are in dealing with the communities on the other side of the mountain range. And let’s not forget that the polycrisis will continue getting worse, and ecocide will accelerate as growth continues unabated and the world heats up. H. sapiens won’t solve these problems by deciding that the messy world is something to escape from.
I’m praying that wave after wave of floatillas sail with their humanitarian aid to the shores of Israel until our cowardly, arrogant, and venal leaders listen to the people back at the ranch, at the schools, and in towns and cities.
And health, justice, welfare, and the good life for all, and the living systems they depend on and evolved from and exist within.
A view from a anchorage near Turkey. The world is beautiful.
