Our world is changing rapidly, and some of the most exciting changes in the spaces in which we live together. There are some highly ambitious groups seeking to completely redefine how we live. This is extremely exciting because changing such a basic element of our society will have more far-reaching implications than most any other change.

Check out these awesome examples of community initiatives:

1) Transition Initiative

A Transition Initiative (TI) is “a place where there’s a community-led process that helps that town/village/city/neighborhood become stronger and happier.”

What starts as a few people working together grows into an entire town collaborating on beautifying the town, throwing events, sharing/exchanging goods and services, creating a local currency, etc.

TI is normal people taking on the task of what governments should be doing.

If you don’t want to go to the extreme of creating your own community from scratch, this is a fantastic way of transforming your current surroundings. The TI website provides mountains of material explaining how to go about starting an initiative in your town, step-by-step.

TI currently has 421 official initiatives & 1000+ registered initiatives in over 34 countries.

2) Charter Cities

A charter city is created within the borders of one country, but with rules and regulations completely independent of that country.

This effectively returns all power to the people by forcing charter city governments to compete for residents by offering the most popular set of rules.

The idea of Charter Cities was thought up by Paul Romer and presented in a TED talk in 2007. He was later contacted by a group of Hondurans who wanted to present the idea to their government. The initiative was accepted in a landslide vote and construction is currently underway.

3) The Valhalla Movement

Valhalla is “a movement hell-bent on making sustainable communal living mainstream. Together we can create the beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible.”

Valhalla seeks to create a giant network of sustainable communities. Their primary goal is to remove the ‘hippie’ stigma from communal sustainable living, and present it as a viable lifestyle option.

Valhalla is building their first community in Montreal, Canada. They’re filming and documenting every step of the process so others can easily duplicate their efforts elsewhere.

Their construction plans center around Earthships, 100% sustainable buildings made of recycled tires and bottles. Earthships provide their own food from indoor greenhouses, their own water through rain-catching and their own energy through solar panels. They do this all without sacrificing any modern amenities — they’re just extremely efficient.

With Earthships, you can wake up every day with all of your basic needs met. The day is completely yours.

4) Finca Bellavista

A sustainable tree house community on 600 acres of land in the beautiful rainforests of Costa Rica. Residents travel between tree houses via ziplines…enough said.

5) Free and Real

A group of Greek youth became fed up with their economy/government and built a sustainable community on a small island.

Do you know of any other awesome community initiatives? Please share them below!