From the perspective of 28 years:

The Renascence Project’s focus, from the very beginning, was on action research. The goal was to actually build things. In the areas of creating the Library, classes, running the Kitchen and seminars were were successful. In the areas of restoration and property management we achieved a good start but ultimately floundered. The project ran out of gas before we built any of the small projects designed to demonstrate alternative living options. These projects remain un built to this day (as of August 2005).

It is interesting to speculate on what would have been the result if we had boot strapped our way to a capital base and if we had build some demonstration designs. My sense is, the impact would have been low and the Project would have ultimately failed in any case.

We did not have a collaborative process in place sufficient to deal with the complexities of even these simple projects. This need was the genesis of MG Taylor Corporation.

The projects themselves, however, do have value to this day. They may have even more relevance today than a generation ago. This was not so clear in the 80s and 90s when the economy seemed so robust and the links between ecology, community and human health was largely ignored. Perhaps these illusions are fading now.