“Kind of creepy here, don’t you think?” These are the first words I hear over my granola and almond milk as I eavesdrop on a nearby group of bankers – bad suits, slicked hair – here for a business conference. “I feel like I’m on The Truman Show,” says another. It’s not hard to see his point. Earlier, driving to breakfast in my golf buggy, I passed through a picture-perfect postcard of country Americana, complete with rolling pastures, horses and grandparents sitting on their porches. The sun was shining and the locals waved at me (avoiding eye contact with strangers while keeping 1.5 metres apart wasn’t a thing yet). Without exception, everyone seemed jubilantly happy – a far cry from my usual, dreary commute. The parallels between my current reality and the Jim Carrey classic were enough to make me worry my buggy would crash into the horizon.
But this is not Seahaven Island, the counterfeit town created for Truman Burbank. It’s Serenbe, a purpose-built wellness community 30 minutes south of Atlanta, Georgia. While the name – a portmanteau of ‘serene’ and ‘being’ – might elicit a raised eyebrow, the concept isn’t without logic. Research by the World Health Organization suggests that up to 90 per cent of health outcomes are tied to where and how we live, with non-communicable diseases (such as cancer and heart disease), many of which are linked to your environments and behaviour, now expected to account for nearly three quarters of all deaths worldwide. A big problem then, to which a town founded expressly to promote the wellbeing of its residents offers a radical, albeit wacky, solution.
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