A valley has grown enough for everyone for two hundred years, and its children have never heard the word hungry.Cost: nobody there knows how to share one small thing. Notices: a girl holding the season's only orange.
A town pays every worker the same, the shipwright and the street sweeper alike.Cost: the long apprenticeships stand empty. Notices: the last shipwright's only apprentice.
A merchant arrives to sell to a city that wants nothing.Cost: nobody there has ever been tempted. Notices: the merchant, when a child asks what his prettiest box is for.
A city gives every citizen the same day: four hours of work, and the rest their own.Cost: a fifth hour of work is forbidden. Notices: a potter one hour from finishing a bowl.
A city has ended waiting: everything arrives at the moment it is wanted.Cost: nobody has waited for anything, or beside anyone. Notices: two strangers, when one delivery is late.
A city retires everyone at thirty with full honors and a garden.Cost: nobody over thirty is asked how anything was done. Notices: a young bridge builder with one question.
A city's kitchens cook every meal for everyone, and every meal is good.Cost: no family has a recipe of its own. Notices: a grandmother who remembers one soup.
A colony on a kind planet needs nothing from the world it left and sends nothing back.Cost: the ship that brought it is a museum. Notices: a guide who has worked out how to start it.
A harbor city shares its catch equally, down to the last fish, every evening.Cost: the best fisher eats the same as the worst. Notices: the worst fisher, who minds it most.
A market town abolished prices, and its traders now compete only in generosity.Cost: the kindest stall is ruining the others. Notices: the second kindest trader.
A mountain republic abolished rent, debt and bills long ago, and feasts each year on the day they ended.Cost: nobody under forty knows what the feast is for. Notices: the last debt collector.
A river country feeds its neighbors too, and asks nothing for it.Cost: the neighbors have stopped farming. Notices: a boatman who carries grain one way and nothing back.
A town gives every citizen a house at eighteen, all built to the same good plan.Cost: nobody has ever built a thing of their own. Notices: a boy who wants a crooked porch.
A town's library lends anything: tools, boats, wedding clothes, a piano for the winter.Cost: nothing in anyone's house is theirs to scratch. Notices: a child who wants to carve her name.
A valley has grown enough for everyone for two hundred years, and its children have never heard the word hungry.Cost: nobody there knows how to share one small thing. Notices: a girl holding the season's only orange.
A village promises every person the work they are best at, found by a test at twelve.Cost: nobody is ever a beginner again. Notices: its finest carpenter, who wants to sing badly.
A village well gives exactly as much of anything as the village needs, and never more.Cost: nobody can save for a bad year. Notices: the one farmer who expects a bad year.
An island's machines do all the work, and its people spend their days at whatever they love.Cost: nobody is needed. Notices: a woman who loves mending machines and may not touch these.
In a city where every shop is free, nobody has thanked a shopkeeper in living memory.Cost: a gift means little where everything is given. Notices: a baker's apprentice who bakes one loaf to order.
In a country with no money, everything is taken as needed and nobody takes too much.Cost: there is no way to give something up for someone. Notices: a boy who wants to buy his mother a present.
In a kingdom where the crown pays for every child's schooling to any height, nobody is left to mend roofs.Cost: the rain comes in on a nation of scholars. Notices: a professor on a ladder.
In a land of endless harvest, the only work left is deciding what to do with the surplus.Cost: the storehouses are full of last year's decisions. Notices: the clerk who holds the keys.
In a town whose council grants every wish under a certain size, people have learned to wish small.Cost: nobody asks for anything hard. Notices: a girl who fills in the form for the moon.
Nobody quarrels 20
A city has no crime, and its last police officer keeps the station open out of habit.Cost: nobody checks or wonders. Notices: the officer, on the morning one bicycle has moved.
A city has replaced every punishment with an apology, said once and always accepted.Cost: the words have worn smooth. Notices: a woman who is owed a real one.
A city's newspapers print only good news, all of it true.Cost: the bad news travels by whisper and grows. Notices: a printer's boy who hears both.
A country forgives every debt and every wrong on the first day of spring.Cost: winter is when people do as they please. Notices: a boy who breaks a window on the last day.
A country has no army, no walls and no enemies, and its maps stop politely at the border.Cost: nobody has asked what lies beyond. Notices: a mapmaker's daughter with a blank sheet.
A mountain village has no doors, by custom, since nobody has anything to hide.Cost: nobody has anywhere to be alone. Notices: a girl who is learning the trumpet.
A republic of beekeepers decides everything in silence, each walking toward the idea they like best.Cost: the shy stay where they are. Notices: the shyest keeper, who has found a better field.
A school has no marks, no prizes and no last place, and every pupil is content.Cost: nobody knows what they are good at. Notices: a girl who runs faster than everyone and is never told.
A town fills every office by drawing lots, so nobody has ever lost an election.Cost: nobody has ever wanted the job. Notices: a shepherd drawn as mayor in lambing season.
A town has kept the peace with its neighbor by never mentioning the river they share.Cost: the bridge has gone unmended for a century. Notices: the ferryman, who is growing old.
A town has not had an argument in sixty years, and keeps a brass plaque that counts the days.Cost: nobody says what they think of the plaque. Notices: the man who polishes it.
A valley's families swap one child each for a year, so that no house is strange to another.Cost: nobody is sure which home they miss. Notices: a boy in his third kitchen.
A village agreed long ago to speak only kind words, and has kept the agreement.Cost: there is no word for a bad idea. Notices: the bridge builder's apprentice, reading the plans.
A village sings its disagreements, by an old rule, and the songs are beautiful.Cost: the better singer always wins. Notices: a girl with a true complaint and no ear.
An island settles every quarrel with a shared meal, and has the best cooks in the world.Cost: the quarrel is eaten, not solved. Notices: the cook who serves the same two men every month.
In a city where a wise and patient machine settles every dispute, nobody has raised a voice since it was switched on.Cost: nobody forgives without being told to. Notices: two sisters, in a power cut.
In a city where nobody is ever blamed, a kindly office mends every mistake overnight.Cost: nobody learns what they did. Notices: a clerk in that office who finds her own name.
In a land with one language and one custom, no traveler has ever been misunderstood.Cost: nobody has ever had to explain themselves. Notices: a child who invents a word.
In a town where every vote is unanimous, the council meets for five minutes a year.Cost: the hall has no chair for a second opinion. Notices: a newcomer who does not raise her hand.
In a town where neighbors agree on everything, every house is painted the same pleasant green.Cost: nobody knows which color they would have chosen. Notices: the painter's son, mixing a blue.
Everybody gets the same 20
A city gives every citizen one turn at every job, from sweeper to mayor, a month each.Cost: nobody is good at anything for long. Notices: the whole city, in the month a fine mayor steps down.
A city gives out seats at the opera by lot, so a duke may sit behind a pillar.Cost: nobody sits with the person they came with. Notices: an old couple, forty rows apart.
A city splits every inheritance equally among everyone born that year.Cost: nobody keeps their grandmother's clock whole. Notices: the hundred people who each get a piece of it.
A country gives every voice the same weight, so its meetings hear everyone on everything.Cost: the meeting about the leaking dam is in its third week. Notices: a child who lives below the dam.
A country gives everyone the same number of words to speak each day, so that nobody talks over anyone.Cost: people save them. Notices: a boy who spends all of his on one friend.
A fishing village shares its boats, so nobody owns one and anyone may sail any.Cost: nobody has named a boat in a century. Notices: a girl with a pot of paint.
A kingdom lets every citizen wear the crown for one day of their life.Cost: no ruler finishes anything. Notices: today's queen, a mason, looking at a half-built bridge.
A republic lets each citizen make one law in a lifetime, and no more.Cost: most save it too long. Notices: an old man with a small, good law in his pocket.
A school teaches every pupil at the same pace, so that nobody is ever behind.Cost: nobody is ever ahead. Notices: a girl who finished the book in the first week.
A town built every house the same height, so that no window looks down on another.Cost: nobody has a view. Notices: a child who climbs the one tall tree.
A town pays every worker the same, the shipwright and the street sweeper alike.Cost: the long apprenticeships stand empty. Notices: the last shipwright's only apprentice.
A town shares its praise as carefully as its bread: every child gets the same applause.Cost: nobody believes the clapping. Notices: a boy who plays the violin very well.
A town's museum hangs one picture by every citizen, each on the same size of wall.Cost: nobody can find the good ones. Notices: a guard who keeps moving one painting nearer the door.
A village holds a race each year in which everyone must cross the line together.Cost: the fastest have learned to walk. Notices: a visitor's dog, which does not know the rule.
A village moves house each spring, in turn, so that everyone lives a year by the lake.Cost: nobody plants a tree they will see grown. Notices: a woman who plants one anyway.
An island divides its land afresh every generation into equal squares.Cost: the squares get smaller. Notices: a surveyor doing the sum for her grandchildren.
In a city where everyone wears the same fine gray coat, nobody is judged by their clothes.Cost: nobody can find a friend in a crowd. Notices: a tailor with a spool of red thread.
In a city where the whole street raises every child, no child goes without care.Cost: nobody is anybody's favorite. Notices: a boy who wants one person to wait up for him.
In a country where every birthday is kept on the same day, nobody is ever forgotten.Cost: nobody is ever the only one. Notices: a girl born the day after.
In a school where every pupil must win one prize, the prizes have multiplied.Cost: there is a cup for Best Holder of Cups. Notices: the engraver, who is running out of things to praise.
Nobody is alone 20
A city answers every letter within a day, by law, so that nobody waits for word.Cost: the answers are short. Notices: a postman carrying a reply that took a year.
A city pairs every worker with a partner, so no task is done alone and no slip goes unseen.Cost: nobody knows what they could do alone. Notices: a clockmaker whose partner is away for a day.
A city sends every lonely person a visitor within the hour.Cost: nobody can tell friends from visitors. Notices: a woman whose oldest friend arrives with a clipboard.
A city's houses have no single rooms: everyone sleeps, cooks and reads in company.Cost: nobody has a secret hobby. Notices: a clerk who writes poems inside her hat.
A commune chooses each person's holiday by vote, so everyone is sent where the others think they would be happy.Cost: nobody goes where they asked. Notices: a woman sent to the sea for the ninth time.
A mountain town never lets a traveler leave without a companion for the road.Cost: nobody has ever walked out alone to think. Notices: the guide who is always sent.
A town eats every meal at one long table that runs the length of the main street.Cost: nobody has ever eaten in silence. Notices: a girl who takes her bowl up a tree.
A town rings a bell when anyone is sad, and everyone comes.Cost: nobody is sad quietly. Notices: a boy who only wanted an hour.
A town shares its troubles at a weekly meeting, and no trouble has ever been kept.Cost: nobody has solved one alone. Notices: a girl who fixes hers on a Tuesday and is asked why.
A village celebrates every success together, with the same feast for a first step and a first book.Cost: the feasts run into one. Notices: a girl who cannot tell which was hers.
A village gives every newborn a lifelong friend, born the same week.Cost: nobody chooses. Notices: two such friends who have never once agreed and are fond of each other anyway.
A village remembers everyone: each name is sung once a year, back to the founders.Cost: the song now takes nine days. Notices: the child whose job is the newest verse.
A village walks its children to school every morning in one great crowd of parents.Cost: no child has ever found their own way. Notices: a girl who knows a shortcut.
An island keeps one shared diary, which everyone writes in and anyone may read.Cost: nobody writes what they would not say aloud. Notices: the bookbinder, who finds a page cut out.
In a city every door stands open at dinner time, and anyone may sit down at any table.Cost: no cook knows how many to cook for. Notices: a family that has not eaten alone together in years.
In a city where everyone knows everyone's name, a stranger is greeted within one step of the gate.Cost: nobody can start again. Notices: a man who would like to be someone else for an afternoon.
In a country where every old person lives with a young family, nobody grows old alone.Cost: nobody grows old in their own house. Notices: a widower counting the stairs of his third home.
In a land where households are drawn afresh every seven years, nobody is stuck with anyone.Cost: nobody is kept, either. Notices: two brothers in the sixth year.
In a town that spends every evening together in the square, the houses are only for sleeping.Cost: no family knows what it would talk about alone. Notices: a father, on a night of rain.
In a town with one shared garden, no fence has stood for a century.Cost: nobody may plant a thing the others dislike. Notices: a boy with a pocketful of thistle seed.
A visitor arrives 20
A boy from outside teaches the children of a gentle town a game with a winner.Cost: by evening there is a loser. Notices: the loser, who asks to play again.
A clockmaker arrives in a town that agreed long ago not to keep time.Cost: nobody is ever late, or expected. Notices: the clockmaker, when a child asks how long until her birthday.
A family driven from its own country is welcomed into a city where everyone has always belonged.Cost: nobody can teach belonging. Notices: the youngest, asked which street she was born on.
A girl from a hard country wins a year at a school where nobody is ever afraid.Cost: she cannot explain her jokes. Notices: her roommate, who asks what a lock is for.
A girl returns after ten years away to the perfect town she grew up in.Cost: it has not changed at all, and she has. Notices: her mother, laying the table as before.
A homesick engineer comes to build a railway to a town that has everything.Cost: the railway will let people leave. Notices: the mayor, who signs for it anyway.
A journalist is sent to expose a perfect village and cannot find anything wrong with it.Cost: her editor will not print good news. Notices: the villagers, who worry about her.
A lost hiker is taken in by a valley that has never had a guest.Cost: the valley has no word for goodbye. Notices: the hiker, when the snow melts.
A mapmaker is sent to put the hidden valley on the map.Cost: once found, it is somewhere people go. Notices: the mapmaker, pencil over the page.
A merchant arrives to sell to a city that wants nothing.Cost: nobody there has ever been tempted. Notices: the merchant, when a child asks what his prettiest box is for.
A painter is invited to a city without ugliness and asked to paint it.Cost: she can find no shadow to show the light. Notices: her host, when she paints the drain.
A runaway reaches the town in the old stories, the one where nobody is turned away.Cost: nobody is turned away, the people he ran from included. Notices: the gatekeeper.
A scholar arrives to study a town's perfect laws and learns that there are only three.Cost: everything else is left to manners. Notices: the scholar, who has none.
A shipwrecked sailor wakes in a city where everyone is happy, and asks to be shown the catch.Cost: he cannot stop looking for one. Notices: the child sent to guide him, who starts looking too.
A stranger asks to stay one night in the good place and a year later has still not unpacked.Cost: a happiness he did not earn. Notices: a neighbor who came the same way.
A tax collector from the old capital arrives in a town that has politely forgotten what taxes are.Cost: the town has no way to say no. Notices: the collector, who has no way to say why.
A traveling storyteller finds a town so content that it has no stories.Cost: nothing has gone wrong here to tell about. Notices: the children, who ask for the sad one again.
An ambassador arrives to propose a trade and finds a people who do not count.Cost: they cannot be cheated, or paid. Notices: the ambassador's clerk, holding the ledger.
An inspector is sent to learn a happy town's secret and report it home.Cost: the secret is a hundred small habits and fits no report. Notices: the inspector, on the day she stops writing.
Two travelers reach the same good city by different roads, and one calls it paradise and the other calls it dull.Cost: both are right. Notices: the innkeeper, who hears it every week.
How it works
These 100 utopia story ideas each describe a society that got one thing right: nobody goes without, nobody quarrels, nobody is alone. Under each is what that costs, and the one person who notices.
Read the full guide
The crack is where the story starts
A place where everything works has no plot. Each idea keeps the good thing good and names a small, human price for it: a town with no arguments where nobody says what they think of the plaque, a free city where a gift means little. The one who notices is the main character.
A visitor arrives
Twenty ideas bring in an outsider: a shipwrecked sailor, a tax collector, a journalist sent to find the flaw. The visitor asks what the reader would.
Decide early whether the one who notices wants to mend the crack or hide it.
Let the place stay good to the last page.
Questions and answers
What is a utopian story?
A story set in an imagined society with near-perfect or highly desirable qualities for its people. Utopian fiction is of two basic types: it pictures a future society to be desired, or it imagines the founding of a new, ideal community.
What does the word utopia mean?
Literally no place, from the Greek for not and place. Thomas More, who coined it for his 1516 book Utopia, pointed out its likeness to eutopia, good place. It now usually means an imagined society much better than the present one.
How do you give a utopia a conflict?
Keep the good thing and charge for it. One scholar argues that a utopia is contradictory by nature, because its members want things that conflict. On this list, a village with no doors has nowhere to practice the trumpet.
How is a utopia different from a dystopia?
A utopia is a setting its author approves of, and a dystopia is the opposite. For societies that went wrong, deal from the dystopian story ideas generator.