Laurent was a proposed

planned community A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

south of Salem, South Dakota and was designed for

Deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

, Hard of Hearing and other

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that i ...

users. The town was to be named after Laurent Clerc; it was originally planned that the first residents would start moving into town in 2008. The project was led by Marvin T. Miller, a deaf journalist and M. E. Barwacz (Miller's hearing mother-in-law). He claimed that the financing for the construction of the town, which was to encompass an area of , was secured by a combination of Miller's own funds and a group of private investors. At the peak of planning, 158 families had put themselves on a waiting list to move into the town. In the early stages of the project, Miller and Barwacz were invited to establish the townsite at Spencer, South Dakota as there were many available lots, but this offer was rejected in favor of the site near the I-90 / US 81 interchange. As planning progressed, this project was the subject of much "pro" and "con" discussions, the "pro" discussion coming from various organizations including the National Association of the Deaf. On the "con" side, there was the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, who have argued that persons with "disabilities" should integrate into society rather than form an

enclave An enclave is a territory that is entirely surrounded by the territory of only one other state or entity. An enclave can be an independent territory or part of a larger one. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is so ...

. Also, a number of local residents had expressed concerns about the viability, economic aspects of the project, and its impact on the area. By 2007, a number of factors combined that led Miller and Barwacz to dissolve the Laurent Company (which had been coordinating efforts to build the town) and relocate to

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

: Miller and Barwacz had exhausted their own funds, the main "angel investor" that Miller had been depending on for $10 million in funding was unable to deliver, and most importantly to Miller, he had serious concerns over the quality of the education his children were receiving at the South Dakota School for the Deaf in

Sioux Falls Sioux Falls ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of South Dakota and the 117th-most populous city in the United States. It is the county seat of Minnehaha County and also extends into northern Lincoln County. The population was 192 ...

. Once at Indiana, Miller made an attempt to interest the community there in his " signing town" concept, but it apparently was not well-received; no further word has surfaced regarding this project. The website Miller had created to promote his idea on-line has also long since ceased to exist.

References

{{coord, 43, 39, 50, N, 97, 23, 10, W, display=title McCook County, South Dakota Deaf culture in the United States