ANTHEM, Ariz. — At the age of 1, Joey Hammack is already an accomplished escape artist, as only a toddler can be.
No matter how successful Charles Hammack thinks he has been in keeping his son away from his mother's computer, Joey repeatedly appears at her side, fingering the keyboard as Victoria Hammack attempts a demonstration for a visitor.
The computer itself is not on display. It's just a standard-model PC, with printer, on a desk in a room that doubles as accommodations for guests.
What Victoria Hammack is demonstrating on this warm Sunday afternoon in mid-February is what might be the beginning of a revolution in the way humans initiate and develop personal relationships.
Victoria Hammack is logged on to www.anthem.live, an intranet Web site using the intranet to meet her new neighbors, to learn about them, and then determine which neighbors seem like the kind they want to get to know better.
The Hammacks are one of 1,000 families who have purchased houses in Anthem, a Del Webb Co. master-planned development 45 minutes north of Phoenix. Anthem, which comprises almost 6,000 acres, will have 15,000 houses when it is completed.
Not all the 1,000 buyers are living in Anthem, however. The first phase of Anthem - 3,500 houses - is being built in two villages. One is Anthem Country Club, a gated golf community. The other is a "family" development called Anthem Parkside, where the Hammacks live.
At this point, the people who live in Anthem are about as widely scattered as pioneer families were during the westward expansion of 19th-century America. There may be one occupied house on one street of houses in various stages of construction, and another several streets away.
Unlike their 19th-century counterparts, today's pioneers don't have to travel for hours or days to get to know their nearest neighbors. They simply have to sit down at the computer, and, with a few keystrokes, they're ready to pass the time of day.
The intranet site is only accessible to people in Anthem, protected from the outside by what the tekkies call "firewalls."
The site, staffed full time and updated daily, offers news of Anthem, events calendars, schedules and information on happenings at the community center, the country club and the $12 million elementary school that Webb built and donated to the Deer Valley School District.
