I think the book Approaching Zion by Hugh Nibley, a collection of Nibley's articles on the topic of Zion, is the single most important book for anyone to read (after the Scriptures and the General Conference reports). It belongs in every Latter-day Saint's home library.
Rather, it belongs in everyone's mental language bank--the repository in our minds of concepts and terminology.
Everyone in the world seeks a Zion society, but they don't know where to find it. By and large, Latter-day Saints don't even know where to find it anymore.
Nibley, more than anyone else I'm aware of, has articulated the ideals and a framework for understanding and approaching Zion.
If you haven't read the book, you should.
If you have read it, read it again.
Here is the opening passage from Chapter 2: What Is Zion? A Distant View
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The first thing to note is that Zion is perfect, flawless, and complete--not a structure in the process of building.
We work for the building up of the kingdom of God on earth and the establishment of Zion. The first step makes the second possible.
Zion has been on the earth before in its perfection, as (we are told) it is to be found in other worlds. When the world has ben ready to receive it at various happy times in the past, Zion has been brought down from above; and we have the joyful promise that at some future time it will again descend to earth.
When men are no longer capable of supporting Zion on earth, it is bodily removed--taken up to heaven; whence go forth the sayings, "Zion is fled" and "Zion is no more." It is no more here but continues to thrive elsewhere. For it is a constant quantity, as perfect things are.
In its present state, the world is far from qualified to receive a celestial society into its midst. But if we today cannot achieve Zion, we can conceive of it.