Reconsidering Cities

Cities have risen and fallen. There are cities that once were the biggest and brightest in the world that are nearly lost to history. Some were lost until explorers hacking their way though the jungles and wild places of the world discover their remains. Humans have gathered together in cities for a long time.

People have been moving from the country to the city for as long as there have been cities. There's the opportunity for trade, culture, religious gatherings and pubs. Don't forget pubs. Some researchers have speculated that one of the major reasons we've settled into cities is so we could stay in one place long enough to brew beer.

For all their attractions cities usually were very unhealthy places to live. Things go wrong when you put lots of people together, add questionable food, water and sanitation. Cities could not sustain their populations from internal growth. The death rate was high enough that cities only grew because of the constant influx of new people from the countryside.

In more modern times that changed. Sanitation improved. Food handling got better. Water systems were made safe. Advances in technology made cities much more livable. Many cities in warmer climates owe their recent growth to the invention of air conditioning.

During the Great Depression, on average, people survived better in the cities than in the country. At first the country folk had the advantage because they were more self reliant for basic needs. As the depression wore on, the greater financial and political clout of the cities overwhelmed country folk. Think of all the farms that were lost to predatory banking practices and you have just one major example on how country folk lost out. There were those who survived but they were smart enough or lucky enough to avoid the traps of the greater society around them.

Today most cities are growing. Even Africa is experiencing huge urban population growth. Subsistence living has a hard time to compete with the lights of the big city. Security is another factor. Small villages do not have a lot of protection against “revolutionaries” or even just plain bandits.

So the cities win? That's the place to be?

Maybe not for much longer. Cities are bigger, reliant on technology, and infrastructure has gotten more brittle. War can now be waged against cities without ever marching troops. Clever teams of computer hackers can take down city services from thousands of miles away.

If you physically attack a city, your best bang for the buck is attacking the grid, communications, transportation, water, and other services. That can be done with everything from high tech weapons to small commando teams with small arms and explosives. If biological weapons are also employed when services are down things could get very bad indeed.

So what's a person to do? In a slow grinding economic collapse a person might be better off in a city where there's more opportunity. As a country boy I hate to admit it but that's certainly a good possibility.

Should there be direct attacks against major cities, you are much better off in the country. If you've prepared by having access to food, water and can provide your own security, so much the better.

Events in the real world, however, tend to get messy. Even in a time of major turmoil some cities may do quite well while others burn to the ground. Parts of the countryside could be doing well while other parts are unsustainable.

My personal hell would involve cities being totally unlivable, yet still having enough financial and political clout to reach out into the country for the resources they need. That could get very messy indeed.

The point isn't to get all depressed about no place being safe but to open one's eyes. Look at where you live now and take a cold hard look at the potential hazards. Then keep an eye on what's actually happening in the world.

Of course there are people who only want to live in big cities and those who only want to live in the country. It's hard to get those folks to admit that their chosen location might not be the best. I'm one of them as I am not a city person, even though there would be some advantages to me living in one.

No matter where you are, having a plan and some supplies can make a big difference.

-Sixbears

Voluntary Simplicity vs Poverty

There's a world of difference between voluntary simplicity and poverty. They might look similar to the casual observer, but there's a world of difference.

Take a poor person and someone practicing voluntary simplicity. They might both be wearing old patched clothes. They may both be living in a small space. (apartment, house, tent, van, car, whatever) Both may be eating low cost meals. They may both have similar income levels. Even so, they are worlds apart.

Let's start with meals. Poor people tend to eat a lot of prepared, low nutrition food. It could be they are working two or three low paying jobs and don't have the time nor the energy to shop for and prepare good meals. If you don't have the opportunity to shop very often it actually makes sense to buy foods that don't spoil.

Someone living simply may not spend any more money on food, but they eat a lot better. Sometimes it's as simple as having a few decent cooking tools and knowledge how to use them. They may be eating cheaply, but they are mostly eating foods they prepare themselves. While the poor person may heat up a frozen dinner, the other guy's eating a rice and beans dish made from cheap dried beans, a few spices, and might have a salad made from wild greens. It's cheap, but takes time, effort and knowledge to prepare. It's also pretty yummy and high in nutrition.

Take two different people who are living in their car. The poor person can't make rent and ends up sleeping in an old van. Someone who wants to live a more simple life might decide to give up living in an apartment or house for van living. The poor person sort of ends up there. They've got to figure it out on the fly. Odds are he's the guy who the cops will be hassling at 3 a. m. to move on.

Someone who decides to move into a van has a plan. He's had a chance to figure out how to make a small space a comfortable living area. Sleeping, cooking, security, hygiene -all that stuffs been figured out. There are probably solar panels on the roof, a house battery system, and black out curtains. This guy is less likely to get hassled by the police as he's researched where to park without running into trouble.

Where the two really differ is when something goes wrong. The poor person is really hurting when his car breaks down. There's no money to fix it and now he has a hard time to get to work. The person living simply has a back up plan. Maybe he doesn't even have a regular job where he needs the vehicle right away. That gives him time to fix the problem himself. Then again, he probably has an emergency fund for just that sort of problem. After all, he's a guy living simply. He's not poor.

At different times in my life I have been both of those guys. It doesn't matter if you have a year or two's worth of supplies and savings. Sometimes things go bad for three or four years or more. As prepared as well like to me, everyone has limits. Nobody can prepare for everything. Don't look down on the poor guy as it's not that hard to become him.

Trust me, living simply is better than living poor. If you are living simply and break a tooth, you go to the dentist. If you are poor, you suffer.

Knowing how to live simply can help prevent you from having to live poor. If you see bad times coming and can set yourself up to live at a simpler level before you have to, there are choices. Completely running out of resources and becoming poor limits your options terribly.

-Sixbears

Survival Food in the Cold North

This is the starving time of the year here in the Great North Woods. Picture life hundreds of years ago before food was easily transported around the globe. To survive a northern winter food grown in the summer would have to last until things started growing again. Sometimes harvests were poor and not enough was stored. There's not a lot of wild foods available in the early spring.

One readily available food is rock tripe. Rock_tripe Lichens that grow on rock don't sound very appetizing. To be honest, the best thing that can be said about the flavor is that they don't taste terrible. Kinda reminds me of eating dead leaves.

So what's the attraction? It's readily available and actually quite nutritions. There are records of arctic expeditions surviving on nothing else for months at a time. Beats starving to death.

Many years ago I did an experiment about this time of year in the western mountains of Maine. I tried to live off the land in the mountains. For three days my diet consisted of rock tripe, a little bit of edible moss, and spruce tea. The spruce tea was the high point flavor wise. It's also one of the few good sources of vitamin C in the winter time.

The rock tripe was collected from the rocks, cleaned, and double boiled. The first batch of water was poured off as rock tripe contains acids that help them eat rock. (sounds more appetizing all the time, doesn't it?)

Actually if it was finely chopped and added to a hearty soup you wouldn't mind the flavor at all. All by itself for days at a time it gets pretty boring. However, not nearly as boring as starving to death.

-Sixbears