Questioning my rural relocation strategy...

[SideHillnDirtPoor]

           "Disclaimer"..........  I'm not picking on you mirth, just tryin to put my thought's on this

                       
                            1.  Fuel and supply shortages seems to hit areas farthest from the major distribution/consumption centers first.  Our national logistics infrastructure is largely designed to serve the major metro areas and the surrounding suburbs/country side(Think fuel shortages in Iowa or Minnesota or Burma).

2.  It is clearly the case that valuable resources can be and has been directed via mandate from hinterland regions towards the coastal communities.  And this is regardless of whether maximal economic efficiency has been achieved or not.  For example, wind power from upstate NY being directed to NYC.  Or corn derived ethanol being supplied largely to East and West Coast areas.

              This would be allright if it was produced within an hour (Or 2) of any major city.  Take for example NYC.  20 to 30 tanker loads of milk a night come there from upstate ( Sunnydale farms in Brooklynn alone recieves a load an hour most days), these loads travel 150 to 200 miles (Watertown NY milk goes to NYC) to get there.  The majority of the beef (Excluding Imports & Vegitarians) comes from the midwest.   Corn Ethanol, has to be trucked, cause it eats up the pipelines, and we all know where that is grown and produced.  Point I want to make.........
     you can "Mandate" something all you want.......  just remember who is making it, and where its produced ( If They Don't want to give it up, well you get my point)

                   I'm of the opinion that large portions of hinterland areas could effectively lose a functioning infrastructure in terms of electricity, fuel, products and services(within a generation or 2).  This would put a person into a very unenviable position.  Having no restaurants to go to is easily tolerable.  But having a lack of modern medical technology or electricity is going to be difficult.  Child and mother mortality would go through the roof.  I think it's worth mentioning that a 10% child(and mother) mortality during delivery was considered quite normal 100 years ago.  Even minor illnesses could kill people without modern medicines and surgery. 

                     I know "Upstate" most likelly seems about like "Idaho" to you.......   but think on this..... 
                                 Ithaca NY,   Cornell University. 
              Think this town (city actually) is goin to dry up and go away....??  Guess where NYC's Cornell  Med School is going in the next 5 yrs...??   Yep You guessed it.... Ithaca NY.  Plans are allready in the makein.    Even You would fit in up here. (No offense please)  Cornell U is allready updateing thier electricall generating capibillities, with 2 more generators going on line within the next 2 years  (been pourin the concrete), and a new gas main to the plant. Theres still small plots of land available within 3 to 5 miles of the city.

Then there's hunger.  Difficulties of transport and communications could cause localized famine and malnutrition like what is happening in India right now.  There's enough food, but the transport infrastructure is too decrepit to deliver to food to everyone.

                Any Major City, either coast, is going to experience this. Ain't No Way Around It.  All the good productive land, within 100 miles of any Large City, has allready been lost to development
  just Facts......   Ain't no disputtin it.  If it can't get from where its produced, It can't get to you.

             
              I'm considering revising my strategy to buy a smaller piece of land much closer to the city.  This will allow for the production and delivery of food to a huge market nearby.  Additionally, being closer to a metro area ensure coverage of necessary utilities and services.  What do you guys think?

                  Ithaca would fit you fine.......  Do some checkin on it  (one of the 3 most "Liberal" cities in Amerika) 
                  Even tho I'm a "Simple Plow Boy" I have been around ( Even my wife is from Philly (Springfield, delaware Co.).   I made every state this side of the Miss. (and 3 the other side) lookin thru the windshield of a truck (before I was 21)  I've been at it 29 yrs now. I've hauled raw food products, finished food products,  motor fuel's, Ag & forest product's even cattle when my father got sick back in the 80's. I even ran my own truck till .50 cents a mile fuel costs
 (This with $1.59 fuel) about broke me.  Not only has trucking been my occupation, Its been "My Life"   So I can say this with  "No Doubt In My Mind",       Would I want to live within walkin distance of NYC....... 
             not on A "Money Bet"

[jonny2mad]

places with water transport thats near the sea or rivers big enough to transport good on or canals .
places with a rail line.
not somewhere too cold or hot.
I think if you have a small town with a rail line and canals to a big city you will allways have a way to sell food as you can either sell it locally or ship it to the city.

Also if you live outside town consider how hard it would be transporting goods via horse or bike when the roads are worse than they are today plan on having space for a horse if you live outside town and have a lot to move.
you need to have some pasture and somewhere to grow hay to feed him over winter how much land that depends on local conditions

[Chesire]

Water  water  water  would be my first priority .  Well if you can use the river for trade someone else can use it for piracy .   Locals  welp  in a the, authorities ain't gonna do shit iffn we grab this piece o adjoining property and make it productive scenario will start grabbin.  Of course if your in the way of someones little real estate improvement project ,  you might have a problem. 
  Especially if neighbor  A  wants pasture  , neighbor B wants the orchard  and neighbor C wants that spring you got and neighbor D is about fed up with his relatives living underfoot and your house looks like prime place to move them in too. I wish I had an answer and other than looking for an intentional community and hoping for the best .  I can't really see the lone ranger schtick working very well for very long. 
 

[OldHorseman]

   I think that, unless you're prepared to be REALLY rural, the cities are honestly the best bet... 

   I look around out here in the country and realize that most of the "country folk" are almost as infrastructure dependent as the city folk...  But, as you noted, economic and infrastructure support is bound to withdraw to the urban centers as scarcity sets-in. 

   As things go bad, they'll have to follow the resources into the cities like almost everyone else.  Staying out in the country will eventually doing without a complex economy, reliable utilities, modern medicine, etc.  Few are going to want to do that when there's emergency assistance, power, running water, broadband, and universal health care in the city.

[mithradates]

If one looks at any 3rd world country.  Nations that are already suffering the effects of fuel scarcity and patchy infrastructure...EVERYONE wants to be in or near the city where services are available.  Outside of the cities, life would be brutally hard and perhaps much shorter.

[jonny2mad]

have you looked at the metrofarm site they believe in farming tiny plots in citys , I remember one of things he said was that citys rarely fall and theres allways good money selling to people in the city

http://www.metrofarm.com/mf_Food_Chain_Radio.php#shows
thats some radio shows some may be of interest

[couchpotato]

This is a topic that I am struggling with myself a lot, but I am a bit surprised about some posts here: Are we not forgetting the most important bit: Famine induced war (or at the very least civil unrest)? The US hasnt actually seen any of this, but Europe certainly has. This will imply the following things:

• Major civil unrest in all cities which may be suppressed via the military and the establishment of Old Horseman's Fed ghettos.
• What little infrastructure remains in cities will very likely not be affordable or tainted (water supply, electricity grid, meagre food rations, etc). Even doctors are usually first and foremost drafted into the military whether they like it or not and will not be helping the civilian population. (This afterall is one of the reasons of the database consolidation going on right now).
• Whoever can will flee the cities to nearby rural areas. They will be less affected but very much bearing the brunt of this fall out. These areas will also be the first 'recruited' in providing food and resources as long haul trucking becomes no longer viable.

Dont get me wrong, I would love to live this out in a small village close to a medium sized town, but we are not talking here about the failure of infrastructure and the withdrawal of services, are we?

I am very much with Dr. Zaius on this one, if you are lucky to find a place that has some intellectuals, great, if not, tough, some of those non-intellectuals will have a much higher survival ability then us couch potatoes (and they havent even heard about LATOC).......

[Cornelian]

I live on a relatively isolated island full of agricultural potential. I live in a small city on this island and am feeling fairly happy about this. Could there be civil unrest? Yes, quite possibly, but I don't see it getting out of control - and in any case, there isn't too far to go here, and enough to share about, and I can see people deciding to pull together relatively quickly. (If there was a slow crash we'd be just fine, I'm talking more of a big sudden crash here.) We wouldn't suffer famine at all here - we might go without lots of things, but famine? No.

I'd feel differently, far differently, living in some of the bigger cities in Australia or in the US or the UK/Europe. I'd not be happy there (I've lived in both the US and the UK over a long and somewhat varied life.) I think anyway has the potential to be difficult, but some places have the potential to be more difficult than others.

I think it all depends on our individual situations, and the culture of where we live, as to whether we decide to stay in an urban or semi-urban environment or head for the isolated hills.

[Jofiga]

Im heading for the hills because i cant stand large crowds of people.  even if PO was never going to happen i would still eventually move out into the bush in the mountains, hahah PO just gives me an excuse to do it within the next 1-5 years (or whenever TSHTF).   The good thing about the Rocky Mountains is that they offer everything required to live. The soil is extreamly rich and fertile, the water is some of the cleanest in the world at this point (and full of minerals) and because im Canadian a minus 40 degree (celcius, not sure what that is in F) winter really aint that bad,  hell i dont even wear a jacket outside when its minus 5. So all and all the Rocky Mountains are where my relocation is going to be,  oh yeah, and theres also plenty of animals to hunt,  there would be no shortage of meat.

[Timing]

-40C = -40F

[Bovine Blue]

-40C = -40F

= bloody cold.

[digger]

Here are some useful relocation links:

Here are some links with info, maps related to nuclear and coal power plants:

nuclear
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/states/statesil.html
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/100-Miles-Nuclear-Reactors1996.htm

coal plants by state (map)
http://www.cleartheair.org/dirtypower/map.html

Soil Surveys exist for all counties, I  believe. They contain detailed aerial maps overlaid with amazingly detailed soil type zones.

Look up "wind rose plots" for your city to see the average prevailing wind directions and strength. 

Environmental hazards, air quality, superfund sites, on a map (map not working at the time I posted, but usually works)
http://oaspub.epa.gov/enviro/ef_home3.html?p_zipcode=City%2C+ST&p_type=city&x=&y=
enter your location like "City, ST"

lots of info on individual cities
http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=21001
see the Environment section

Average annual precipitation in the US
http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/pcpn/us_precip.gif
by state
http://www.ocs.orst.edu/pub/maps/Precipitation/Total/States/IL/il.gif - change IL and il to the state of your choice.

Info on religion by county:
http://www.thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/selectCounty.asp

Refineries
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/rankings/refineries.htm

Flood maps:
http://msc.fema.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/info?storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&content=firmHelp_1&title=How%20to%20Find%20Your%20Flood%20Map

Map of US major rivers
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/usa/rivers/map.GIF

[suburban_junkscape]

Thanks for posting those maps. Real good.

As far as the rocky mountains, forget anything west of the 100th meridian. Short growing season. As far as hunting, everything you can hunt will have been hunted within 2 weeks of TSHTF. As far as living in -40 anything, screw that. I'm shivering at +40 degrees.

Mithradates, go for a "town" of about 100-200,000 or the outskirts of such a town. You will have much less land but you will have the ability to hold down at least some menial job until TSHTF and also the ability to access basic services. Such a town won't be nuked unless the nuclear war escalates to involve Russia. Just make sure you have a decent fallout shelter in that event.

Also, get the hell out of the Northeast. It's way too cold and the firewood is going to get all burned up within a couple of years. Cold kills more than anything. Check out something in the Southeast. East Texas and Arkansas are ideal in my humble opinion.

[digger]

I agree about hunting. That food supply will run out quickly. I've also thought the same about the trees in the north, they will not last long. This is a serious problem with additional implications for global warming and erosion on hillsides. Also, there will need to be harsh laws to keep "firewood poachers" from cutting down food-bearing trees. Maybe a good side-career would be sylvan forensics. If someone is caught with a bundle of poached firewood, who can determine what kind of wood it is?

From Zimbabwe
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=nw20070606095222917C926569
"We have had to hire night guards specifically to look at that but the wood poachers always find ways to evade detection. Give it another two years and most of this forest will be gone," he said. Even the saplings are not spared as the poachers strip the bark from the tender shrubs to weave into rope to tie bundles of stolen firewood.

One warning I'd give about going too far south. During a drought, remember the hotter the average temperatures, the worse the effects of a drought are. As someone on this board (who has unfortunately gone missing) once said, the "middle latitudes" are ideal. (On the precipitation maps I did notice that as you go north from Arkansas, the rainfall drops, but lower temperatures may compensate by causing less evaporation.) This paragraph is a moderately informed supposition on my part - if anyone can set me straight I'd appreciate it.

US Climate Division Dataset Mapping Page
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/USclimate/USclimdivs.html
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/Climdiv/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=3&base=4&mon1=11&mon2=11&iy%5B1%5D=&iy%5B2%5D=&iy%5B3%5D=&iy%5B4%5D=&iy%5B5%5D=&iy%5B6%5D=&iy%5B7%5D=&iy%5B8%5D=&iy%5B9%5D=&iy%5B10%5D=&iy%5B11%5D=&iy%5B12%5D=&iy%5B13%5D=&iy%5B14%5D=&iy%5B15%5D=&iy%5B16%5D=&iy%5B17%5D=&iy%5B18%5D=&iy%5B19%5D=&iy%5B20%5D=&irange1=1895&irange2=2007&xlow=&xhi=&xint=&scale=&iwhite=1&Submit=Create+Plot

[plan4action]

I heard there is some good deer in the ozarks.
Are you a hunter?

drill

Thanks for posting those maps. Real good.

As far as the rocky mountains, forget anything west of the 100th meridian. Short growing season. As far as hunting, everything you can hunt will have been hunted within 2 weeks of TSHTF. As far as living in -40 anything, screw that. I'm shivering at +40 degrees.

Mithradates, go for a "town" of about 100-200,000 or the outskirts of such a town. You will have much less land but you will have the ability to hold down at least some menial job until TSHTF and also the ability to access basic services. Such a town won't be nuked unless the nuclear war escalates to involve Russia. Just make sure you have a decent fallout shelter in that event.

Also, get the hell out of the Northeast. It's way too cold and the firewood is going to get all burned up within a couple of years. Cold kills more than anything. Check out something in the Southeast. East Texas and Arkansas are ideal in my humble opinion.