Country better than the city post peak oil?

fifthcolumn · Post by **fifthcolumn** » 04 Nov 2009, 00:08

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... -wave.html

In the country overall, violent crime and robberies are down.
In rural areas they are up, however. Way up. In some cases as much as 40% up.

Do you back-to-the-land lot think that being in the country is going to save you from the evil city dwellers?

Quintus · Post by **Quintus** » 04 Nov 2009, 00:47

Who believes the stats anymore?

Choco rations have gone up 25% this week. Double-plus good!

Anyway, could it mean that many people have given up reporting crime? Perhaps people are more likely to report crime in the country because they haven't given up all hope yet? Or it could just be something boring like a change in the way the police record crimes (as keeps happening).

Post by **adam2** » 04 Nov 2009, 16:10

I dont believe the crime figures either, but still believe that crime is a worse problem in most urban areas than in most rural areas.

A rural location gives more oportunity for growing food and harvesting firewood than does a rural area.

It would of course be prudent to prepare for a lawless future by becoming an accepted part of a rural community, by lawfully aquiring weapons,by not looking affluent, and by concealing valuables.
However no feasible preperations will make you invulnerable to a determined armed mob.
One might be more at risk from such mobs in an urban area, due to the higher population density and very limited food stocks held in shops etc.

By the time the mobs decide to raid rural areas, one might hope that either they wont have the petrol to get there, or that most of them will be dead from fights among themselves.

neckiep · Post by **neckiep** » 04 Nov 2009, 16:12

It may not be the city dwellers responsible though fifth. Some of the counties mentioned are in commuterville and some residents their probably already annoy the hell out of the locals with there affluent lifestyles and distance from the community.

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 04 Nov 2009, 20:21

neckiep wrote:It may not be the city dwellers responsible though fifth. Some of the counties mentioned are in commuterville and some residents their probably already annoy the hell out of the locals with there affluent lifestyles and distance from the community.

Yep, the townies who commute from their exclusive homes in the country would be in DEEP trouble.

Can you imagine what would happen if they visited (for the first ever time) their farmer neighbour saying:

"Excuse me, there is a crisis on. I want to buy some food. Do you take credit card? And can you drop it over at say 11? Oh, can we have say 10 gallons of fuel for the Range Rover? And could we perhaps borrow a generator?"

tubaplayer · Post by **tubaplayer** » 04 Nov 2009, 21:23

Of course the country is better than the city - just so long as you are living in a real country community.

I am

I have read articles that suggested that cities are better than the country because that's where the food is!! The disconnect between going to the supermarket and picking up a frozen chicken and going out onto your yard and selecting a likely candidate, wringing its neck, plucking it, gutting it and cooking and eating it is surreal. I reckon that 90%+ of city dwellers do not have the least idea where their food actually comes from. D'err - a truck delivers it to the shop.

Life goes on here, and when the TV shows riots in Budapest the locals just shrug their shoulders and go back to work.

Ludwig · Post by **Ludwig** » 04 Nov 2009, 23:36

adam2 wrote: By the time the mobs decide to raid rural areas, one might hope that either they wont have the petrol to get there, or that most of them will be dead from fights among themselves.

Armed mobs could lay waste to rural areas without petrol quite easily.

Even suppose you live in the middle of Wales, which is about the remotest spot south of the Scottish Highlands, that's only 3 days' walk from Cardiff or Birmingham, or a day by pushbike.

You want remote, you need to go to Montana or Siberia.

Ludwig · Post by **Ludwig** » 04 Nov 2009, 23:50

The article I posted last year about the Argentinian economic crisis has interesting things to say about the town v. country argument:

So, where to go? The concrete jungle is dangerous and so is living away from it all, on your own. The solution is to stay away from the cities but in groups, either by living in a small town-community or sub division, or if you have friends or family that think as you do, form your own small community. Some may think that having neighbors within “shouting” distance means loosing your privacy and freedom, but it’s a price that you have to pay if you want to have someone to help you if you ever need it. To those that believe that they will never need help from anyone because they will always have their rifle at hand, checking the horizon with their scope every five minutes and a first aid kit on their back packs at all times…. Grow up.

The original article now seems to be account-based (maybe it always was); however, a fair chunk of it is quoted here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-new ... s?page=137

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 04 Nov 2009, 23:54

I agree that rural areas are far more likely to have less problems. Tuba-player is right, country folk know how to survive still, city folks don't (in general).

As for areas only being 3 days walk from Birmingham - catch a grip Ludwig! Nobody is going to walk from Birmingham into the rural Welsh hills to try and attack some farmhouse to get a little food or whatever! Nope, far more likely to tear Birmingham apart to satisfy their needs. City folk don't know about multi-day walks - it just wouldn't be even contemplated! They might get as far as Kidderminister before giving up!

Just my opinion.

Quintus · Post by **Quintus** » 05 Nov 2009, 00:06

snow hope wrote:Nobody is going to walk from Birmingham into the rural Welsh hills to try and attack some farmhouse to get a little food or whatever! Nope, far more likely to tear Birmingham apart to satisfy their needs. City folk don't know about multi-day walks - it just wouldn't be even contemplated!

Country folk don't do a lot of walking either! I live a few hundred metres from stunning countryside but in several years I've yet to see a "local" on the hills; they drive and they walk their dogs in the park and that's it.

bigjim · Post by **bigjim** » 05 Nov 2009, 02:19

If you want remote I still think that Orkney's the best bet. Green, fertile, lush (not too many trees, alas) and over a hundred miles from the nearest city- Inverness, pop. 70,000- with a bit of water in the way too. And there's the Christmas and New Year Ba games to look forward to as well!

Ludwig · Post by **Ludwig** » 05 Nov 2009, 11:23

snow hope wrote:I agree that rural areas are far more likely to have less problems. Tuba-player is right, country folk know how to survive
still, city folks don't (in general).

I don't really buy this argument. City folk have survived well enough so far: we adapt to our circumstances.

Civilisation is all about specialisation. There's no reason to look down on someone because they work in an office rather than on a farm.

Besides, what's "survival" anyway? It is thousands of years since (at least in the West) individual human beings lived in a completely self-sufficient way. WE ARE SOCIAL ANIMALS.

I'm also not convinced that the "survival skills" of the average country person couldn't be picked up fairly quickly by someone from the city. Admittedly, growing food takes practice, but catching rabbits, chopping wood - these things aren't rocket science.

As for areas only being 3 days walk from Birmingham - catch a grip Ludwig! Nobody is going to walk from Birmingham into the rural Welsh hills to try and attack some farmhouse to get a little food or whatever! Nope, far more likely to tear Birmingham apart to satisfy their needs. City folk don't know about multi-day walks - it just wouldn't be even contemplated! They might get as far as Kidderminister before giving up!

Just my opinion.

I take your point.

Nevertheless, if trouble started erupting in the cities, there would probably be a big exodus to the countryside, which would start putting a lot more pressure on the latter.

tubaplayer · Post by **tubaplayer** » 05 Nov 2009, 20:09

Ludwig wrote:Besides, what's "survival" anyway? It is thousands of years since (at least in the West) individual human beings lived in a completely self-sufficient way. WE ARE SOCIAL ANIMALS.

I'm also not convinced that the "survival skills" of the average country person couldn't be picked up fairly quickly by someone from the city. Admittedly, growing food takes practice, but catching rabbits, chopping wood - these things aren't rocket science.

Yes, Ludwig, I agree totally but what I would say is that you only have to look at the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans to see what a fragile entity city living is. At this distance in time I cannot remember where I read it - it was on a web site certainly - that city living is always only three or four days from anarchy. If (for whatever reason, putting Peak Oil aside) the supermarket shelves went bare there _would_ be anarchy in any major city in the UK!

As for the survival skills bit, I think you have that the wrong way round. Growing food is the easy bit. You stick stuff - seeds and so on - in the ground, or in pots and then in the ground, and they grow. You have to think a bit about the soil of course and how to replenish the nutrients, etc., but the growing bit is easy. The more difficult bit is knowing when to harvest and how to store. As for catching rabbits and chopping wood, I never caught a rabbit yet - lots of hares though, and I used to regularly find a hare on my doorstep with no shotgun pellets in it (in Lincolnshire no less), and chopping wood is an art form if you want to retain all your fingers. Softwood - with or without knots? Hardwood - species? Knowing where to hit it and where not to hit it. Big axe or little axe? They tell me that rocket science is actually not that difficult.

Cheers from rural Hungary.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 06 Nov 2009, 16:36

Being on close, friendly terms with your neighbours, wherever you live, must surely rank top in necessary skills. That said, it happens more in the country than the town, having experienced both.

tubaplayer · Post by **tubaplayer** » 06 Nov 2009, 20:51

emordnilap wrote:Being on close, friendly terms with your neighbours, wherever you live, must surely rank top in necessary skills. That said, it happens more in the country than the town, having experienced both.

Totally agree with that. Where I am there is a huge difference between just the local town, which is only about 8000 population and the village where I live. The difference in attitudes is marked. In the village it is very much the exception for people not to exchange pleasantries, in town hardly anybody does. Also in the village we have a blacksmith, two cabinet makers/joiners/carpenters one of whom is also a cooper, two roofers, three or four builders, two plumbers, etc, etc. (Just for fun, a plumber here is "a water pipe mechanic" - makes perfect sense to me)

Quite often I get gifts of food or drink passed over one or other of my bordering fences for no reason at all. I always try and repay likewise. I'm getting to be quite a dab hand at jam making now!

This is a village of only some three hundred plus people. The skill set is astonishing - long gone from English villages I fear. Transport of choice is a bicycle and the garden (well, land if it isn't really a garden) tool of choice is the scythe.

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Country better than the city post peak oil?

Country better than the city post peak oil?

Country vs. City