Joined: Apr 03, 2004 Posts: 6497 Location: My Grandkids' Farm
Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:02 am Post subject: Uptown Survival Community
Johnmarcos' urban sustainability thread got me thinking (imagine that).
There have been innumerable threads about the parameters for the perfect country PO Homestead and as I remember someone once thought about taking over a high-rise after the predictable SHTF event (whatever that is), and several threads about communes and THEY all take for granted a rural location I think. At most there is the 'take over a small town'¯ idea, but not much has been written about the best location in the city.
I think one of the things that people who move to the country want is the ability to make decisions about the basic infrastructure on which they rely. In town you basically take what is offered and hope it keeps working when you need it. Many, if not most people I think will not leave the city unless forced to - although they may be quite concerned about the future there.
So what if a number of people who are concerned about energy depletion yet hate the smell of chicken manure got together and purchased or built a 'compound' in the city. The idea is designing a sustainable urban home for one or more families. This isn't necessarily a commune per say but it is would be fairly independent of outside infrastructure or at least have reliable backup.
What might be the parameters for the perfect uptown, powerdown retreat? _________________ Make a plan and work it:
Last edited by Pops on Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:57 am; edited 1 time in total
First, I'll quantify what I think is the group to which you are alluding
I'm thinking the top 10-15% income group. Families with a per capita income over $50k, and liquid assests over $500k. There's plenty of them. Lot's of retirees, executives, upper management, business owners, trust fund babies, doctors, lawyers, and of course, drug dealers, organized crime members and lottery winners.
Let's go with the assumption that there is enough interest and cooperation to form a group. The members of the group would have to be organized among themselves, knowledgable about the laws and procedures required to form such a community, willing and able to cooperate, and be aware of peak oil.
What are the qualities of these folks. The people in the group have no wish to live in the country. They have no desire to give up their creature comforts. They have he money and power to make things happen.
I would think a high rise does not offer an outdoor setting. It would be difficult to have parks, lawns, shrubbery, patios and swimming pools, but not impossuble. Given the choice, most people would choose a yard over a balcony.
A more desirable, comfortable setting would be a gated community. Spacious, comfortable homes with manicured lawns, back yards with patios and spas. An upscale community with a homeowners association. Membership in the community would be juried. A clean criminal background, perhaps drug testing. In short, only those of upstanding character. This will remove some of the drug dealers, but I suspect a few may creep in on occassion.
The community would be completely fenced. Difficult to penetrate, surveilance systems, cameras, armed patrolling guards. There are numerous communities such as this all over the US. There are communities which would only require the security systems to reach this level. Lots of fancy golf courses, air parks, marinas and country clubs are a step away as we speak. They have the amenities: clubhouse, restaurant, spa, recreation, society already in place
The communinities are already in place. As are their organizations. Add security. The next critical element would be power generation. Choose the fuel source, make the investment in equipment. Solar requires space, but it makes no noise and does not pollute, same with wind. I would write off hydro electric, as flowing surface water would present a security problem.
A wise group would use several different power generating systems. Petroleum would be the primary system for some time to come, as long as it is available at a reasonable, not necessarily cheap, price.
A central water system would need to be in place, whereas sewagae can be done with septic systems for each home. If worse came to worse, just pump the crap over the wall.
Food production could be handles in several ways. For greatest food security, it would have to be produced within the community. That plan may be right out as too stinky. Some groups would raise their own food within the compound, some would make the investment in a CSA or even their own complete farm away from the primary compound, with its own security systems. I do not see these people as the actual laboreres and farm hands. They may serve as a directing board or management. For the most part, these problems would be delegated. Labor would be housed near or on the property, but segregated out of a sense of propriety.
Transportation would not be a particular problem for some time in terms of fuel needs. Just pay the bill.
When TSHTF, the group would be insulated to some degree. Close the gate, put security on alert.
The biggest problem this group would face would be economic collapse. When their money no longer has value they lose their ability to purchase supplies and pay the labor. If the community farm was secure and producing sufficent goods for barter, they may have the ability to continue.
Depending on the group, the geography, the climate, and the capital, all sorts of communities could be developed. There are rowhouses with a central park, accessible only to the owners of the rowhouses. There are condominiums and apartment buildings which are practically self contained right now. I picture a country club with a big fence being the standard.
What will determine the survivability of these groups is the carrying capacity of the community and whatever satellite operations and properties are under their contol.
Sufficient investment will buy carrying capacity. It will buy energy and food production, security, tools, labor, equipment, peace of mind. How much do you have to spend. If these people see that the economy is going to collapse, and that their best investment would be in their own well being, it can be predicted that they will do exactly that. Liquidate, buy, hoard, hire and build.
Much has to happen before these groups can move to the self-sufficient compound stage. They must become aware of the problem, be in position to take action. They must become organized, which is usually the job of a few core people. They must also have time to put everything together.
In a Slow Slide Scenario, I would expect more of these types of communities. The intelligence level of the top demographic, combined with their typical positions of power will give them more time than the rest of us to see things happening. In a sudden collapse, I would expect them to be in the same boat as the rest of the world, only with much nicer coats. _________________ If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984
It would cost too much to set up.
There was mention a while ago about a wealthy neighborhood with 20 or 30 acre grounds.This would need a wall around it to make it anywhere near safe I would think.
But I would imagine something along that line.
There is just too much population in the cities.Thats the bottom line.
Today on the news here,there was a clip from Cincinatti Ohio of a man who walked into a store and shotgunned the cashier on the spot no questions asked and then proceded to rob the place.
Now this could have taken place anywhere it dosent matter.
What Im getting at is that when its going to be too EXPENSIVE to buy FOOD,which I personally dont think the time is very far away,imagine the crime rate now x500.
So I would have to say,city=walls.BIG walls
I just cant see a peaceful scenario in this.Maybe now, but not later.
Sorry. _________________ ΜΟΛΩΝ-ΛΑΒΕ
A gated, secured compound will buy the inhabitants only a limited time before they run out of supplies or are overwhelmed by outsiders. Everybody in the big industrial city is on a sinking ship. Those in the secured compounds will simply be the last ones to go beneath the water line. _________________ UNplanning the future...
http://unplanning.blogspot.com
I disagree. It would cost too much for YOU to set up. Most of the American aristocracy is insulated from the working class. The working class are as ostriches with their head in the sand: what they do not see does not exist.
There is big money all over the place. Most people with lots of wealth do not flaunt it. Why? Because it is stupid to do so. The reason people with money have money is because they are conservative with their spending. This is what allows them to accumulate wealth.
In my observations, I have seen that surplus wealth is frequently spent in obtaining the right location for a home. A little bit out of the way. Not on the main roads, definately behind the tree line.
Once you reach a threshold of income, where your bills are paid, your mortgage is covered, everything you could ask for is a matter of swiping a card, there is not too much to go after. Home expenses drop to a minor percentage of income. Truth be told, what does more money do for you?
It removes you from society. It takes you away from the riff-raff and the sheep. It puts you in a place where you are not seen and not heard by most people. Money makes you invisible, if that is your wish.
spear wrote:
I just cant see a peaceful scenario in this.
Here, I agree with you, however responding to this is a matter of another thread.
-----------
pea-jay wrote:
A gated, secured compound will buy the inhabitants only a limited time before they run out of supplies or are overwhelmed by outsiders. Everybody in the big industrial city is on a sinking ship. Those in the secured compounds will simply be the last ones to go beneath the water line.
In the event of a social collapse, the aristocracy is always the enemy.
The aristocracy (read: the rich and powerful. rich=anyone with more money than you) is blamed for the woes of society as they are the people in control. If society collapses, people in control are blamed for thier failure to prevent society from collapsing. Society always demands a scapegoat. In the absence of a scapegoat, the default scapegoat will be the rich and pwerful.
Anyone within a gated, secure compound is labelled the enemy. These compounds will become targets, subject to relentless attempts to seize whatever is within the compounds. I agree that the gates and the King Kong fences will offer the inhabitants time. The question then becomes: How much time? Although the outside population has the Grandeur and Scope of the Army of Webb, that population is also battling time in terms of its own sustainability. Excluding the human element, the winner of the engagement could be determined by a calculus formula: rate of change.
Time becomes an ally to the inhabitants if they have the resources to carry them through.
In a LSSS scenario, those within the walls will do fine.
If Hobbes becomes the prophet of mans future, at least they have some advantages.
-
From the Hindu God of death Shiva in the Baghavad Gita wrote:
I Am Become Death, Destroyer Of Worlds.
_________________ If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984
Joined: Aug 18, 2004 Posts: 694 Location: SF Bay Area, Calif
Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 1:05 am Post subject:
This idea of a special compound for the rich in the midst of a catastrophe was already covered in "The Masque of the Red Death":
E.A. Poe wrote:
THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal --the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death."
It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.....
Joined: Aug 25, 2004 Posts: 85 Location: West Coast, USA
Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 2:40 am Post subject:
I found this article interesting, written by someone who achieved some success in living sustainably in rural southern Oregon but moved to Portland to be near others of like mind. He may be enjoying good quality of life now but I doubt even a sustainable-minded inner suburbia will fare well if the S really HTF. My senses say a little bit out of the city will be better, and there are small towns where you can find a modicum of tolerance and cooperation, mostly on the left coast...
Oh, and thanks for that link to Poe's "The Mask of the Red Death." It's been years since I've read that, and I still enjoy his lyrical style, darkly Romantic imagery, and the conculsion that even the powerful can't cheat death when it's coming for you.
Joined: Aug 18, 2004 Posts: 694 Location: SF Bay Area, Calif
Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:19 pm Post subject:
Great article, mikela. I think we'll be seeing much more work on urban sustainability.
I'm convinced that the most important thing one can do is be around good people whom one trusts, rather than obsess about water supply and barbed wire.
Off topic... you might be interested in an article that was just posted on Eneregy Bulletin: "The Greening of Evangelicals" at http://energybulletin.net/4275.html .
Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 309 Location: Ontario, Canada
Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 10:36 pm Post subject:
A walled off community seems wholly impractical to me. How could you possibly afford the space to make it self-sufficient, or to man it's defences? How could you make redudancies for everything the city provides, all within the little compound?
There are, however, two potentially viable ideas that we've already seen: hide, or pick the right city.
1. Get an inconspicuous place, and stock it to the brim with survival supplies. If you believe collapse of Rome et. al. will play out again, presumably cities will get the most government help - live off that as long as possible. If things get SHTF ugly down the road, you wait it out in your place until people leave the city/die. Then, scavenge or garden in the husk of the city later.
2. Live in a small, semi-walkable city surrounded by farmland and water resources already. Hope that the prescence of nearby agriculuture can stabilize food prices, and perhaps offer employment down the road if society starts de-populating cities. Do what you can to green the city beforehand (community gardens, public transit, make friends in the farmer's market, etc.).
Both of these options have the advantage of being potetinally quite cheap, and being solo projects if need be. You could rent a little appartment in the right part of town and make preparation your "hobby." _________________ "Our forces are now closer to the center of Baghdad than most American commuters are to their downtown office."
--Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, April 2003
it's been said above but it seems to me that water would be your biggest concern. without active utilities, finding a water source could be challenging, especially in an arid area. water being the very basis of life (even over security) - would be my #1 concern. IMO anything else could be surmounted by strategy and/or secrecy.
i disagree with the claim that aristocracy is anyone with more money than you (implying relativity). i think that aristocracy is people who control the decisions over what happens with the means of production, the gatekeepers, the ones who decide policy, who decide where public funds are spent, who own and run military bodies, et al. money is implicit but not defining and it's not relative. aristrocracy means landowners in the sense that there is noone more powerful or in greater authority to take their land away. IMO if you rely on a paycheck, you ain't one of them.
the truth is anyone who "owns" land in the U.S. is really taking it on loan from the government. the federal government can legally take your land whenever it wants. they are supposed to compensate you for it, if you have the deed without impingement, but they don't have to ask your permission, ever; they just have to meet certain criterias of federal "need" which i'm sure are easy enough to manufacture. in a national crisis or mass seizures, that compensation might even get conveniently forgotten or forestalled. especially, say, in an economic crisis where federal funds are low. _________________ what, me worry?
Joined: Jan 07, 2005 Posts: 139 Location: Mpls, MN, USA
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 4:36 pm Post subject: In Town Agraria?
I continue to wonder if an intown agrarian neighborhood would be possible here in Minneapolis.
Enough folks are talking asbout Peak Oil in our part of the country to begin to spread the word through a variety of "word-of-mouth" situations, and we have many folks already interested in sustainablility.
I continue to network with folks to see if we can establish a bit of an urban tribe, and perhaps one or more urban compounds as a part of preparation.
Some folks are interested in moving out to rural or wilderness areas. I find the notion of transforming our city with concerted local efforts to be very engaging.
I figure that most folks will die off in the coming fifty years or so, and that there is no way to find security through isolation, arms, or any other survivalist strategies. War, disease, famine, and the awful fever we've given Mother Earth (global warming) will create such a cauldron that no one can plan for a high probability of survival.
The way to plan, it seems to me, is to find the strategies that really make sense to each of us -- reflection and education through discussion helps -- and then to find others of like mind, and go for it.
The urban ideas have merit, and we may all be suprised by the outcomes of our efforts.
I'm still working for transformation in Minneapolis... _________________ pedaling for peace and ecojustice -- Gary
Joined: Jan 07, 2005 Posts: 139 Location: Mpls, MN, USA
Posted: Thu Feb 10, 2005 9:22 pm Post subject: Creating a Life together
I've got Diana Leafe Christian's "Creating A Life Together..." Yes. it is a good book.
I've helped to found a housing cooperative here in Minneapolis, and am familiar with co-housing efforts in the Twin Cities area.
Peak oil, sustainability, urban tribe, and uptown survival communities...i could see this evolving in Minneapolis. Any other Peak Oilers contemplating or discussing this in your city locations?
We have a Peak Oil Meetup group to talk about the issue and about possible responses. Do other Peak Oilers know about and/or participate in Meetup groups? _________________ pedaling for peace and ecojustice -- Gary
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