Choosing an Urban Life

My garden has been very neglected lately because my husband is working 6-7 days a week.  I had some friends over a couple of weeks ago and we planted Irish potatoes under straw mulch, and the two and half hours I spent in the garden left me with a sunburn that hurt for 5 days.  I give up: summer gardening is not for me.  In fact, agriculture is not for me.  I'm not lazy, but I look at my gardening friends and at my husband, and I am forced to admit that their stamina for working in the garden is four or five times what mine is; I am simply not suited to it.  I only wish I hadn't wasted so much time learning to homestead before figuring this out.  I could have spent that time learning crafts instead, and I wouldn't be at this frustrating novice stage that I'm at now, feeling like I'll never master anything.  Oh, well.  I once spent two years learning about real estate investing, and that was a worse waste of time, with much more disastrous results.

I discussed in previous posts some of the reasons why I've chosen to move back to Mexico.  What I have not discussed here is why I have chosen to live in a city, rather than a small town or rural area.  I know this must seem counter-intuitive or even naive to many people.

I got romanced by the fantasy of country living, of the perceived freedom and safety and wholesomeness of it all, and I know I'm in good company.  Not only do many people in the doomer community tell us that we must flee the cities and live independently in remote locations in order to survive, but the country-living fantasy is a strong part of our culture.  Unfortunately, not all of us are cut out for this lifestyle, no matter how much we may want it.  And what about the long-term consequences?  What is going to happen to rural places without automobiles?  That's a question not enough people ask.  It's not hard to answer: you can look to our own past, or to the present of poor countries, for some answers. 

This is what I think is going to happen.  Within a few generations, small villages in remote, especially mountainous areas, will be like the one my husband comes from in Honduras.  There, everyone is related, because the pool of marriage candidates is quite small.  But being related doesn't make them get along or trust each other.  People in these villages are, at best, ignorant and superstitious, gullible, often illiterate, and they develop dysfunctional cultural quirks.  They can be hostile to outsiders, and often quite cruel to one another.  And it's not just the backwards mountain villages that will make a comeback: in places favorable to agriculture, forced labor, so common in the past, will also reappear, in one form or another.  It is simply the most practical way of organizing a society that will survive in times of limited resources.  I believe Hispanic immigrants will gradually be enslaved first, as they are a class of people largely outside the protection of the law, and they are already doing the vast majority of agricultural work. 

I'm sure I sound elitist, but none of the above is a lifestyle I would want any part of.  My descendants, if they are anything like me, will be happier in cities.  Of course all of our choices come with risks and trade-offs, and we must each decide on our own what is most important to us and, to a certain degree, what is the best fit for our genetic predispositions. 

Of course, there are serious and scary issues with an urban life in the USA in the mid-term future.  But, where I am going, the situation is quite different.  In Mexico, the countryside is still full of people who know how to grow food intensively and are physically able to do so.  They know their land, because they've often been farming it for generations.  A lot has been lost in recent years, but not so much, I think, that a recovery can't be made once the export farms shut down and immigration stops.  Mexican culture, from the traditional street markets to the traditional cuisine, is well-adapted to a low-energy world.  Automobiles exist in Mexico, but they have not transformed that country to the degree that they have the USA.  And, agricultural consumers and producers are more balanced in numbers, so there is less risk of the cities being starved or of urban people fleeing in mobs to the countryside. 

So how does one prepare for collapse (or descent) in a Mexican city?  That will be the esoteric topic of one or more future posts here.