[wisconsin_cur]

Of course what I wrote was a vast oversimplification. I was merely trying to use the types of homes as a proxy for the very real differences that exist in a rural area. Were it not winter perhaps I could have used the type of vegitation growing on the lawn or if it were not normal working hours the vehicles in the drive. Each would have had its drawbacks. I used what I had.

The problem is the default seperation we seem to create of rural vs urban. Someone then gets mad and says, "you idealize the rural" or "you will just get killed for your spam in the city." This may be a bad attempt to get past that even worse simplification but it is an attempt.

I am sure there are differences depending upon the region of the nation/world as well, hence the reason I labeled the region of my own observations.

Regarding those older 700 sq ft home. Both can be made more robust and sustainable with the right combination of knowledge, financial ability and motivation. No doubt in the future some will become stunning examples of just that. Looking at the maintance of smaller homes that I saw today leaves me to question if those prerequisites will be present.

Regarding doublewides: they are perhaps more likely to receive the updates but you do have the problem of longevity. No doubt a skilled eye and hand can see plenty to do that could vastly improve the situation. I have only known two well (one older double wide still in use and a newer one that the owner wishes they had never bought) there seems to me a reason that they depreciate over time.

[alecifel]

Yea, manufactured housing is ready for the dozer within 40 years. The modern suburban McHouse falls into that category, too... the wood, even the 2x6 studs many builders are now using, is grown from hybrid varieties that are bred for rapid growth. It has far too open a grain structure even after kiln drying and years of seasoning, and allows the entrance of fungal decay agents. It gets black mold something terrible. The chipboard, believe it or not, is actually a superior product to plywood. Both will swell when they get wet, but plywood will warp. The disadvantage is that they give off formeldehyde from the glue as it ages. This can cause headaches and nausea for people living in the house.

As far as the old rural vs. urban argument goes, there is definitely going to be a variety of realities in both areas. I can see what Cur is trying to say.. the rule that I use is this: If you are going to be living in a rural area, you'd better be producing something. That was the rule before the Oil Age. Food, timber and charcoal, and textiles are produced in the country and marketed in the city. If you live in the city you will have a high income, but everything you need will need to be bought. In the country, you don't have any cash but you have food and energy security. Of course, people in rural areas will benefit from the increase in food and energy prices, because suddenly there's a market for homegrown tomatoes (when Wal Mart is selling bland ones for $6 a pound), firewood, charcoal, biodiesel, turpentine... all the things that enterprising country persons can bring to market.

Getting killed for your can of spam is a doomer exaggeration, like the roving bands of the starving (again, will not be seen in the OECD). Getting killed for the aluminum siding on your house (such as is happening in Cleveland) I can see. But the cities will have increased security, so choosing a rural life is not so much a choice about personal safety as a decision not to live in a police state.

Rural people are by and large armed, (provided the Anti-Gun lobby doesn't get its way), responsible and know the value of good neighbors. When and if the SHTF, we'll posse up and run out the bad apples, burn all the derelict homes so it won't attract vagrants, and that will be the end of it.

[MrBill]

There are rarely any easy answers. Some are short-term and do not work in the long-term. Others would work in the long-term, but are expensive or impractical or both to implement in the face of short-term need. Also, what works for one may not be scalable for the many. That being said my first priority is to my family, friends and local community, so those are the immediate problems to which I would look for a solution.

Some of my rural observations are similiar, but I might add some band-aid solutions if I may.

First of all I would see a re-population of rural communities where there are small houses that are quite ridiculously cheap, but are still connected to running water and electricity. I can think of one such town quite near to our farm that has houses from the 1950s or so that are smaller than your more modern houses, but heck we lived in one like that when I was growing up and it didn't kill us. That small town has all the basic ammenities and it is serviced by rail.

By the way my father helped electrify parts of rural Alberta only in the early 1950's. So even then it was the outhouse and the pump out back. Not fun when it is minus 30, but no one froze to death or died.

It seems to me that if we can park an RV in the pole shed that someone can throw-up a pole shed around a mobile home and/or build a second insulated roof over-head. Additionally the trailor can be insulated from the outside using straw bales or whatever material is to hand. Used lumber and corrugated tin with insulation maybe?

Additionally if you use skirting you can drastically cut your energy use. I know because I used to work for Alberta Housing serving the Natives and rural poor doing maintenance and construction each summer and we used to do this to every trailer. As a matter of fact a lot of those trailers were also not connected to the grid either.

On the farm my father built a house way too big. Over Christmas they slept 22 people. However, we have two generations there now, and if there were a crunch we would have three. Multiple families living under one roof. Unfortunately, our only alternative to electricity and natural gas delivered to the door is wind and solar power as well as a heat exchanger. That is an expensive conversion to make with a very long payback period. But we could do it.

Neighbors have switched to coal from nat gas. That is dirtier, but cheaper. Again what works for one may not work for others. It would certainly have climate implications. But it beats freezing to death in the dark.

However, a friend of mine's house and workshop are both built out of square strawbales and then plastered. They are warm and easy to heat. Great insulation. It seems to me that if you live in an oversized house (McMansion) that you can re-insulate it using any number of materials depending on what is available and what you can afford if you're not particularly worried about losing interior space or what it looks like from the outside. If you have large overhangs, I would line the outside with straw bales. If not, I would line the inside and re-plaster.

So that is a partial list. I would guess there are many, many other ways to retro-fit your property depending on what you are starting with and your resources. I would add how much sweat equity you are willing to invest as well. Good friends and family certainly help lighten the load! ; - )

[alecifel]

Good advice, MrBill! Never underestimate the make-do approaches people come up with in a pinch.

Rural communities, especially small towns, are not going to be in the best position on the downhill side. They have neither the advantage of rural homesteads, which can produce much of their own requirements, but their largest problem is the inability to fund infrastructure. Cities can make peak oil adjustments by raising bond issues to cover essential infrastructure redeployment... a town of 3000 or 10000 people will have a very hard time doing that, particularly if the citizenry is already strapped. I think small towns are going to just dry up in all this. (This is where Kunstler's solution logic is flawed. Walkable is good, but bondable is also needed.) The saving grace is that small towns are in immediate proximity to the rural space around them, so access to biofuels, foodstuffs and inexpensive labor will help them to make this transition.

[UncoveringTruths]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('alecifel', 'G')ood advice, MrBill! Never underestimate the make-do approaches people come up with in a pinch.

Rural communities, especially small towns, are not going to be in the best position on the downhill side. They have neither the advantage of rural homesteads, which can produce much of their own requirements, but their largest problem is the inability to fund infrastructure. Cities can make peak oil adjustments by raising bond issues to cover essential infrastructure redeployment... a town of 3000 or 10000 people will have a very hard time doing that, particularly if the citizenry is already strapped. I think small towns are going to just dry up in all this. (This is where Kunstler's solution logic is flawed. Walkable is good, but bondable is also needed.) The saving grace is that small towns are in immediate proximity to the rural space around them, so access to biofuels, foodstuffs and inexpensive labor will help them to make this transition.

[benzoil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('alecifel', 'C')ities can make peak oil adjustments by raising bond issues to cover essential infrastructure redeployment... a town of 3000 or 10000 people will have a very hard time doing that, particularly if the citizenry is already strapped.

[I_Like_Plants]

I agree with the Cur. It's the same mix we have out here. I know a few people who started out and became happy(?) McMansion owners because they started out with a trailer, but they got that first leg-up typically in the 70s, that door's been shut. The classes are very rigidly defined and divided in the US now, so a person ending up living in a doublewide in a park etc is generally no fault of their own. Medical reasons, in a country with no medical care means you lose a leg, you're set up with a 1950s-tech catheter setup, etc. You lose a job, congratulations you're now a member of the down-and-out.

The closest thing to how this country works I've seen in print is George Orwell's two books, The Road To Wigan Pier and Down And Out In Paris And London.

[alecifel]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', 'I') agree with the Cur. It's the same mix we have out here. I know a few people who started out and became happy(?) McMansion owners because they started out with a trailer, but they got that first leg-up typically in the 70s, that door's been shut. The classes are very rigidly defined and divided in the US now, so a person ending up living in a doublewide in a park etc is generally no fault of their own. Medical reasons, in a country with no medical care means you lose a leg, you're set up with a 1950s-tech catheter setup, etc. You lose a job, congratulations you're now a member of the down-and-out.

[cube]

I never understood the whole rural vs. urban debate.

IMHO it is irrelevant. It depends on the individual. If you're an adaptable person with a good work ethic and financial common sense you'll do fine post PO....rural or urban it doesn't matter.

However anybody who has spent their entire lives having mommy and daddy spoil them and even as an adult, they are still free-loading off their parents...these will be the first people to "crumble". Have you ever seen those Dr. Phil episodes about grown adults in their late 30's STILL leaning on their parents....those folks.

cube's post PO prediction--> If you're a lazy free-loader people will NOT want you around their community rural or urban.

[kuidaskassikaeb]

Wisconsin Cur wrote

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')f course what I wrote was a vast oversimplification. I was
merely trying to use the types of homes as a proxy for the very real
differences that exist in a rural area.

[MrBill]

Life in a small town is no Norman Rockwell painting. Especially today as many of those small towns are infested with drug and alcohol problems that translate into quite a bit of petty and not so petty crime. Especially if the young and energetic have to leave to find decent paying jobs.

However, that being said, we live about 6-miles (10kms) from the next small town. My mother is in her mid-60s. One advantage of the small town over the city is that everyone knows her. She is not just another facelss, namelss, 'old' person, but a member of the community. As you get older and in times of crisis that does matter. Especially if you have been giving selflessly to the community for many years and have built-up a support network.

My grandfather and grandmother moved to the farm, so that they could be cared for there as opposed to in an old folks home, but also because we have an excellent, little hospital close-by where their weekly visits were not a major undertaking. In the city where they lived close the University Hospital just getting there and finding parking was an ordeal in itself. Forget public transport when you're 90+ in mid-winter with ice and snow. Then due to staff turn-over and the sheer volume they were just faceless, nameless, old people even though they had been going there off and on for some 25-30 years.

Small towns have their fair share of drunks, bums and bigots, but the funny thing about a small town is that usually everyone has a place and there is a place in the community for everyone. The key is to downsize and move there while you are still young enough to be active in the community and meet people. Some leave their retirement choices too long and then find themselves alone in an unfamiliar environment.

Whenever I speak about post peak oil depletion I make a distinction between the various levels of depletion. Stage one may be high prices and sporadic or local shortages. Stage X may be no available supply at any price. For the purposes of this thread I am refering to early stage resource depletion where lifestyle changes can still be made.

The people that would be able to move back to rural areas and the small towns in those areas are those that maybe have family still there. Those that can still downsize from their more expensive city dwelling and buy-in cheaper in the rural areas. Or, of course, those lucky enough to be relatively self-sufficient.

For one, I cannot get any sort of broadband Internet on the farm, so I could never do my job from there. It is not possible (at the moment), so I would have to either live or work in town. In a small town that is not so bad. A ten minute drive and rents are very low for a small office. Naturally in later stage post peak oil depletion I may not even be able to make that commute and/or my job may not exist in any case. But I put that date sometime after 2030, so really it is not a big worry of mine. I can dig potatoes and tend cattle as well by then.

After several years on these boards I am still puzzled by those that attempt to deal from both sides of the deck in their arguments, which goes something like this:

Peak oil depletion will change everything, BUT we will be hindered from adapting to this paradigm shift due to our existing social-democratic systems and societal norms that were put in place prior to peak oil.

Well, which is it? Will peak oil depletion change everything or not?

It seems to me that I had a life prior to peak oil and I will have a life post peak oil. They may or may not look like one another? But if you have a physical reality; a set of economic consequences that stem from that reality; and the social response to that change in economic conditions; then you will have a change in the underlying political reality as well.

That might mean new rules, regulations and laws passed by government or it may mean government being unable to enforce existing rules, regulations and laws. The old 'you cannot get blood out of a stone' argument.

I am sorry if that is a little off-topic, but I think it links back to mandatory changes that will have to be made in response to the physical reality of resource depletion; that will change the economic environment; and therefore will change both the individual's and societies' response to that change in economic fundamentals. When you change one, you change them all.

I may prefer (or not) to live in a city, but economic reality may dictate something completely different in the future. And furthermore what works for me might not be right for someone else. But as I have said before my obligation is to my family, friends and local community, so I will concentrate on solutions at those levels first.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kingcoal', '
')Sorry, I don’t think the story ends with everyone who “prepares” living happily after.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '.')..
Whenever I speak about post peak oil depletion I make a distinction between the various levels of depletion. Stage one may be high prices and sporadic or local shortages. Stage X may be no available supply at any price. For the purposes of this thread I am refering to early stage resource depletion where lifestyle changes can still be made.

...
I am sorry if that is a little off-topic, but I think it links back to mandatory changes that will have to be made in response to the physical reality of resource depletion; that will change the economic environment; and therefore will change both the individual's and societies' response to that change in economic fundamentals. When you change one, you change them all.

[MrBill]

wisconsin_cur wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')n example: if the family I characterized as being in the most dire straight is able to adapt and stay in a rural area until the large farm that owns the field next door cannot farm that field, and no one is able to buy it or farm it in the old model will we, as that families neighbors, keep them from utilizing that fallow land to build something that we will all benefit from? Perhaps they will work out a trade with the land owner to create a win-win situation, maybe there is a governemtn created plague that wipes out the owner and all of his heirs, the details are unimportant.

[IslandCrow]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', ' ') For one, I cannot get any sort of broadband Internet on the farm, so I could never do my job from there.

[MrBill]

There is a large hill between ourselves and the re-transmitting tower, so the signal cannot reach us. To be honest I have not investigated a satelite dish because it was not an issue, yet.

Someone did tell us that we might be able to mount our own re-transmitting tower on the hill and use it to re-broadcast to others, but we also have not investigated that.

All I know if the old copper wires and the dial-up are not near fast enough for any real-time market data. I even find wireless at home too unstable for those applications! ; - )