[ecopal]

I recently decided that an old single family house is just not going to be the most energy efficient way to live in the city so I sold it and bought a condo. So far the heat usage is a fraction of what my home was and the square footage is the same. I don't know why more folks are not doing this. It seems like the obvious future for urban living. I bit of adjustment, I will admit, but we Americans need to start realizing we are going to have to start living like the rest of the world. Anybody else out there taking this plunge? Now I am looking for just a small piece of land for a garden.

[Heineken]

Although I hope I'm wrong, I think you made exactly the wrong move.

An urban condo? You're a sitting duck for power and water outages, stripped grocery-store shelves, zombie hordes, and more. As I see it, you've ceded all control.

Where will your land be in relation to your condo? How will you keep hungry people from stripping your crops?

It would make more sense to have an old house with a little land, well beyond the urban fringe, and learn to live there in a different way.

[Daniel_Plainview]

One downside to condos: when your condo-neighbors go bankrupt and fall into foreclosure, you (and the other solvent condo-dwellers) will be forced to pay the defaulting neighbor's share of condo dues, utilities, etc.; not to mention that condo values deteriorate once several condos within the same complex go into foreclosure.

[mos6507]

Square footage alone does not dictate heating costs. You should have pursued making the house more energy efficient before abandoning it.

[alokin]

if it's one of these old sturdy brick townhouses, built 1900 - why not? But you should buy garden land as well, reachable by public transport.
These old houses are well constructed and the maintenance is far lower than what's maybe built in the 60's or later.
You might have the convenience having everything close buy, shops, schools etc., but I would not like to miss my own land to plant my stuff.
(Chicken or rabbits might be held in a small backyard of the condo)

[SILENTTODD]

Welcome ecopal! I have to take exception to the other posts so far because you didn’t say where you are located, USA? or in that case what State?

Not knowing that, there may be some advantages to your strategy. In the case of complete societal break down, there is no advantage in a separate house over a condo; you would be just as susceptible to raging hoards in either case. A separate house means your there alone defending you wee garden!

I am in the middle of reading Dmitry Orlov's new book "Reinventing Collapse", about the societal breakup of the Soviet Union and what he believes is inevitable for the United States also. One thing that stuck me was when the old USSR came apart, basically everybody stayed put! The government owned the apartment you lived in, so when the government evaporated, so what? You still lived in the house.

If things get so bad as many people on this site believe will happen. No body is going to have the power or the will to evict current residence out of where they are living now! Just like in Russia.

Is there a growing area around your condo that is being used for lawn? Could it be used as garden sites? Start making you plans now!

One thing I would strongly recommend you do is to introduce yourself and know EVERYONE in your condo building and those around it if you can. There is safety in numbers. To quote Maximus Meridius from the movie 'Gladiator'- "Whatever comes through that gate, we're better off working as one".

[Tyler_JC]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ecopal', 'I') recently decided that an old single family house is just not going to be the most energy efficient way to live in the city so I sold it and bought a condo. So far the heat usage is a fraction of what my home was and the square footage is the same. I don't know why more folks are not doing this. It seems like the obvious future for urban living. I bit of adjustment, I will admit, but we Americans need to start realizing we are going to have to start living like the rest of the world. Anybody else out there taking this plunge? Now I am looking for just a small piece of land for a garden.

[max_in_wa]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', '.')...If you don't believe that the world is going to crash next year (as some on this website have been predicting since...oh...I dunno...2004), then moving into the city could be a very smart decision. ....

[heroineworshipper]

The single family house has become a novelty of the WWII generation. It's not practical anymore. Today there are more valuable things to spend $1 million on than a house. You can buy 3 suborbital space flights for the cost of a house. You can buy a fleet of airplanes. By forgetting about home owership U can have a life & save your fingernails. When the subprime mortgages went away, a lot of Calif*ahans turned away from home owership & discovered there was a lot more $1 million could buy than a roof.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('heroineworshipper', 'T')he single family house has become a novelty of the WWII generation. It's not practical anymore. Today there are more valuable things to spend $1 million on than a house. You can buy 3 suborbital space flights for the cost of a house. You can buy a fleet of airplanes. By forgetting about home owership U can have a life & save your fingernails. When the subprime mortgages went away, a lot of Calif*ahans turned away from home owership & discovered there was a lot more $1 million could buy than a roof.

[Heineken]

It's irritating when someone starts a thread and then doesn't participate in the follow-up.

Maybe he's painting his new condo.

I feel that an apartment (if that's what this condo is) is fundamentally a less survivable situation than a home with land. It's sterile and cut off from nature. It's a cube in a concrete wall of cubes. Real safety can't be achieved anywhere, of course, but the competition for daily survival is certain to be more intense in populous urban areas than in low-density rural areas.

[ecopal]

Thanks for the feedback. A few more details into my thinking: My move to the condo was based on thinking that started a while back and it was more based on what I hoped would become the trend of many people. I just started to think the idea that all people need a free-standing house to heat and maintain in the era of diminishing resources was not sustainable. Yet I (and my husband) have good-paying jobs in the city that we could not do elsewhere. Transportation costs are becoming huge and it doesn't seem to be any place for the middle of the road folks who see big problems ahead and yet do not want to take action. giving up a house and living on less energy consumption seemed to be something just a bit better than what we were doing. In many other places on the earth where consumerism is not as out of control as America, this model is the rule rather than the exception. For us, giving up the whole thing and moving out just would not work because of the need to work.

[Byron100]

A good thread, one worth having here on this forum.

I do agree with Heineken's points about having a home + land as opposed to having a condo in the city, for the simple reason of being able to grow food, keeping stockpiles of essential goods, having more room to accommodate extra family members and/or friends if need be. You just can't have those things with living in a condo.

The thing that scares me the most about living in a condo, however, is the mandatory "association" fees...which is like an extra tax that can be raised endlessly at will. I know there are costs associated with maintaining a single family home but at least I have the option of doing the work myself (which I do about 90% of the time), or simply deferring the maintenance off into the future, much like can be done with old cars, etc. With condos, you HAVE to pay the monthly fees, whether you have a job or not, and the thing that really burns me up is that they can actually take your home away if you're unable to come up with that monthly fee, even if you have no mortgage, keep up with the taxes, etc.

Perhaps someday, the government will pass laws to make these fees optional for those who cannot pay (or better yet, outlaw mandatory homeowner's associations altogether). If the common areas start to look a bit ratty, oh well...it's still better than losing your home just because a group of nutty "condo commandos" want to put a new roof on 10 years before the building really needs one, or a new paint job just because the board doesn't care for the "outdated" paint scheme.

Sorry for the rant, it's just that I have strong feelings on this issue, and I really do not think that homes / condos that have mandatory associations will survive very long in depressionary times.

As for as my living arrangements go, I do live in a typical suburban 3/2 on a 3/4 acre, but I am within walking distance of 2 bus lines as well as a comprehensive shopping center...I can get just about anywhere in this big, huge city of ours *without* the need for a car. Having 3/4 acre of land to do what I please will come in awful handy for gardening, harvesting of trees for firewood (I sure have a lot of those!), and perhaps a shop for operating a post-peak enterprise such as retrofitting bicycles with electric motors, etc.

So yes, I do believe my living arrangements are quite sustainable, at least to the point when things get so bad that its' not possible to carry on no matter where one lives.

[max_in_wa]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ecopal', '.').. I just started to think the idea that all people need a free-standing house to heat and maintain in the era of diminishing resources was not sustainable. ...

[Heineken]

I apologize for my impatient remark, ecopal. Got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

I agree with Byron.

You can't assume that your jobs in the city will be there when society and economies start falling apart. Or that there is anything "sustainable" about condo living, for the reasons I gave earlier.

It seems to me that your adjustment of selling your house and moving to a condo makes sense only in superficial economic terms that are based on things staying pretty much the same as they are.

In a condo you are more vulnerable and more dependent and there's no way around that.

[Ferretlover]

IMHO, condos and apartments are going to be awful. You are at the mercy of your neighbors and future squatters.
All it will take is one fire that quickly gets out of control, and a fire department that doesn't have or choose to waste the gas to come put it out.
*shudder* I don't like them (aps & condos) at all!

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('max_in_wa', ' ')And then, how are you going to make new metal tools once the shovels and rakes wear out?

[mos6507]

This is turning into yet another reubanization vs. suburban homestead argument. There are strong opinions in both camps and it's all riding on how the collapse actually plays out.

[Byron100]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'T')his is turning into yet another reubanization vs. suburban homestead argument. There are strong opinions in both camps and it's all riding on how the collapse actually plays out.

[mos6507]

The mindset I like to reference is from the end of What a Way to Go.

It doesn't have to be so much about finding the "safest" place. In the end there may not BE a truly safe place--just varying flavors of danger. So it may be pointless going in circles to theorize endlessly about the pros and cons city/suburb/country life. It's about finding the place you are feel passionate enough about that you're willing tie yourself to with a stake and make your final stand.