The Crash Course - Chris Martenson [134]
What to Look for if Relocating
After coming to the realization that the future may well be quite different from the past, you may be thinking about whether your current location is where you want to stay. My wife and I picked up our entire family and moved to a place that we judged would provide an excellent quality of life under almost any circumstances. We specifically sought a town or city that would be a fun, enjoyable place during times of both relative abundance and declining energy, and we moved away from an area that struck us as dangerously resistant to new ideas and change.
Community
A detectably functioning community encompassing a healthy spread of ages and skills was a nonnegotiable element for us. The first thing we looked for was a vibrant community where people had already demonstrated an ability to self-organize to create what they wanted. Becca identified the presence of “cooperative grocery stores” (a.k.a. co-ops) as an indicator that the local culture had what we were looking for. Her reasoning was that if people cared enough about their food to organize and sustain their own commercial enterprise around it, then they were the kind of people we wanted to be around.
Once we found an area rich with co-ops, we dug around further looking for other signs of life indicating the local people were actively creating their own opportunities and meeting some of their own needs. Fairs, festivals, and cohesive traditions, such as holiday extravaganzas and block parties, are good indicators that the local population knows how to do more together than accidentally bump into each other at the nearest big-box store.
Next, we looked within each community to see if it was well represented by residents of all ages. We found a few that seemed predominantly inhabited by boomers or retired folks; this is a valuable subset within a community, but we were looking to find a balance that included young families with children along with our middle-aged peers. We also hoped to find a variety of skill sets represented, as having a good mix of tradespeople, business professionals, laborers, artists, thinkers, and doers was important to us.
Population Density
We also wanted to live near enough to other people that we would have ample opportunities to socialize and have fun within our local sphere. Movies, concerts, events, shows, parties, and so forth all require sufficient population density. So does finding the right kinds of people with which to create a new future. Children need a group of friends and the sense that they are living in the middle of someplace exciting. We didn’t want driving to dominate our lives, and we wanted to feel that we really knew our neighbors, so getting the density just right felt very important to us—neither overpopulated nor underpopulated.
Rural with Farmland
Next, we wanted to be in a semirural location with the specific distinction that the local cropland be sufficient to sustainably support the existing population. The area we chose has lots of working farms and some of the best soil in the country. This distinguishes it from places that appear rural but are merely wooded and/or consist of thin, poor soils and are therefore incapable of supporting much in the way of a vibrant, relatively dense local population. Basically, we steered clear of “dirt poor” areas. Yes, you can build soils over time, but starting with thick, healthy soils is a lot easier.
Water
Not much happens without plenty of fresh water, especially predictable crop yields. The area we chose has ample water in the form of rainfall, rivers, and ground water (aquifers), and isn’t overly prone to regular