*It's just great to see a discussion which is so far advanced of the stuck-in-the-asphalt thought about our real troubles. It's cram full of stuff that is obviously true and that nobody thinks about. It's like having Vaclav Havel show up at a conclave of overeducated Marxists.
*You know what this "Outquisition" situation really needs? It needs some REAL THIRD WORLD DESIGN GUYS. I'm talking about you, @dx1w, http://designforthefirstworld.com/ . You're talking about how "lazy" you are in helping the First World avoid its own general destruction? THIS is how lazy you are.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008208.html
(...)
"The second larger problem is the clamor from certain bloggers that this is yet another example of arrogant urbanites bossing around the noble country folk. No one's proposing that urban hipsters show up and tell anyone what to do: there are a great many ways of helping a community with new tools and resources than can start from a position of respect and intelligent engagement (in fact, you can read about hundreds of good examples of such projects right here on Worldchanging). I find it telling that some commenters assume the complete opposite, as if people who were willing to commit themselves to making a difference would be complete idiots in how they went about it.
"The third, largest problem is that the idea that rural communities are all doing great and can survive collapses just fine is pretty insane. We have over a century of observed history to show us that while rural people are certainly better at being rural than urban people would be, they are no better at avoiding collapse, and, in fact, in North America, they are usually heavily in debt and dependent on long supply chains of increasingly scarce inputs. The average North American country person is not much better prepared to manage in a widespead catastrophe than the average suburbanite.
"Here in North America, the vast majority of people who live in rural areas are not farmers. They work in poultry processing plants. They mine coal. They work at the landfill. They stock shelves at the local supermarket. They answer customer service queries at the local call center. They ship widgets from a mail-order warehouse. They flip burgers. I've spent big chunks of my life in small towns and country places, and while I love these places, they're not what most urbanites idealize them as.
"Less than 1% of the U.S. population farms, according to the Census. The average age of those farmers is rising fast, with 40% now over 55, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than half of all American farms are now either hobby or retirement farms, according to the EPA. Topsoil erosion can be measured in feet in many parts of the Midwest, while the flight from small towns of an entire generation of young people means a huge number of those towns have no future as things stand now.
"Rural North America is in sad shape. Rural poverty is perhaps even more startling than urban poverty these days, and the lack of jobs, education, health and financial resources is much more pronounced in rural areas. Virtually every measurement of human well-being is worse in rural counties (at least working rural counties, rather than rural suburbs) than in urban counties. Already, huge swathes of rural America are green and leafy ghettos, complete with welfare dependencies and drug addictions. (((Hey favela. Are you listening to this?)))
"If managing in a catastrophe were just about growing your own food, many (but not all) rural people would probably be just fine. If it were about repairing your machines, maintaining your roof, keeping the well running, a good many rural people would be okay. But there's a lot more than that involved in running the kind of society we all demand, things like public health systems, communications systems, transportation infrastructure, energy supplies, banking and finance, good governance innovations, an effective legal system, etc. Places with these systems do a heck of a lot better than places without them, and these are systems many communities are in a poor position to provide for themselves. In much of rural America, those systems aren't even working very well today.
"That's the reality.
"In the coming decades, some places are going to do just fine. Metropolitan areas that shift gears fast enough (and are outside the worst climate-impacted areas) may even see a rise in their fortunes, as the expertise they've developed becomes more valued elsewhere. Ideally, we'll get smart and help everyone manage the coming transitions as well as possible, and we'll find that for a great many people in a great many places – including rural communities – life actually improves.
"But if we don't get smart enough, fast enough, people are going to get left behind, especially in places which are already perceived to have limited value, like run-down cities, bankrupt suburbs and poor rural areas...." (((Ever heard of the "developing world?" See, these are situations that need "developing," and they're in your world.)))
