Urban Prepping
I think the only way you could survive in an urban area is if you’ve got a mini army prepared to take over and be the sheep dogs right away.
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Yes, I guess you could call that a plan C - become a nomad/transient.
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By the way: what’s plan B for the time when the bullets run out, or the gun breaks down beyond repair?Sling Shots!
I was going to include a mini survivor’s manual in the kids get home bags for their christmas presents.
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In the first 24-48 hours, or about 50-60 days out.
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Wine and chocolate ??
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Saw a documentary (long before even Covid); that addressed this question. And they took a look at records from the course of at least a couple hundred years and from a variety of civilizations around the world.
And what they found was that it was very rare to have a total society collapse. Looking at the aftermath of wars (Britain / Europe post WWII, 1860’s American Civil war in the south.) Food issues (1930’s dust bowl / midwest US, Germany post WWII), disasters, (Chernobyl, Japan, Mt. St. Helens, Katrina), Economic collapse (Russia / Eastern Block in the 1990’s, Iraq)
Even looking at places like Venezuela, Mexico, Central America, Sri Lanka, India now. Yes there are difficulties, but societies still have some basic organization. Granted the biggest issues people deal with in those circumstances are related to corruption. Look at Afghanistan even. Not some place most of us would want to live; but the Taliban still fills a role for “stability” in society.
Now in areas / eras where “tribal homogeneousness” makes a “tribal code”; there will likely be more stability in those areas than areas where there’s a lot of “culture clash”. And “culture clash” isn’t always racial or ethnic; it’s more ideological. And this is true particularly in areas where there’s a lot of mixing because of migration.
I live in a neighborhood that’s ethnically and racially mixed “working class”; but the town is very patriotic, politically conservative and has a lot of military veterans. So it’s ideologically homogeneous and probably fairly “religiously” homogeneous too; despite we are probably mixed about equally Catholic and Protestant. That’s not a problem here; but if we lived in Ireland, it would be a problem. We’re also 40 miles plus from any major city and there’s a lot of farmers and farm land out here.
So, it’s not likely that if the nearest city faces a “SHTF” scenario, that we’d see a whole lot of that spill over.
And we in the US are not likely to see a foreign military invasion (or at least not a formal one) because there’s two oceans between us and the rest of the world and the civilian population is so heavily armed. We aint going to be invaded by Russia or China!
Now the “immigration” policies of our current idiot regime, is another story; but those issues are not because the people coming in are hispanic. There are a lot of drug / human trafficking cartels that (like happened in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union initially) prey on the economic desperation of the general populous living in Central and South America. The cartels take the money and leave people in 18 wheeler trailers in the desert to die.
By the mid 90’s in Russia, the Ukraine and former Eastern block; there were billboards that had been put up by governments and social service agencies saying not to accept job promises from foreigners; (They’d offer jobs to “work in hotels”.) These were human trafficking / prostitution rings. It had gotten to the point where one needed permission to leave the eastern block countries and they had to provide proof that the job offer was legitimate. Now western Ukraine still has this problem; but Russia and most other former eastern block countries though this still happens; it’s certainly not as bad at it was. The general public over there has wised up.
And these same warnings need to be made really clear to people in central and south America. Under Trump’s boarder policy, the migrant caravans had actually stopped coming because they knew they couldn’t get in. And at this point, the cartels are such a problem that Mexico has called out their military to stop people from coming into Mexico.
So yes, though things may get difficult. Total collapses of societies are rare.
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Cultural Capital
What fear! This has nothing to do with resilience, but purely with prepping. Retreating to a bunker with as many weapons as possible. Sorry, but I am not willing to spend a large part of my time-capital, financial capital, material-capital AND emotional capital on this kind of prepping. Of course I too can defend myself/us when it comes down to it, but to put so much emphasis on that is going too far (for me). No matter how many guns you have; there is always someone with bigger guns. What do you do when a gang has managed to seize a tank! Are you prepared for that too?
Bug-in or bug-out has to do with many more things than whether you can defend yourself well against intruders. In your own home, you have many more opportunities to build resilience. I have central heating, but also a wood stove. I have plumbing but also collect rainwater and soon we will have a well to pump groundwater. The pump will be a hand pump. We just have electricity from the grid and in addition I have a small battery backup with solar panels, in case there is no power from the grid. I have a supermarket nearby but also a sizable pantry and a garden. Should the house be impassable, we have a caravan in the garden where we could bivouac for a while. So it’s all about redundancy.
Of course; had I known 30 years ago what was happening now, I would have made different choices in where I live. But believe me; I would have made different choices in other things in my life too if I knew everything in advance :-).
I built up the redundancy in my home over the decades. It will cost a lot (too much) to rebuild that elsewhere just because it would be more defensible.
What I mainly read in the article is whether you have built up enough social capital in your area and (even more so) whether the cultural capital is sufficient. If you live in a violent environment where there is a lot of crime and hardly any social cohesion to be found, that has nothing to do with bug-in or bug-out but is a reason to move far away from it anyway. I would not want my children growing up in such an environment and that has nothing to do with shtf.
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Hey, I must be ahead of the game!!
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Real World Strategies
In the real world, SHTF is a spectrum, from economic downturn to war. Regardless, there seems to be a few successful strategies:
- Gated, guarded communities (yes, even high rises)
- Small high-trust city
- Leave the country
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Birthday and Christmas have been preparedness presents for some of my kids–Sawyer water filter, windup radio/light/charger, fire starters, compressed TP, etc. I think they get a kick out of it.
Leave the countryProblem is that this time it looks like a global shit-show. The U.S.. Canada, Australia, used to be where people went when their country went into the toilet. I'd still take the U.S. over Germany now but I suspect we'll all have our turn for some flavor of S. We've run through the list of where we'd go. There is no standout. Gated communities are a good option until the mob is more powerful then the guards. Or the guards turn on those they're hired to protect. Are these communities able to provide food production or do they need a massive storehouse? And, these communities are usually expensive. We'd have to put all our eggs into that basket and even then am not sure we'd have enough. Small high-trust city sounds like a great option but we've been so socially and politically fragmented that I don't see how that's possible. And Big Brother is everywhere. My idea is that our small very-rural- for-the-northeastern-U.S.-homestead will be far enough off the beaten track that the hoard will probably not bother to get there. It's too long a walk and only a fool would waste the gas wandering the backroads to perhaps find what? A show of force by having a gun is a reasonable defence against a lone fool. We have a good relationship with our neighbors. Most of them raise animals or have some type of productive activities. I hope to cooperate. I do agree though that I think many have a fantasy of using tactics and weapons to defend the castle. Especially against the government. If the government shows up at your door to take your guns, you've already lost.
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nomad capitalism is an option largely frowned upon here on pp. but it is an option nonetheless. https://nomadcapitalist.com/
i have been involved in these types of discussions for over 50 years. cicerone you are correct. defnding the homestead is a fantasy. it is relatively easy to figure out what to do to prep. water, arable land, equitable climate, skills, etc. but then the disussion always gets to “defend the homestead”.
in a shtf. scenario that defense is perpetual. it is not a one time event. prepping is great for a stable society that experience temporary instability, hurricane, earthquake, grid failure etc. but in the case of long term instability with services we have come to rely on it just aint gonna happen.
imagine urban dwellers following power lines to homesteads. imagine having cameras, guns , dogs, etc and being on alert 24/7/365.
is that how anyone here wants to live?
i have a very good friend who was the gunner on a pbr (a river patrol boat) in vietnam. the same as the one in apocalypse now. he has not had a full nights sleep since then. it was 20 years before he could watch the movie.
we have another friend who is a gung ho trump supporter and has spoken of thr shtf scenario and saying he would shoot the mofos. friend number one had one simple question. " have you ever shot anyone?"
an alternative strategy might be to provide for those in need when they show up. dystopia is shall we say " an interesting time to be alive".
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“Compressed TP”? That’s a new one. 
What’s the name of the documentary?
What do you do if you find squatters there? Or if the field has become overgrown? I manuallly weed-whack my small yard and only recently realized how much it’s shrunk over the years.
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Luxury Of Openness
In our favoured existence, we have enjoyed relative peace and lack of lawlessness, which is reflected in the open design and layout of dwellings. I many areas I have lived outside of Canada, the traditional dwellings are relatively fortified, either as walled compounds with broken glass on top, and/or effective shutters that physically prevent entry. Entry guards (repurposed as concierges) were designed into multi unit buildings. I suspect we are heading back in time in more ways than one. Police being recognized as being as much of a hazard as the robbers. Making your house look modest, and less of a beacon may be the easiest. and cheapest start, with an old pickup in the driveway.
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Excellent “heads up” for those of us still laboring under the misapprehension of a continuing social order. Thank you for the “real world” warning and best of luck.
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nothing to do with shtf. Maybe that is an insight into the root cause. Good luck Hans. I am pretty sure that I am too old to move farther from the epicenter. Hindsight is not only more accurate but aggravating as well.
‘Shrinking yard’ happens with power weeders, too!