Huh?, I was born in 1976, I want a car, and want to get as far away from any city or town or village as I can.. I live in a very small town, have a farmers 50 acre field behind my house and a forest next to me, and 1 neighbor, that is 150 yards from me, separated by a detached garage and a tree line, I'm on the edge of town and the town is very very small, population of 54 people, and that is too big for me. Big cities, those things are death traps..

Give it a few more years and gas will likely be $10/gallon (and it will not stop there). Then 10 miles from the nearest supermarket can really hit the pocketbook.

The other issue is healthcare. I believe secluded living is fine when you are young, but at 80, it is going to be problematic.

My wife and I recently took virtual office jobs - leveraging our high-speed Internet for VoIP, video, etc. We definitely don't miss the commute (~100 miles/day for both of us). We do drive for everything else, but it seems trivial by comparison to what we were doing.

I agree having access to "city" stuff is nice.. I'm 20 minutes away from a "city" of 10,000 people that has anything I could every need or want. I work on the outskirts of this town. As for commuting I have one stop sign and one stop light to go through and the worst traffic I encounter is a tractor now and a again slowing the pace.. I see people that live in cities or in suburbs that drive 10 miles to work and are in the car for 50 minutes .. that is a waste .. I'm in my car 20 minutes and cover 20 miles..

Living rural doesn't mean you don't have access to things like medical or shopping resources, however to do so you do have to accept some things like, no pizza delivery, and you shop once a month or every couple weeks, not daily, You stock up on things more, so you have them on hand.

As for the economics of living in a rural situation, my costs are less, my property was cheaper, taxes are far far less, I can raise a portion of my own food needs, and a portion of my heating comes from the land in the form of firewood. I have next to zero crime to worry about.. We don't even lock our doors, cant remember that last time we did..

Sure I use a couple gallons of gas a day to commute to work.. but even if gas got to $12 a gallon it would still be cheaper to live in a rural situation if you making use of that rural locations benefits. I have lived in city locations, and have found that generally I spend more when I'm in town, because its so easy to just run out to the store and get whatever.. no planing needed.. so impulse buys happened so easily.. if you live rural you don't just run out and get ice cream... you add it to the shopping list for next week and then come next week you see if you still want it.

in case of serious economic troubles, all cities will have major issues... mainly large numbers of people in small areas.. look at Katrina, didn't take but a few days for looting to break out. Even now with mild economic issues people are assembling in masses to protest.. think of that n a grander scale but instead of protesting , looting for food or resources.

Rural places will have issues also in hard times.. everyone will. the diffrence is the number of people in the same area.

There is a saying , when people loose everything , they loose it.. people will revert to a less civilized survival mindset if things get bad, and then, you will want to be around as few people as possible.

I doubt Ebacherville lives in Russia depending on his government for everything. A little preparation goes a long way. Even mormons tend to have a 6 month supply of food 'just in case'. Can you imagine if people lived outside the cities, had a garden, planned waste management, and stored food and water to last for a couple of years?

It is really complete bullshit.
All this preparation and food stories.
If small city is loosing money, basic services degrade or even become absent, local businesses close. Andf all this idiots who think how good they'll live on their prepared food quickly sell house for 10-20% of its normal cost (and only if they are lucky).

I lived in the country, then in the city and now I live in the suburbs. I've seen it all! I think it's really all in what you want. When I lived in the country, I could do anything I wanted at all hours of the day or night as long as it involved outdoors type stuff. I still had to drive to get anywhere though. When I lived in the city I could do anything I wanted at all hours of the day or night as long as it involved city type stuff. I still had to drive to get anywhere, or I could take a bus/train but it would take 4X as long as driving.. Now that I live in the suburbs, I can do anything I want because the city and the country are equal distances away. i still have to drive because taking the bus/train takes WAY too long to go to the city and doesn't even go to the country.

I love my car.

@subco
v10 tdi

It takes a lot of fries to keep it going. Oddly enough, during the last spate of hurricanes here in central Florida a few years ago, the only fuel you could get was diesel.

I know if the current social structure falls to pieces, I'd much rather be in the countryside than the cities. You'd be surprised how fast anarchy can take hold