Off-the-Grid vs. Tighter Grid
By Peter Goodchild
16 February, 2012
Countercurrents.org
Whether you believe in "off-the-grid" or "tighter grid," to use Michael Braun's terms -- raising chickens in the country vs. finding a room in a downtown core -- depends on your view of Collapse. If you believe that Collapse won't come, that it's just a case of putting solar panels here, there, and everywhere, then you can focus on "sustainability" and forget about mass famine and so on. Which means, yes, go for the high-rise apartments and the monthly subway pass. If, on the other hand, you believe that the Dark Ages will begin tomorrow, then you have to accept the fact that there will be no heating fuel and no electricity to keep those high-rise apartments going. (Dmitry Orlov once mentioned such problems with regard to the collapse of the Soviet Union, since Moscow is mostly apartment buildings.)
The same sort of dichotomy can be seen chronologically. Even if you believe in Collapse, if you feel that there is a probable waiting period of a few years, then again it might make sense to go for the tighter-grid -- staying put in the center of a city. The reality is that tighter-grid -- at the moment, at least -- is cheaper than off-the-grid. The fact that it's cheaper reflects the fact that it has a smaller ecological footprint. It's easier to pack 500 people into a high-rise than to pack 500 people into several hundred houses. I've tried various modes of living, and I've found that it costs about twice as much to live off-the-grid as it does to live tighter-grid, contrary to popular belief. (Even if you have a small house, the costs of the well, the septic system, and the land itself might kill you. And consider the amount you pay for gasoline when driving in the country.) That's only a very rough figure, of course, because it depends on all sorts of variables. A lakeside cottage an hour north of a city isn't as cheap as a log cabin built with an axe up in the Yukon. But the brief "waiting period" of living tighter-grid is still a dangerous one. Nothing will change the fact that in a genuine Collapse, with fossil fuels, metals, and electricity all gone kaput, the center of any city will be a death trap.
The contrasts can be extended, of course. I won't dwell on the fact that living tighter-grid might also mean listening to Elvis Presley at 3 a.m. and getting used to having plastic flowers on the chest of drawers. On the other hand, a telephone-company employee once said to me in black-fly season, as he and I poked around to see if I could plant a row of cedars near some underground cables: "Bugs are good. Bugs keep people away." I guess so.
Peter Goodchild is the author of Survival Skills of the North American Indians. His email address is prjgoodchild[at]gmail.com
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