A few weeks ago construction unceramoniously threw me off of the interstate and back into the neighborhoods of Minneapolis/St. Paul. As I followed my route and drove through a very nice (and expensive) neighborhood of St. Paul. I enjoyed the older, modest bet very well kept homes of that upper 10% of the metropolitian area which chooses to live within the traditional boundaries of St. Paul. Had I driven through at a different time the scenic path near the river would be full of beautiful people jogging and biking, talking and sauntering. All fairly oblivious to their privlidge and what lays beyond the natural boundary that I was seeking to cross.

Crossing the river into Minneapolis one immedietly enters a space of high rise apartments occupied, primarily, by immigrants. Three hundred yards from executives, consultants, tenured professors, lawyers and surgeons live cab drivers, hospital cleaning staff and the lady who gets you your latte.

On one side of the bridge are the people who can afford fuel at nearly any price. At least on the surface they are the most solvent and their wages are the likely increase the closest to the inflation rate as any. They may have to stop shopping at the whole foods, eat out less or brew their own coffee at home, but as long as their is fuel to be bought they, as a rule, will be able to buy it. As long as the Just-In-Time (JIT) system has some semblance of capability, they will be able to access it.

On the other side of the bridge are those who will be the first to do without. When the starbucks closes, when airline travel slows, biting into the cabby busisness, when whole foods lets off some checkers or those people who bake genuine injerra for their customers pretenses to the American dream will be lost as well. Food shelves are already struggling, what happens when the baby will not stop crying? When we revert to hunter-gatherers, where will substanence be found? It will be sought, of course, across the bridge.

This is the fatal flaw many of the powerdown camp, in my estimation, make. They seem to assume that human beings are like so many defunct factories that can be abandoned or torn down. Yes there is much fat to be cut in the American economy but that fat has a name, it has children, it has dignity, it has emotions and it has a desire to avoid the fate of the abandoned factory. Of course this is America, so it also has guns.

This situation is repeated across the country and around the world. It will be viewed on the macro-scale as nation will rise up against nation out of envy and need and it will be witnessed on the smallest of scales as individuals who are members of the same family vie for advantage and old jealousies come to the surface. I suppose in theory one could plot to win these battles but the better part of wisdom would seem to be to avoid them. It would be foolishness to ignore them.

Very well said. Of course even the high rise dwellers are a good long way from starvation at the moment. Which is why they moved to Minneapolis from Somalia in the first place.

I've frankly become pretty apathetic about the doomstead concept. You can't really effectively defend something that big, and it's almost certain to be ravaged by the hungry hordes when it comes down to it. I can see the doomstead concept from the perspective of learning skills for sustainable living, and if that's how you enjoy living then that's awesome. As a survival prep, I don't know that it's a very realistic though.