The Urban Retreat, Part 2

Look Around

Many cities have hidden rural oases that most folks don't know about because they stay on the main drags and in the neighborhoods.  If you have to live in town, there's a lot to be said for such a possibility.

In the city where I work, there are several such locations.  Some are on or near the river or a creek; others are on the edge of the city, adjoining the next county's wilderness buffer.  Some are on side streets, but have 3/4 acre or larger lots, a couple even with a few head of livestock.  All of these are off the beaten path, and I believe that the vast majority of the city's residents would never imagine that they exist, let alone go looking for them in a breakdown situation. 

Pros:

• They are defendable...  a friend in a similar situation has already identified trees on his road to drop into a roadblock if things get really bad.
• Water is available... some are still on wells and septic, others have access to streams, creeks or the river - but desalinization might be needed.
• Food... there is room to grow crops, or operate small scale livestock such as chickens, rabbits, and goats
• Fuel... some places adjoin public woodlands - highly illegal to cut wood there, but you could probably get away with harvesting dead logs on the ground, or cutting anyway during a societal breakdown
• Convenient... you can go out to dinner, work, or the grocery store, just minutes away - until the SHTF

Cons:

• You are in a city, just blocks away from high population density
• Higher property taxes
• More zoning and building code restrictions on what you can get away with
• You can't shoot... either for recreation or for food - unless you invest in a legal suppressor (do it as a trust or LLC so you stay off the local police chief's radar) - obviously only for extreme emergencies when law and order have broken down
• Might be harder to find a buyer when you are ready to move to a true rural location - of course, to the right person, your place might seem like a paradise, so it could really go either way

So, barring complete societal breakdown, or a large magnitude disaster that makes your place uninhabitable, some city or urban locations can make for a halfway decent retreat to ride out some bad times.  You just need to be open minded and creative.  What's right for my family might be completely wrong and vice versa.  My prepper friend that is living in a rural-urban setting is biding his time until he can retire in a few years, then head for the hills.  But, if the SHTF before then, his place is set up in a way that he'll do just fine.