Urban Survivalists

In our previous post, we talked about what exactly Urban Sustainability is and what we intended to do with this blog. Now we are going to dive into the more practical considerations of what exactly we want to do and why.

With the world’s most recent economic scare, it has again become apparent how fragile our positions in the world are. Commuting to the office, buying food from the store, and depending on city utilities are not exactly a free or sustainable means of life. Usually the reason many people find themselves in the workforce is to provide a means of income for their families or themselves; however, this dependency on a job as the sole source of the basic needs of life is rather frightening.  The idea of Urban Sustainability is now going to be fleshed out by a very simple hierarchy of needs based on Maslow’s hierarchy. It begins and ends with those foundation needs Maslow outlined. Read more about Maslow’s Hierarchy here.

A practical plan of action is needed in order to embark on this process of self-liberation and material disentanglement. What should be done first? What things would have the most profound effect on a family unit’s life? How much would this cost initially and save eventually? What is the time frame? What are the limits? What resources should be used? These were all pressing questions that needed to be considered and defined before a plan of action could be embarked upon in order to become Urbanly Sustainable. Below is our rank ordered list influenced by Maslow. This list will give us a basis for a decision making process about what projects to embark upon, which projects to avoid, and why.

1. Water
2. Food
3. Clothing
4. Shelter
5. Energy
6. Transportation

Water, is first, for an obvious reason: if you don’t have it you will die in a short amount of time (3-4 days according to Wikipedia here. Food is a close second, though the time period you can go without food is much greater than water: several weeks at the least and sometimes much longer. However, if a person goes without food, water, or both, their performance level and abilities decrease rapidly making that person essentially worthless. In our case, one of us (Stan) gets nasty migraines when his daily diet is varied too greatly. Such a sensitive little guy!

“This is an image of a glass of water with ice in it to illustrate our everyday need for water.”

Clothing and shelter, in our mind, occupy the same niche. They protect us from the elements and often must look stylish for our friends and visitors. Clothing can be salvaged and repaired in many ways to make it last longer and housing can often last generations if maintained correctly. However, the lack of either of these can have disastrous effects.

Energy, too, is a key need in our day and age. However, we cannot justify it’s high initial cost and it’s long term pay off for sustainable development so we moved it way down the list. Unfortunately, others don’t see the situation this way and this is usually the first project undertaken (solar panels or wind turbines). We do not agree with this, and so will not be putting much effort into this until other needs are obtained. A lack of energy or electricity is not immediately life threatening, so it is further down our list. That being said, some or all of our support systems rely on it so it does have great value.

Transportation is the final element under our consideration (we leave it to you to find your own sex). In an urban environment, transportation is not as important as it would be in an agrarian setting where getting back into town can be a life or death event. In city or urban environments a simple bike and an understanding of the public transit system is often all you need to get around sustainably.

The things needed to create a sustainable urban family unit do not differ from those needed to make a sustainable agrarian family unit. What does differ is the way these things are implemented. In places with lots of land–i.e. farm settings–it isn’t typically a problem to devote a half acre of land to a family garden. In an urban environment, this just isn’t possible in most cases. Many compromises have to be made in order for the Urban Family to be sustainable and thrive. To this end we will design our systems to be as space efficient and portable as possible. What we want to avoid is having to ask the land-lord for permission to install this or that and then not be able to take it with us when we move. We want our designs to be cheap, simple, and portable.

We live in the Pacific Northwest on a good sized rented lot (ap. 1/3 acre). We have over 1,500 sf of floor space and the ability to keep animals and grow things in the yard. It is neither practical nor feasible for everyone on the planet to live on a farm. There just isn’t that much space available, but we can make a huge impact by taking some steps to live more within our means. Not just by restricting our lifestyles, but also by expanding our means to keep ourselves in that style we have become accustomed too.

Now that we have our rank ordering, the next step is to systematically deal with each of these issues in turn until we have provided–if not a complete solution–then at least an answer to part of the problem in our daily lives. In our next article, we will discuss what things we need in order to start addressing our basic needs and expand our means. Until then…

P&S

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