Local Resilience
Resilience means survival. How strong is your town? How well could it survive on its own if cut off from outside supplies?
Strength Test 1: Take a photo of your main street at midday. Does the picture show more people than cars?
More people point to a more robust economy. Such places tend to have many businesses, jobs, and other resources. Cars indicate an area that people drive through rather than go to. Think about how you can make your town's main street more productive and thus resilient.
Around here, the Square is half-dead, but there is a newer main road with a lot of businesses and activity. We still have the infrastructure to recreate a strong town, which is more relevant to the future when people realize how valuable it is than now when they all still want to crowd into cities and coasts. I suspect that the balance of cars to people is near-equal in some areas.
Strength Test 2: If there were a revolution in your town, would people instinctively know where to gather to participate?
Several decades ago, the community was quite well meshed. Now they can't even pull together major events reliably. It's not just a lack of money, but of people with connections.
We do, however, have several good gathering places: the Square with its courthouse, a park on the main drag, the college campus, and the fairgrounds. In case of mayhem, I suspect that people would head toward the Square. But if we needed to gather for the purpose of accomplishing something, that would better suit the fairgrounds. If we needed information or experts, the college would be the place to go.
Strength Test 3: Imagine your favorite street in town didn’t exist. Could it be built today if the construction had to follow your local rules?
Probably not, although I don't know for sure. The ones I actually like are the old-fashioned kind, the Square and the old downtown, with their picturesque live-work buildings that hardly anyone wants anymore. That's not fashionable anymore. The main drag is utilitarian, more recent stuff. That one could be replaced, and it would be just as useful, and I wouldn't hold any great affection for it either.
Strength Test 4: Is an owner of a single family home able to get permission to add a small rental unit onto their property without any real hassle?
Again, I don't know. I suspect not, given that so many places ban them. On the other hoof, it's not really needed. We have more space than people, since this isn't a high-demand place at the present moment. It is, however, exactly the kind of place that will become much more valuable in the soon future as people realize that cities and coasts are very bad places to spend an apocalypse.
Strength Test 5: If your largest employer left town, are you confident the city would survive?
I'm guessing that would be the university. There are some others, but this has always been the university town. So it would be gutted without that. This is a credible threat, as many small universities are closing. Then again, it's also a farming town; that's not going away. Modern farming employs very few people though.
Strength Test 6: Is it safe for children to walk or bike to school and many of their other activities without adult supervision?
Safe? Sure. Do they actually do that? Not as much as people used to. I think that's mostly a cultural change. At least the option is there if people choose to use it.
Worth noting, though, the town is modest in size with much of its important facilities clustered together. It would be easy to bike the distance for a majority of errands. There's even a rail-trail to the next town, and people use it. College students bike routinely over moderate distances. Sadly, the bike infrastructure is not great and attempts to improve it have actively made several streets more inhospitable to both cars and bicycles.
Strength Test 7: Are there neighborhoods where three generations of a family could reasonably find a place to live, all within walking distance of each other?
Yes. We have many excellent neighborhoods, not only in the town closest to me, but others nearby. These are old towns, with either one downtown or an older one with newer development somewhere else, and mostly gridded neighborhoods. There are a few squiggle suburbs, but most of those are in areas where the topography precludes straight grids. Most houses have 2-3 bedrooms, but look on the corner and you'll often see a "foreman's house" with a 4th or 5th bedroom. Some small (4-12 units) apartment buildings are scattered around. Some huge old farmhouses subsumed into the town have been cut down into apartments too. Then of course there's the cluster of big houses and medium apartment buildings closer to campus. Most neighborhoods are also mixed-use in the sense that houses are converted to stores or businesses -- a hair salon, an antique store, the lady who sells houseplants from her front porch, the guy who fixes small engines in his garage, etc. There's a business every couple of blocks in many of these, so either it's still legal or nobody bothers enforcing any rules against it. There are also a few small grocery stores left, the odd family hardware store or gas station, that sort of thing. And none of it runs up the traffic, because there's plenty of stuff to do elsewhere in town. These are local businesses that serve mostly people in close range, not places that anyone drives across town for unless they know someone in that neighborhood.
Strength Test 8: Could your community survive on local food?
Yes. Gods bless the Amish, they have everything needed for a basic way of life. They couldn't support the whole surrounding county, but I doubt they'd have to; most people ignore them. I've always kept them in mind as essential backup for civilization and survival, so I defend them ferociously if anyone threatens them.
Allow me to point out that, historically, tribes lived all over Turtle Island and had no trouble supporting themselves in a wide variety of environments. Of course, that was before the European Invasion wrecked the environment. Still, it remains true that many edible plants and animals span the continent. Wherever you live, food grows there. You just might have to explore some new foods. Oikos Tree Crops is one place where I source native edible species, like the sunchokes.
Strength Test 9: Before building or accepting new infrastructure, does the local government clearly identify how future generations will afford to maintain it?
I doubt it. Most places don't anymore. But on the bright side, we don't have anywhere near the problem with sprawl that most places do, probably because people aren't crowding in. There are a few areas of newer development, which are likely as unsustainable in finance as most things these days; but we could afford to lose those and still have plenty of town left.
Compare that to a small city north of us which has grown enormously in recent decades, sprawling in several directions ... on flat land that regularly floods, and now building small skyscrapers atop an aging sewer system that never has had the capacity for as many people used it. All the underpasses have footmarkers for the floodwaters, and many of them become unpassable in a vigorous rain. And people are constructing bigger buildings. They have made hack-and-patch attempts to shore up the sewers, but really, there's no fixing that without tearing up the whole town to replace everything -- and even then, there's nowhere for the water to go. I'm so glad that's not my circus, not my monkeys.
Strength Test 10: Does the city government spend no more than 10% of its locally-generated revenue on debt service?
I don't know, but they're probably as broke as most places. The difference is, they could lose the newer stuff and still have a functioning town.
So let's see ... I'll score some of these as partial credit where I'm not sure or it's semi-functional but I think there's something to work with.
Strength Test 1: 1/2 point
Strength Test 2: 1 point
Strength Test 3: 0
Strength Test 4: 0
Strength Test 5: 1/4 point
Strength Test 6: 1 point
Strength Test 7: 1 point
Strength Test 8: 1 point
Strength Test 9: 0
Strength Test 10: 0
Score: 4 3/4 points.
That's a moderate score, but probably much better than most places nowadays. It might even be higher, if some of the things I gave no credit for because I don't know are actually better than the norm I used to estimate. Plenty of potential.
What we don't have left is social cohesion. A town that can't scrape up more than 3-4 booths for the business barn at the county fair, which used to overflow, is in pretty pathetic shape. When I was little, there were whole handfuls of people any one of whom could whistle up dozens of volunteers for whatever thing needed doing. It's not that we don't have businesses and organizations, it's that few of them can be arsed to show up. That's not a good sign. If people needed to rely on each other, they'd have a shortage of skills. And they sure as hell wouldn't listen to me.
Strength Test 1: Take a photo of your main street at midday. Does the picture show more people than cars?
More people point to a more robust economy. Such places tend to have many businesses, jobs, and other resources. Cars indicate an area that people drive through rather than go to. Think about how you can make your town's main street more productive and thus resilient.
Around here, the Square is half-dead, but there is a newer main road with a lot of businesses and activity. We still have the infrastructure to recreate a strong town, which is more relevant to the future when people realize how valuable it is than now when they all still want to crowd into cities and coasts. I suspect that the balance of cars to people is near-equal in some areas.
Strength Test 2: If there were a revolution in your town, would people instinctively know where to gather to participate?
Several decades ago, the community was quite well meshed. Now they can't even pull together major events reliably. It's not just a lack of money, but of people with connections.
We do, however, have several good gathering places: the Square with its courthouse, a park on the main drag, the college campus, and the fairgrounds. In case of mayhem, I suspect that people would head toward the Square. But if we needed to gather for the purpose of accomplishing something, that would better suit the fairgrounds. If we needed information or experts, the college would be the place to go.
Strength Test 3: Imagine your favorite street in town didn’t exist. Could it be built today if the construction had to follow your local rules?
Probably not, although I don't know for sure. The ones I actually like are the old-fashioned kind, the Square and the old downtown, with their picturesque live-work buildings that hardly anyone wants anymore. That's not fashionable anymore. The main drag is utilitarian, more recent stuff. That one could be replaced, and it would be just as useful, and I wouldn't hold any great affection for it either.
Strength Test 4: Is an owner of a single family home able to get permission to add a small rental unit onto their property without any real hassle?
Again, I don't know. I suspect not, given that so many places ban them. On the other hoof, it's not really needed. We have more space than people, since this isn't a high-demand place at the present moment. It is, however, exactly the kind of place that will become much more valuable in the soon future as people realize that cities and coasts are very bad places to spend an apocalypse.
Strength Test 5: If your largest employer left town, are you confident the city would survive?
I'm guessing that would be the university. There are some others, but this has always been the university town. So it would be gutted without that. This is a credible threat, as many small universities are closing. Then again, it's also a farming town; that's not going away. Modern farming employs very few people though.
Strength Test 6: Is it safe for children to walk or bike to school and many of their other activities without adult supervision?
Safe? Sure. Do they actually do that? Not as much as people used to. I think that's mostly a cultural change. At least the option is there if people choose to use it.
Worth noting, though, the town is modest in size with much of its important facilities clustered together. It would be easy to bike the distance for a majority of errands. There's even a rail-trail to the next town, and people use it. College students bike routinely over moderate distances. Sadly, the bike infrastructure is not great and attempts to improve it have actively made several streets more inhospitable to both cars and bicycles.
Strength Test 7: Are there neighborhoods where three generations of a family could reasonably find a place to live, all within walking distance of each other?
Yes. We have many excellent neighborhoods, not only in the town closest to me, but others nearby. These are old towns, with either one downtown or an older one with newer development somewhere else, and mostly gridded neighborhoods. There are a few squiggle suburbs, but most of those are in areas where the topography precludes straight grids. Most houses have 2-3 bedrooms, but look on the corner and you'll often see a "foreman's house" with a 4th or 5th bedroom. Some small (4-12 units) apartment buildings are scattered around. Some huge old farmhouses subsumed into the town have been cut down into apartments too. Then of course there's the cluster of big houses and medium apartment buildings closer to campus. Most neighborhoods are also mixed-use in the sense that houses are converted to stores or businesses -- a hair salon, an antique store, the lady who sells houseplants from her front porch, the guy who fixes small engines in his garage, etc. There's a business every couple of blocks in many of these, so either it's still legal or nobody bothers enforcing any rules against it. There are also a few small grocery stores left, the odd family hardware store or gas station, that sort of thing. And none of it runs up the traffic, because there's plenty of stuff to do elsewhere in town. These are local businesses that serve mostly people in close range, not places that anyone drives across town for unless they know someone in that neighborhood.
Strength Test 8: Could your community survive on local food?
Yes. Gods bless the Amish, they have everything needed for a basic way of life. They couldn't support the whole surrounding county, but I doubt they'd have to; most people ignore them. I've always kept them in mind as essential backup for civilization and survival, so I defend them ferociously if anyone threatens them.
Allow me to point out that, historically, tribes lived all over Turtle Island and had no trouble supporting themselves in a wide variety of environments. Of course, that was before the European Invasion wrecked the environment. Still, it remains true that many edible plants and animals span the continent. Wherever you live, food grows there. You just might have to explore some new foods. Oikos Tree Crops is one place where I source native edible species, like the sunchokes.
Strength Test 9: Before building or accepting new infrastructure, does the local government clearly identify how future generations will afford to maintain it?
I doubt it. Most places don't anymore. But on the bright side, we don't have anywhere near the problem with sprawl that most places do, probably because people aren't crowding in. There are a few areas of newer development, which are likely as unsustainable in finance as most things these days; but we could afford to lose those and still have plenty of town left.
Compare that to a small city north of us which has grown enormously in recent decades, sprawling in several directions ... on flat land that regularly floods, and now building small skyscrapers atop an aging sewer system that never has had the capacity for as many people used it. All the underpasses have footmarkers for the floodwaters, and many of them become unpassable in a vigorous rain. And people are constructing bigger buildings. They have made hack-and-patch attempts to shore up the sewers, but really, there's no fixing that without tearing up the whole town to replace everything -- and even then, there's nowhere for the water to go. I'm so glad that's not my circus, not my monkeys.
Strength Test 10: Does the city government spend no more than 10% of its locally-generated revenue on debt service?
I don't know, but they're probably as broke as most places. The difference is, they could lose the newer stuff and still have a functioning town.
So let's see ... I'll score some of these as partial credit where I'm not sure or it's semi-functional but I think there's something to work with.
Strength Test 1: 1/2 point
Strength Test 2: 1 point
Strength Test 3: 0
Strength Test 4: 0
Strength Test 5: 1/4 point
Strength Test 6: 1 point
Strength Test 7: 1 point
Strength Test 8: 1 point
Strength Test 9: 0
Strength Test 10: 0
Score: 4 3/4 points.
That's a moderate score, but probably much better than most places nowadays. It might even be higher, if some of the things I gave no credit for because I don't know are actually better than the norm I used to estimate. Plenty of potential.
What we don't have left is social cohesion. A town that can't scrape up more than 3-4 booths for the business barn at the county fair, which used to overflow, is in pretty pathetic shape. When I was little, there were whole handfuls of people any one of whom could whistle up dozens of volunteers for whatever thing needed doing. It's not that we don't have businesses and organizations, it's that few of them can be arsed to show up. That's not a good sign. If people needed to rely on each other, they'd have a shortage of skills. And they sure as hell wouldn't listen to me.