After looking over some thread titles here, I thought the link below would make a good "companion" to the active thread here about staying in the the city. It really didn't generate a lot of discussion before, and may not now, but I figure it's worth a shot. This new thread is categorized under "Urban & Suburban Living". Here is the link to the "old" one:

Surviving in the Suburbs

In case the hotlink doesn't work(it's been a while!), the url is: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000QDj

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), July 07, 1999

Answers

The hotlink above works. It is a very short thread. BigDog, Bill, Runway Cat, and Diane all provided responses. If surviving in the burbs interests you, then check it out. Here is the post that started it.

There has been quite a bit written and discussed regarding survival strategies and our location during Y2K, especially for rural and urban areas. I haven't seen very much though about the suburbs, where millions will be. Perhaps the very definition of what constitutes a suburb, in a Y2K context, is variable. They can be close to a city, or close to a rural area, or anywhere in between. This in itself can lead to confusion. From a Y2K perspective, if we live in a suburb close to either an urban or rural area, than a lot of what has been already written and discussed can apply, right? But then there is the "sprawling suburb" that is really in between: it has no big city very close to it, and is not really very close to a rural area either. It is, for the most part, surrounded by itself. Perhaps survival here is as simple as a blend of the urban and rural survival strategies, but I don't think so. It seems to me that while some similarities can be shared, there may also be unique aspects to suburban survival, both pro and con. At least some differences - both problems and opportunities. What do you think?

Anyone up for continuing the discussion here on this prep forum thread? My lunch break is almost over so Ill check in later. See you then.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), July 09, 1999.

Some of the topics that may be more relevant for people in this situation are

the advisability of anonymous mailings:

making sure your neighbors have needed materials for obtaining, storing, purifying water,

community latrines,

fire prevention,

serious lack of weapons,

garbage management, recycling, composting,

stocking enough seed for neighbors,

finding a place to garden,

security communications,

transportation would seem to be a bigger issue,

protection of shade trees...

-- Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California (addy.available@my.webpage.neener.autospammers--regrets.greenspun), July 12, 1999.