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  • From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • To: permaculture list <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Way of life
  • Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 11:19:37 -0700

City folks often look down on country; country folks also look down on city
people. My rural neighbors couldn't comprehend why I would move to the city,
and my city friends, with good reason, find many country people rabidly
anti-environmental. I want to remind people again that sociologists like
Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs have shown that cities fare better than rural
places in depressions, so the data lean city-ward. Or will next time be
different?

Maybe others' experience of rural life is different. I lived in a very
low-income rural county, and was amazed at the long commutes most people do
in huge cars or trucks. Sure, a few stay at home to farm and ranch, but most
commute to jobs in the small towns. My neighbors sure drove up and down our
road a lot! Most of the old-timers there viewed their land as God's gift to
them to do whatever they wanted: clearcut, overgraze, use it as a dump.

But there's also been a huge exodus of (mostly modest-income) urban and
suburbanites to the country here in the Northwest, and from what I can see,
most of them bring their suburban habits with them: clear their forest and
plant several acres of grass to mow and irrigate, or, to turn their land
into more money, run too many sickly cattle on the former forest. And put up
bright streetlights, get ATVs, RVs, or boats (it's so easy to borrow money
to buy them--these are not rich people). Plus well drilling, driveway
grading, and septic installing, and long, long runs of phone and electric
wiring. This is why I'm not optimistic about getting people out of the
cities to be land stewards. It's just the opposite of what we hope for--move
to the country and mess it up even worse than the city because there are
fewer codes and they've got more land to trash.

I did try to reach people in the country with permaculture ideas, inviting
both new and old-timers up to see our water catchment and graywater. They
scratched their heads and thought I was odd. A couple people caught on (one
old timer, one couple from NYC--so go figure). I agree that the best way to
take care of the land is to have good stewards living on it, but most people
moving to the country, and a lot who've lived there for generations, are
dreadful stewards. At least, in the places I've seen.

I'd had this image of the thrifty rural type, and boy, did that get
dispelled. Most of the people I knew in rural Douglas County were
appallingly addicted to the American way of life in its worst manifestation,
whether they'd lived there for 6 months or 60 years. Also very right wing
and anti-environment, pro-logging and ranching. Kiel and I had hopes to
weave a little community on our road, but found the divisiveness and feuds
overwhelming. I grew to wonder if when the crash came, one of my neighbors
would simply shoot me for my garden--perhaps the meth-freak gun-selling
felon next door, or the Reaganite religious nuts past him, or the two
feuding families down the hill who had shot at each other's cars, or the two
survivalist Republican families (the other 4 families seemed more sane). I
feel much safer here in the city, oddly enough: My neighbors are doing a
community garden and sharing vegetables with each other (and we're all
voting against Bush, unlike Douglas County). I don't think they'll shoot me;
we like and need each other, and I have hopes that if things get bad, we'll
support each other. I have far more hope than I had in the country, and
hardly anyone I know wants to move out of town--they love Portland life.

Hence my pessimism about country life, and my optimism about urban
existence, like any recent convert. Other's experiences may have been
different, but I think sustainability depends on who you are rather than
where you live. I've lived many years each in suburb, country, and city.
City people seem to be the most clued in to environmental consciousness (but
then, I've chosen pretty cool cities to live in, and maybe I've been
unfortunate in the rural communities I've chosen). The best we can do is
raise and nurture consciousness wherever we live.

Toby
www.patternliteracy.com







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