Originally Posted by tandempower

I don't think there are many people serious enough about LCF, who are also serious about rural living, to invest in these kinds of split lifestyles. It's not like in the past when rural living was a real thing. Nowadays, rural living is more of an aesthetic choice that has driving as par for the course. I.e. driving is the foundation for rural living, and even for suburban living in many areas. You can choose to LCF, and doing so is like trading in modern automotive 'rural' living for real rural living, the way people lived before there was motorized transportation; but it's a completely different thing, I think, like being Amish. I don't think many people choose rural living because they want to live Amish; they just want the aesthetics/scenery and maybe cheap land in abundance.

Originally Posted by tandempower

You are wiggling/flexing/redefining the identity of a rural place to lump everyone who drives back and forth between a city and a house in the country together with farmers who produce food. You know that a minority of people living in rural areas are living any different from suburbanites in practice, yet you slyly associate 'rural' as being equivalent to food-producers. This is pure spin.

Originally Posted by Mobile 155

It doesn't do any good to answer you point for point because you will simply drag the topic farther and farther away from what people are talking about with your Jabberwocky and redefining words into some form only you use or understand. If there are no real rural places to live you aren't eating. So you are wrong there is rural living, period. Don't wiggle, flex ,redefine or pontificate about how some book or movie found a way to feed people with growing, farming, ranching or having a orchard. In short you are blowing smoke and have no clue about what you are talking about. You didn't know why trees don't grow above the tree line. You didn't know why the great plains had so few trees. And you don't know there are still legitimate rural areas even within cycling distance of LA. There are separations between towns, counties, states for a reason and it doesn't matter one bit that "you" don't feel there should be. So you are wrong again. There is private property and you will not talk the nation into believing there isn't so you are wrong once more. So in reality there are people living in rural areas and they can or cannot make LCF a priority but that was what the question was about in the first place. So if you simply ride through such an area it still exist, and it is still a real area, and there are still people farming, ranching, growing things. Another place you are wrong. If you like I am sure I can post a few pictures or a rural area not 10 miles from me. I bet Machka and others can as well. So don't try blowing smoke up our skirt with they no longer exist simply because you don't recognize them and think the are suburbs. Some rural areas may have been converted but if you are eating fruit and vegetables all year long there are rural areas.

Now as you so often say, if you want to make this a social/political/economic discussion head of to P&R and and I am sure you can post to your hearts content about non on topic propaganda. Could you please just let one thread travel along the lines of the OP?

Originally Posted by Mobile 155

If you like I am sure I can post a few pictures or a rural area not 10 miles from me. I bet Machka and others can as well.

Originally Posted by Machka

The location where Rowan and I lived for my first year in Australia was rural: https://www.flickr.com/photos/machka...57623277367498 Yes, those are the photos I took during that year.

The location where Rowan lived (car free) before his place was destroyed in the 2009 Victorian Bushfire was rural too, and wasn't far from the location in the photos in the album linked above.

Originally Posted by jon c.

That which does not exist is generally thought to be without value.

If we reduce the human population, we reduce the negative environmental impact that human civilization causes.

Originally Posted by Mobile 155

Do you live or have you lived car free in a rural area? Not trespassed but had a residence and address in a rural area?

Originally Posted by Machka

The mind boggles!

Do you have any idea at all where your food comes from********************

You seriously need to travel ... really urgently. Go. Now! Right now ... pack up and do the Northern Tier.

WOW!

Originally Posted by tandempower

Why won't you acknowledge all the people that live in rural areas but don't farm?


Please name a rural area where everyone farms. I want to look at it on google satellite/street-view.


If all the people who lived in rural areas who don't actually do any farm work would leave, I think there would be very few farmers. I think most of the people living in rural areas do so to provide support services and social structure for farmers and farm workers. What's more, if people in those areas really wanted to LCF, they could live within small towns or mixed-use developments and take buses or bike out to the fields. There's a desire to have automotive access to a broad geographical range, which is why many rural people wouldn't be interested in LCF. If you want to live rurally to participate in the automotive culture of it, why would you even be bothering with LCF at all?

Originally Posted by Machka

Since you have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about, I think you need to stop now.

Go cycle the Northern Tier this coming spring/summer.

Go live in a place like North Dakota for a year.

Go experience rural life for a while.

Then you can come back here and talk about it.

Till then ... go to another thread.

Originally Posted by Machka

We're not talking about people who drive back and forth between a city and a house in the country as though they lived in a suburb ... we're talking about people who live in the country, and most likely work there on farms and such things.

Originally Posted by tandempower

It doesn't work like that. Big wars kill off tons of people. Look at the Civil War or WWII. The population recovered and grew bigger than ever.

Originally Posted by jon c.

That has certainly been the case, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. Humans can alter that paradigm if they wish. And as technology decreases the percentage of people killed in wars and by outbreaks of disease, it becomes even more important to change social views on an ever expanding population. If we reduce the number of people, we reduce the amount of energy they consume.

Originally Posted by tandempower

So if population-reduction events like wars, holocausts, etc. can be avoided/averted, then there's a better chance people will reform their behavior in ways that make population more sustainable.

Originally Posted by tandempower

It's not for you to judge my trespasses. Why don't you go to P&R and repent for your own?

Originally Posted by Walter S

Yes plus lots of manufacturing (factory and otherwise), farming support including equipment dealers, car dealers, repair services, real estate professionals, small town banks, restaurants, grocery stores, etc.

There's plenty of things unrelated to farming at all too in rural areas. A lot of people didn't seek out TP advice before establishing rural businesses close to where they live on reasonably affordable property or just the family plot.

Originally Posted by Machka

At the moment, I can't get into my photos (internet is slow), but the attached link shows the area where we lived rurally.

As mentioned, the nearest town (pop 2500) with more than a post office and teensy-tiny general store was about 30 km (20 miles) away from there. The nearest town with the post office and teensy-tiny general store were about 10 km (6 miles) away. That town, including the surrounding area, had a population of 330 people. The actual townsite probably houses about 100 of those people.

So we're talking about a pretty sparsely populated area.

And what were we doing out there? Rowan was employed full-time on an orchard! In fact, we lived on the orchard property.

My first job in Australia was at a cherry packing shed in another teensy-tiny town about 50 km from where we lived.

Originally Posted by NormanF

I LCF out of necessity in a small mountain town. Its possible to haul groceries home on a bike as well as for fitness. For heavy loads impractical to transport by bike, I have such goods shipped to my door via UPS/Fed-ex.

Originally Posted by NormanF

For heavy loads impractical to transport by bike, I have such goods shipped to my door via UPS/Fed-ex.

Originally Posted by jon c.

That's where we disagree. I think there's a better chance of changing attitudes towards increasing population than there is of changing attitudes toward lifestyle comforts. But I don't expect I'll live to see either, so it's purely a hypothetical discussion.

Originally Posted by Walter S

+1. Good for rural or otherwise LCF in general.

Originally Posted by jon c.

The problem in a lot of small rural communities is that population declines have caused a lot of the businesses that provide basic goods and services to close. It would have been easier in many places 50 years ago when more rural towns were relatively self sufficient.

Originally Posted by Walter S

Yes plus lots of manufacturing (factory and otherwise), farming support including equipment dealers, car dealers, repair services, real estate professionals, small town banks, restaurants, grocery stores, etc.

There's plenty of things unrelated to farming at all too in rural areas. A lot of people didn't seek out TP advice before establishing rural businesses close to where they live on reasonably affordable property or just the family plot.

Originally Posted by tandempower

You're making excuses to exclude me, which are actually motivated by your personal dislike of me.