Just wondering i anybody here lives in an urban city enviroment?I know a few people who do,they don’t worry about getting out fast if something happens?Some think they’ll be able to just drive off,others have told me it’s the best place to be LOL.(walking distance to anything they need…)I’ve tried to convince them otherwise,but they know it all :rolleyes:.
i live in a suburb of a city, not to far from wright patt airforce base. i have been told if we ever get bombed, this will be one of the first hit b/c it is such a big base. i would love to get futher out in the country, not because of the base but just b/c i would love to have more land and be able to set up my own shoot area.
I live in suburbia. My bugout options are somewhat limited, so barring significant fallout, I will likely bug in, and fort up with the decent neighbors I know around me.
Whats up fellow Daytonian? I was born at Miami Valley but haven’t lived in DYT for some time now. I remember hearing from friends about frequent sonic booms on 9/11 near WPAFB. That is a very active base. I believe most of the action there happens subterranean. The friends I have in Phillipsburg and Troy love it there…maybe you can find a plot of land out that way?
OP, no matter what anyone says I’d avoid cities like the plague. I lived on the east coast (NJ) for a while and I’d rather die than live through a worst case scenario in such a populated area. I also used to live in downtown Columbus as well…an amazing city to visit but recently moved to the country north of town and feel much more comfortable. To those that say resources are plentiful, I’d counter with a question about ratio of resources to people. Sure, there are stores on every corner…but at the first hint of disaster places like that would be violently cleaned out. Then looting/home invasions would begin. The ties we have to neighbors in the country are much stronger and the ratio of available resources to people is much more to our favor. And what about ‘resources’ with 4 legs? Can you find deer and the like in the inner city? No. And I’d bet the majority of the people in a city wouldn’t know what to do with one if they could find/down it. Out here deer are everywhere…plus I can walk across the street and grab all the corn and soybeans I want. If the SHTF the farmer gets a few of our horses and we feed on his fields. Like I said…good old fashioned country relationships 
Not a bad strategy at all. We will most likely do the same…but find a friend with a plot out in the country if you have to move, you have a somewhat isolated location to fall back to. A few people have talked to me about doing this for the same reason.
I live a couple miles outside of a city currently, and have lived in a city before. I love living in a city. For the vast majority of my day to day life, it affords me numerous activities, new people to meet and wonderful restaurants to try out. It also means that I have an incredibly short commute. Not only does that make me exceedingly happy, it also means that I’m not too far from home should something happen while I’m at work.
Yes, on the off chance that something goes down I’ll have to be smart enough to vacate early, or take my motorcycle out if things get clogged up. However, I don’t base my entire life around the notion of the world coming to an end. I’d rather live my life the way I want. I prepare what I can, stay informed and stay vigilant. Preparation past that is not a life I’d want to live.
Oh there is a friend we could bug out to, that is about 90min away by car and far more rural, but there is actually less support there for us than here. But it is a viable alternative if the home location becomes untenable. Then there is also the bugout to family in more distant states, but that would mean leaving a significant amount of supplies behind even if we took both vehicles.
We would LOVE to live in a more rural area, but unfortunately, DH’s job depends on being in suburbia…
I hear ya… fortunately I’m on the far edge of suburbia and my office is 6 minutes from my house so it worked out perfectly. Cities were fun when I was younger, bars on every corner! But not for me anymore (25 talking like I’m 60…must’ve drank too much too quickly…if that’s possible 
)
My fatherinlaw lives in a congested part of FL,and hates it.I’m trying to get him to move back up North.He’s got a lease until next June though.I hope things stay together until then.
I was living in the DFW metro area, Carrollton to be specific. It was great when I moved here from Wichita, Ks 6 years ago. But in the last year and a half alot of malcontents moved into the what was a nice apartment complex. Gangs and other assorted sorts of lovely people that just like to cause drama. So I recently moved out of the metro to a small town of 6000. The quiet is nice. Yes it increased my drive time to work, but the peace of mind is worth it so far. I just make damn sure my GHB is with me on any commute into the city now since it is 34 miles from work to home. That being said the Highway I have to take home, US75 is a parking lot during rush hour times. I can only imagine what it would be like during a crisis. I have alternate routes planned but they are not real feasible during normal commutes as they do add quite a bit of drive time.
City of two million here…three roads out of town, bridges on every one.
I have no plan to leave. If things get so bad that my place in town is at serious risk, the last place I want to be is in a giant traffic jam with desperate, frustrated motorists as they run low on fuel.
Bridges for every exit,i wouldn’t be able to sleep well with that!
I just prep to stay in place.
I live in a large midwest city.
That being said…I want to move to the middle of fucking Montana.
Living in suburbia here with the wife and kids. It’s not really practical for us to bug out and though things are doing good right now, we can’t afford to move further out. So our plans are based around bugging in and waiting what ever it is out.
I lived pretty close to downtown Jacksonville, Florida. Getting away from the city would have been difficult had there been an emergency, so everything that I had was geared for my residence.
I lived in Richmond VA for a number of years. I never owned my own place there but rented. That allowed me much greater freedom when picking where I lived. One of the things that was important to me was being near a major road with a on-ramp. The farthest away one was from me was 5 blocks, the closest was 1 block.
This was great because I could hop on the highway to go places and get the hell out of town quick if something went wrong.
Now things are a bit better. It takes 40 min to get to the highway and there is a 300m range out my front door.
15 miles outside of Portland, OR, so kind of the edges of suburbia. we plan to stay put. There are no major natural disasters that I can think of that give us cause to evacuate. That is those which can be predicted in advance so you can bug out before the crowds.
In general, I think bugging out is a last ditch option. If you bug out you have to leave hours or days ahead of the crowd so you do not get caught in traffic jams. How often is that going to happen when you need to bug out AND you get enough solid warning early enough ahead of everyone else to act on it?
Bugging out means leaving a good portion of your property behind to be vandalized or stolen. And worse you no longer have use of it. I have some family in Idaho or Eastern Washington I can bug out to if really necessary, but I consider traveling and hauling only a fraction of my gear as a last ditch move. If I lived in downtown then I would maybe consider bugging out more likely, but it would be tricky knowing far enough ahead of everyone else. If you wait until you see the danger then it is too late.
Also, I think the urban danger is overplayed in popular survivalist musings. In the vast majority of emergencies, there will not be vast gangs of looters and rioters moving across the entire city and suburbs. It will not be a free fire zone in all but the most extreme circumstances. Read the blog and form posts from guys in Argentina. Total economic collapse and chaos, yet people still had to commute to work, go to school, visit friends, buy groceries, etc. Things got more dangerous (kidnappings and murders in the driveway), yet many millions of people continued to live OK with higher alertness and more discreet movements around the city.
I think if you stay put it is important to work with neighbors and local family members to help each other out and provide mutual early warnings and protection.
I wish I could bug out NOW, long before the actual need and live in a more rural small town. That is the best bug out method: relocate. But I am tied to my suburban job and it would be extremely difficult and disruptive to try to find work in a small town when I don’t have those skills or experiences.
For now we plan to hunker down in case of a natural or man made disaster and coordinate with a few trusted neighbors and friends. We have a home on a long drive off a cull de sac on a dead end road. If we had severe economic collapse and it became too dangerous in our suburb I would consider bugging out but then we would have to risk driving across a lot of road and towns that could be as bad or worse than where we are now.
I live in an urban envoroment in a city in up-state New York. Frankly I love it, and I’ve lived in very rural areas before. That being said I understand it isn’t ideal when it comes to the topic of civil unrest and I’ll have to play it by ear as the situation irises as to if I should bug out or bug in. I have chosen rural destinations in all 4 directions if I need to bug out and have plotted the most likely uncongested routes via back roads to avoid major highways and whatnot. If it all hits the fan and I’m bugging in for a certain amount of time I feel I’m more prepared than the majority of people in this city. Low key will be my thing and whether or not any looters know it, I will be the last house they want to try should they find out the hard way.
When it comes to rural vs.urban you just need to accept and assess the reality of your situation and plan accordingly. Have a plan A, B and C. The differances in survival techniques in a rural vs. Urban envormoment is an interesting topic and debate.
Honestly it would be having to survive in the brutal up-state winters that scares me more than any urban miscreants and has always been my number one conscern around here.
same for me.
Lately I have been pondering just how ad the “golden horde” effect may or may not be, especially in regards to urban areas evacuating to suburban. Take the case of Katrina where hundreds of thousands of people evacuated before the hurricane and flooded into outlying areas. On the other hand, those people did not pose a massive issue of violence like the sometimes imagined hordes of marauding zombies.
And if we look at many of the large riots often they are destroying their own neighborhoods and fighting amongst themselves. I am thinking nowadays that if there were a massive economic collapse (or when there this one crashes on our doorstep), that the violent, rioting hordes will kill a lot of their own before they think to leave the city. And perhaps the worst will NOT leave the city as they see that as their familiar turf they can rule and loot.
Also, in the case of economic collapse we are not likely to see everyone who is going to leave the cities do so at the same time. I think it would e a gradual outflow and as reports come back of rural areas blocking off roads or turning out beggars then the remaining city folks will just hunker down and make the best of it in the place they know best.
Overall I don’t think the Collapse will be anything like most survival novels or musings paint it. It is tempting to believe it will all happen at once, we will instantly recognize “this is it”, civil law will cease and we will go around with M4s and throw up concertina wire around the house.
I think it will be a lot less clear cut and much more drawn out. For one thing, our tyrants in charge will not let slip the reins of control so easily and will likely use a collapse as an excuse to try to INCREASE national and local police control. I expect much more authoritarian intrusion into our lives. As in Argentina, we will still commute to some form of jobs, schools, churches, recreation, etc. but there will lots more danger in travel and home invasions. Very few people will be able to just disconnect and hunker down in an isolated rural location. The vast majority will continue to live where they are because they still need income, pay bills, travel, etc.
I guess the thing is we can;t prepare for one version of the future. We have to prepare for a range of situations from total collapse a la The Road, to muddling along in our current lives amidst a more authoritarian government and more dangerous neighborhoods a la Argentina.