Why NIMBY pastoralism is crap: A thread about my time in rural America.

For many years, I lived in a cabin in the woods. We had guns we used to shoot animals that we ate. We harvested trees felled by avalanches & chopped them for firewood.

Porcupines eating the porch, etc.

It's a hardy, rewarding, and hard-working lifestyle. Spare time is spent getting snow off the roof, fixing your perpetually collapsing pickup truck, re-arranging elk steaks in the deep freezer, patching leaky roofs, and make sure the garbage is well-sealed from bears.

Places all over U.S. where this is people's every day. It's a good option for a lot of low/middle-income Americans, because a certain level of self-reliance reduces hard costs: If you can grow it/kill it/eat it, or build/fix it w/ your hands, it's pretty cheap.

BUT. A giant but.

In places where incomes are median & stable, you can do this because water/sewer/waste removal needs can be met. Lots of rural places in U.S. aren't so lucky; incomes/tax bases are too low, so, services just aren't there. Schools? No way, your kids ride the bus an hour each way.

While some of rural America looks like my "chopping wood" stereotype, a lot more looks like desperation. Shooting squirrels, not elk. Septic tank failure. No stable income so, a meth lab side hustle. Dead cars piled up in the yard to cannibalize parts for the one that still runs.

This is where NIMBY pastoralism comes in. I'd be shocked if 1 : 1,000 NIMBY pastoralists would last a week in a truly rural setting. 8 feet of snow overnight? No plow, better get to work! Pipes froze because you forgot heat tape? LOL sucker.

Shoot and quarter an elk? LOLOLOL

NIMBY pastoralists want to *feel* like they're living the rugged rural "American dream," with views of mountains and forested landscapes *and* all the ease and reliable, well-funded services of a city.

They just don't get it.

Those services only work - can only last multiple generations - with *density.* Can only be funded *with density.*

Our low-density "cities" are careening toward bankruptcy *because of NIMBY pastoralism.* Neatly paved streets, unclogged sewers, clean water, weekly sanitation -

These are *urban amenities.* Cafes lining the block can't stay open *without density.*

The only exception to this is exceptionally wealthy enclaves where millionaires/billionaires pool their resources for their own private, rural "city." And they do! These places also exist.

Berkeley, California is not such a place. Your city is almost certainly not such a place.

But one thing every NIMBY pastoralist should always remember:

America is a remarkably empty country; millions of square miles of rural land sit waiting for you to go pursue your dream.

Is that what you really want?

Great. Then fucking leave already.

i'll buy you a map