With the costs of moving people and materials constantly rising, a rational plan to ameliorate living conditions as much as possible needs to be addressed. It is my opinion that regionalization is the best organizational structure to be had for at least the next decade. The days of national and global dependency are coming to a close. While it is obvious that standards of living will, and must continue to shrink, there is no reason why this process must be chaotic. With detailed planning, the “let down” can be managed.
So what is a region? I suppose we could re-invent the wheel, but we already have “regions” that over time, have served the needs of people - if not evenly, at least in ways that covered most of the bases. This is true no matter where you live on the planet… Government has mirrored social needs for the most part. So if we simply follow the break-out of governmental structure, we have semi-reasonable regions already in place. Here in the U.S., we have federal, state, county, city, and neighborhood regions. The names are different in every country, but follow a similar pattern. While regional boundaries (those artificially set) would need to be flexible given conditions on the ground, we can assume that existing regional definitions would suffice for planning purposes.
What would be the likely goal of any region? Self-sufficiency. From smaller to larger, each region would attempt to depend less and less on the next larger region. To the extent that a region must import basic needs, self sufficiency is vulnerable. Luxury goods and services will always move globally, but basic goods and services can’t be “luxury” items.
So just what are the basic good and services that we need to consider? We all will have slightly different lists, but I’ll start with the basic basics…
Food: To whatever extent possible, food and food preservation needs to be localized. Each area or region needs to inventory what fruits and vegetables can be grown, what food animals can be supported (they have to eat too) and then matched to the existing population. Food storage has to be a consideration as well. Freezer storage is fine as long as electrical supplies are available at affordable rates, but going back to canning, brining, and drying of foods probably should be looked at. A region that can provide, process, and store basic grains, fruits and vegetables for its inhabitants is going to be far more stable than one that has to import from another region.
Clothing: Sad, but we’ve almost completely shut down fiber and cloth production in this country. It is likely that we will have to import fabrics for daily living from other countries. Unless a region is capable of supporting a garment industry, people might have to learn how to sew again… The same goes for shoe production. Nike may not want to build a shoe factory in a dozen different small regions. Like flip flops?
Shelter - There is probably adequate shelter for most inhabitants. There may be “dividing” up some larger homes as generations of a family find that it is easier to live under one roof than independently. New construction will change radically to minimize materials that have to be imported from another region.
OK. That is a beginning. It barely scratches the surface, but it’s a beginning.
You’re invited to comment, add to the list of necessities, begin suggesting strategies, etc.
