[ecopal]

I recently decided that an old single family house is just not going to be the most energy efficient way to live in the city so I sold it and bought a condo. So far the heat usage is a fraction of what my home was and the square footage is the same. I don't know why more folks are not doing this. It seems like the obvious future for urban living. I bit of adjustment, I will admit, but we Americans need to start realizing we are going to have to start living like the rest of the world. Anybody else out there taking this plunge? Now I am looking for just a small piece of land for a garden.

[Heineken]

Although I hope I'm wrong, I think you made exactly the wrong move.

An urban condo? You're a sitting duck for power and water outages, stripped grocery-store shelves, zombie hordes, and more. As I see it, you've ceded all control.

Where will your land be in relation to your condo? How will you keep hungry people from stripping your crops?

It would make more sense to have an old house with a little land, well beyond the urban fringe, and learn to live there in a different way.

[Daniel_Plainview]

One downside to condos: when your condo-neighbors go bankrupt and fall into foreclosure, you (and the other solvent condo-dwellers) will be forced to pay the defaulting neighbor's share of condo dues, utilities, etc.; not to mention that condo values deteriorate once several condos within the same complex go into foreclosure.

[mos6507]

Square footage alone does not dictate heating costs. You should have pursued making the house more energy efficient before abandoning it.

[alokin]

if it's one of these old sturdy brick townhouses, built 1900 - why not? But you should buy garden land as well, reachable by public transport.
These old houses are well constructed and the maintenance is far lower than what's maybe built in the 60's or later.
You might have the convenience having everything close buy, shops, schools etc., but I would not like to miss my own land to plant my stuff.
(Chicken or rabbits might be held in a small backyard of the condo)

[SILENTTODD]

Welcome ecopal! I have to take exception to the other posts so far because you didn’t say where you are located, USA? or in that case what State?

Not knowing that, there may be some advantages to your strategy. In the case of complete societal break down, there is no advantage in a separate house over a condo; you would be just as susceptible to raging hoards in either case. A separate house means your there alone defending you wee garden!

I am in the middle of reading Dmitry Orlov's new book "Reinventing Collapse", about the societal breakup of the Soviet Union and what he believes is inevitable for the United States also. One thing that stuck me was when the old USSR came apart, basically everybody stayed put! The government owned the apartment you lived in, so when the government evaporated, so what? You still lived in the house.

If things get so bad as many people on this site believe will happen. No body is going to have the power or the will to evict current residence out of where they are living now! Just like in Russia.

Is there a growing area around your condo that is being used for lawn? Could it be used as garden sites? Start making you plans now!

One thing I would strongly recommend you do is to introduce yourself and know EVERYONE in your condo building and those around it if you can. There is safety in numbers. To quote Maximus Meridius from the movie 'Gladiator'- "Whatever comes through that gate, we're better off working as one".

[Tyler_JC]

I recently decided that an old single family house is just not going to be the most energy efficient way to live in the city so I sold it and bought a condo. So far the heat usage is a fraction of what my home was and the square footage is the same. I don't know why more folks are not doing this. It seems like the obvious future for urban living. I bit of adjustment, I will admit, but we Americans need to start realizing we are going to have to start living like the rest of the world. Anybody else out there taking this plunge? Now I am looking for just a small piece of land for a garden.

[As usual, the members of this website are jumping to conclusions with very little information to go on]

Here's a basic list of information missing:
1. Location of single family home.
2. Location of condo.
3. Current occupation of ecopal.
4. Marital status of ecopal.
5. Current occupation of ecopal's hypothetical spouse.
6. Children?
7. Quality of schools in each neighborhood. (if applicable)
8. Age of children.
9. Farming ability of ecopal.
10. Cost of condo versus cost of house.
11. Cost of UPKEEP on condo versus house.
12. Debt load, savings rate, income versus expenses
etc, etc, etc

Don't base your life off of advice from an internet forum. You have to look at your individual situation and add up the costs and benefits.

It doesn't make any sense at all to give up a stable $80,000 a year job in order to become an impoverished farmer if you can save a quarter of your paycheck every year and invest it wisely.

It doesn't make any sense to stay in a $300,000 house if you are perfectly comfortable moving to a $200,000 condo that is not only closer to work but has lower maintenance costs.

If you don't believe that the world is going to crash next year (as some on this website have been predicting since...oh...I dunno...2004), then moving into the city could be a very smart decision.

I don't know your details and I'm not going to pretend I know them but I hope my partial list gives you an idea of what to think about before running to the hills.

[max_in_wa]

....If you don't believe that the world is going to crash next year (as some on this website have been predicting since...oh...I dunno...2004), then moving into the city could be a very smart decision. ....

I live in an a (very nice) apartment 5 miles from where I work. I have a pottery studio about 10 miles out of town as well. I don't want to have a long commute to my office so the apartment is great for that.

To me, living in a house in town is the same as living in an apartment in town -- I grew up in the country and I still get a sort of uneasy feeling when people can see me in the yard. So from my perspective, a house on a lot = an apartment.

Out at the studio, I decided to plant a garden this summer -- it's 11 paces by 26 paces. A guy came with a tractor and did the initial tilling, but let me tell you, it's so much more work than I remember from my childhood. I'm achy and sore, though it is probably good to get some of the lard off my butt.
I'm also 40, so old issues, like a bad elbow, are making themselves known. I had intended to do everything with hand tools but hoeing has been murdering my elbow and shoulder (the soil is rather poor -- lots of clay so it settles quickly). Today I broke down and bought a little Ryobi cultivator -- it means I'm not doing the garden "gas free" anymore (recognizing the initial diesel to till) -- but it also means I won't destroy my arm. The little Ryobi isn't like the Troy Built Horse we had when I was a kid by any means, but it works much better than I expected. I've used about 8-12 oz of gas/oil (it's a two stroke) so far.

Anyway, I don't see anything wrong with the parent poster's plan. I know living in this apartment keeps my energy needs low. Considering the way my shoulder feels right now, I sure hope our slide on the downhill slide of PO is one of ever increasing prices rather than a plunge into some sort of post-apocalyptic-nightmare. Considering the greater comparative wealth of the US to many third world nations, I suspect a slow bleed is more likely. If it isn't, I'll be a gonner ... unless I can figure out how to triple my garden size while using only my left arm and using no gas at all.

[heroineworshipper]

The single family house has become a novelty of the WWII generation. It's not practical anymore. Today there are more valuable things to spend $1 million on than a house. You can buy 3 suborbital space flights for the cost of a house. You can buy a fleet of airplanes. By forgetting about home owership U can have a life & save your fingernails. When the subprime mortgages went away, a lot of Calif*ahans turned away from home owership & discovered there was a lot more $1 million could buy than a roof.

[davep]

The single family house has become a novelty of the WWII generation. It's not practical anymore. Today there are more valuable things to spend $1 million on than a house. You can buy 3 suborbital space flights for the cost of a house. You can buy a fleet of airplanes. By forgetting about home owership U can have a life & save your fingernails. When the subprime mortgages went away, a lot of Calif*ahans turned away from home owership & discovered there was a lot more $1 million could buy than a roof.

I bought a farmhouse with 10 acres for a tenth of that last year. Be careful though, rural prices are increasing due to the commodity price increases.

[Heineken]

It's irritating when someone starts a thread and then doesn't participate in the follow-up.

Maybe he's painting his new condo.

I feel that an apartment (if that's what this condo is) is fundamentally a less survivable situation than a home with land. It's sterile and cut off from nature. It's a cube in a concrete wall of cubes. Real safety can't be achieved anywhere, of course, but the competition for daily survival is certain to be more intense in populous urban areas than in low-density rural areas.

[ecopal]

Thanks for the feedback. A few more details into my thinking: My move to the condo was based on thinking that started a while back and it was more based on what I hoped would become the trend of many people. I just started to think the idea that all people need a free-standing house to heat and maintain in the era of diminishing resources was not sustainable. Yet I (and my husband) have good-paying jobs in the city that we could not do elsewhere. Transportation costs are becoming huge and it doesn't seem to be any place for the middle of the road folks who see big problems ahead and yet do not want to take action. giving up a house and living on less energy consumption seemed to be something just a bit better than what we were doing. In many other places on the earth where consumerism is not as out of control as America, this model is the rule rather than the exception. For us, giving up the whole thing and moving out just would not work because of the need to work.

[Byron100]

A good thread, one worth having here on this forum.

I do agree with Heineken's points about having a home + land as opposed to having a condo in the city, for the simple reason of being able to grow food, keeping stockpiles of essential goods, having more room to accommodate extra family members and/or friends if need be. You just can't have those things with living in a condo.

The thing that scares me the most about living in a condo, however, is the mandatory "association" fees...which is like an extra tax that can be raised endlessly at will. I know there are costs associated with maintaining a single family home but at least I have the option of doing the work myself (which I do about 90% of the time), or simply deferring the maintenance off into the future, much like can be done with old cars, etc. With condos, you HAVE to pay the monthly fees, whether you have a job or not, and the thing that really burns me up is that they can actually take your home away if you're unable to come up with that monthly fee, even if you have no mortgage, keep up with the taxes, etc.

Perhaps someday, the government will pass laws to make these fees optional for those who cannot pay (or better yet, outlaw mandatory homeowner's associations altogether). If the common areas start to look a bit ratty, oh well...it's still better than losing your home just because a group of nutty "condo commandos" want to put a new roof on 10 years before the building really needs one, or a new paint job just because the board doesn't care for the "outdated" paint scheme.

Sorry for the rant, it's just that I have strong feelings on this issue, and I really do not think that homes / condos that have mandatory associations will survive very long in depressionary times.

As for as my living arrangements go, I do live in a typical suburban 3/2 on a 3/4 acre, but I am within walking distance of 2 bus lines as well as a comprehensive shopping center...I can get just about anywhere in this big, huge city of ours *without* the need for a car. Having 3/4 acre of land to do what I please will come in awful handy for gardening, harvesting of trees for firewood (I sure have a lot of those!), and perhaps a shop for operating a post-peak enterprise such as retrofitting bicycles with electric motors, etc.

So yes, I do believe my living arrangements are quite sustainable, at least to the point when things get so bad that its' not possible to carry on no matter where one lives.

[max_in_wa]

... I just started to think the idea that all people need a free-standing house to heat and maintain in the era of diminishing resources was not sustainable. ...

Excellent reasoning, IMHO. Part of the problem with demand right now has been the whole suburban car culture we've developed. I look around and previously productive farmland sprouts McMansions with garges the same size to park the RV and SUVs. The resources that go into building and maintaining such a place are huge, not to mention 30 or more miles per day required to get to work.

But it isn't just third world countries that don't have the kind of sprawl we do. I traveled around N. Japan and I was fascinated by the countryside. It would be wild and beautiful and then all of sudden, you'd be in a city. 500,000 people or more and it would just pop up out of the forest.

In America, you have a good 40 miles warning by the amount of sprawl surrounding our large cities.

As for the small farm in the country, if you don't have to drive 30 or 40 miles a day for work, it would be sensible enough. But I have to work in town and so it would be awfully wasteful. Regarding a house in the suburbs or in town, with a small lot, it isn't really reasonable to think that one could grow enough food on that space to survive.

And for the people who are going to bunker down somewhere -- the hordes will find you or you'll be so remote your supplies will run out. Seriously, challenge yourself: try to grow a one acre garden using only pre 20th century equipment. Obviously this is totally possible -- but subsistence farming is full time job. And then, how are you going to make new metal tools once the shovels and rakes wear out?

[Heineken]

I apologize for my impatient remark, ecopal. Got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

I agree with Byron.

You can't assume that your jobs in the city will be there when society and economies start falling apart. Or that there is anything "sustainable" about condo living, for the reasons I gave earlier.

It seems to me that your adjustment of selling your house and moving to a condo makes sense only in superficial economic terms that are based on things staying pretty much the same as they are.

In a condo you are more vulnerable and more dependent and there's no way around that.

[Ferretlover]

IMHO, condos and apartments are going to be awful. You are at the mercy of your neighbors and future squatters.
All it will take is one fire that quickly gets out of control, and a fire department that doesn't have or choose to waste the gas to come put it out.
*shudder* I don't like them (aps & condos) at all!

[Heineken]

And then, how are you going to make new metal tools once the shovels and rakes wear out?

You get on your bicycle, ride into town, and give the broken shovel to the town blacksmith to repair. Maybe you pay him with a bag of fresh tomatoes.
People were forging metal tools LONG before the Oil Age.

[mos6507]

This is turning into yet another reubanization vs. suburban homestead argument. There are strong opinions in both camps and it's all riding on how the collapse actually plays out.

[Byron100]

This is turning into yet another reubanization vs. suburban homestead argument. There are strong opinions in both camps and it's all riding on how the collapse actually plays out.

And it's one that needs more attention than ever, so let's keep this kind of thing going to help guide those who are sitting on the fence on this issue.

Just some extra thoughts I'd like to add: Sure, the idea of buying a country homestead sounds very appealing...I almost went this route back in 2004 when I "woke up" to this whole thing. I actually went so far as to make a recon trip to upstate New York to look at some rural properties for sale. But I decided against this for several reasons. One is, changing over from city life to that of a self-sustaining farmer is a Herculean task, one that I really didn't feel up to. Another is lack of a social network, which is important when moving to an isolated area. You need the knowledge of others in order to make the most out of your land, who to go to for needed repairs without getting ripped off, that sort of thing. Thirdly, there is the fortunate matter of the family farm in eastern Tennessee which I hope will continue to remain in the family for quite some time in the future. I do have relatives / friends in that area I could depend on should I have to "bug out" of the city and make a go of it on the farm.

I thought about buying a condo for cash with the Florida money (sale of a bubblicious house in early 2005...LOL), but the whole idea of the mandatory fees scared me off, as well as the myriad of problems of living in close quarters with others. People in other countries tend to get along better in close quarters, due to their culture, etc. Americans, that's a whole different story...hehe.

So it came to the decision of buying another SF home, and believe me, I tried to make it work any way I could. Close enough to the city for jobs / opportunities, but not so close as to worry about the riots, should they occur. Having enough land to be able to put it practical use, but not be so far out to have to depend on a car to get anywhere. I wanted to be able to walk / bike to shops and transit centers, have easy, short commutes to the largest possible number of employment centers, and to have a home that's easy to maintain, not too large to heat / cool, etc, etc. I don't think I did too bad with all of this...certainly, I consider myself better positioned than a great majority of folks in this big, sprawling city of ours.

So, yes, it's all about weighing the pros and cons...there really isn't any "magic" answer that can be consistently applied to this sort of thing.

[mos6507]

The mindset I like to reference is from the end of What a Way to Go.

It doesn't have to be so much about finding the "safest" place. In the end there may not BE a truly safe place--just varying flavors of danger. So it may be pointless going in circles to theorize endlessly about the pros and cons city/suburb/country life. It's about finding the place you are feel passionate enough about that you're willing tie yourself to with a stake and make your final stand.