First of all, yes I am a homesteader, or at least that's how I like to see myself. Granted, I don't have any property whatsoever, I live in a city (one of the biggest metropolises on this continent) in an apartment without even a balcony. I can imagine that for many people this would already be reason enough to disqualify me from being a “real, actual” homesteader, yet I insist on being one. This Homesteading Challenge gives me a nice opportunity to explain myself.
I think it was about a decade ago that we crossed the line: For the first time in history there were more people living in urban than in rural settings world wide, and since then the ratio has shifted even further in favor of the city. These folks have a couple of things in common, no matter which part of the world they're in: specialization of labor and relatively little space make it rather difficult to produce too many things at once. Instead, each individual pursues their own expertise, leaving the general production to others... What used to be done by country people, supplying the cities with food, is today in the hands of industry. Even agriculture has adopted large-scale industrial methods, with all the well-known horrible effects on our health, our environment, our economy, in some places even political stability.
Knowing about these things is not enough. Some sort of action is called for. Though I don't enjoy living in the city, and I know that eventually I'll find my way out of it, at the moment my urban life gives me a chance to explore all the possibilities someone can do to counteract this tendency, even living in a city. Once again, Bill Mollison comes to mind, who pointed out this exact problem of the revolutionaries producing merely words and bullets, not food and shelter.
Without getting into too much detail, the kind of things I have explored include:
All right, I hope this meets the challenge. I'm willing to continue with it as far as I can take it. For those who would like to participate, check out the challenge's post. There are still a few days left to participate.
