PREPPING SUBURBIA: INTRODUCTION
Introduction
Prepping Suburbia is a growing trend among new preppers as newcomers learn they can put together a substantial prep without having to relocate to the sticks. Traditionally most survivalists, preppers, and homesteaders headed out of town and into the country, but the price of land, gasoline, and property taxes have caused many to reconsider prepping their current locations. This has actually become a very exciting time for many preppers as thousands of products with the suburban prepper in mind, are becoming available and making Prepping Suburbia that much easier.
Types of Suburban Prepping
Prepping Suburbia can be broken down into four types; Stockpiling, Homesteading, Survivalist, and a Combination of the other three. My family chooses the COMBO-PREPPING method because we no longer live in rural America where we can grow, scavenge, or hunt for everything we need and really we love options. In fact options is a must in every contingency, prep item, energy, etc. When you supply yourself with plenty of options you are less likely to do without. Of course it is up to your households needs and capabilities and you should find a prepping style that works for you and go with it.
Prepping Suburbia can be broken down into four types; Stockpiling, Homesteading, Survivalist, and a Combination of the other three. My family chooses the COMBO-PREPPING method because we no longer live in rural America where we can grow, scavenge, or hunt for everything we need and really we love options. In fact options is a must in every contingency, prep item, energy, etc. When you supply yourself with plenty of options you are less likely to do without. Of course it is up to your households needs and capabilities and you should find a prepping style that works for you and go with it.
Stockpiling is the most common type of prepping. Millions of Americans, Canadians, British, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Europeans, and many more stockpile foods and survival supplies. The basic concept is not to blindly stockpile goods, because preppers are not hoarders. Instead preppers are Systematic or Well Organized; measuring, counting, storing, and assessing every detail. They are the Bean Counters, get it! Stockpile Preppers try to assess the following; (a) Potential emergencies and disasters, (b) Quantity, (c) Shelf life and proper Rotation, (d) Re-supply & Logistics, and much more. To top it off preppers do all this with the contingencies of Bug In and Bug Out in mind.
Homesteading is a growing trend among Suburban Preppers. It has not yet taken off, but we feel it will become more popular as time goes by. Homesteading used to be a real occupation where millions of Americans, under the Homestead Act acquired land, farmed or raised livestock, or used their resources for some other type of income. Up until about the end of Second World War, many people bought almost all dairy, fresh fruits and vegetables, and an enormous assortment of other goods and services from local homesteaders. These entrepreneurs never got wealthy off of the goods and services they sold, but they made a living. In the mid 20 century; canned goods, meats, and virtually everything people used to buy from local producers were replaced by mass production. By the time the millennium got here, homesteading had all but disappeared except in a few communities, such as, the Mennonites, Amish, LDS, and small farms that were few and far between. Today Homesteading is becoming popular once again as people in suburban communities are assessing their real estate potential, planting the goods they need to survive and stockpile, supplementing their income, and networking to create Farmers Markets.
Survivalists are the third type of prepper, though you probably heard more about survivalists in the backwoods or militia formats, that evolved from the Cold War. Survivalists were fairly common throughout the Cold War as preppers that assumed and prepared for a possible war with the Soviet Union and/or China. Many of these survivalists built small militias, though some groups range in the hundreds of thousands, in an effort to build a civilian resistance. Most survivalists of the time had the idea of resisting occupation by using the vast forests, swamps, mountains, plains, and deserts of North America to overthrow the occupiers. Many of the skills learned and taught in survivalist groups involved; guerilla warfare, backwoods survival, scavenging, self reliance, first aid, etc.
It would have been a noble fight and probably fairly successful given that later research into KGB files have indicated that Russia feared the average American that commonly stockpiled handguns, ammunition, and long rifles. Hunting and Range Shooting was a big deal in America and the KGB knew it all to well.
Towards the end of the Cold War Survivalists began seeing what they determined to be a new threat to freedom, the overreaching and expansive federal government. The federal government had exploded in size from the early 1950s to what many considered to be a blasphemy against the Constitution in the 1980s and 90s. Many of the militias and survivalist groups formed during the Cold War began to alter their focus from Russia and concentrate more on the Federal Government. I (Common $ense Prepper) grew up in the survivalist format and world of rural prepping, surrounded by people who tried to be as self reliant as possible and always kept an open eye on the government.
Libertarianism was another factor among many survivalist groups. Even though libertarian politics had been around since the creation of our nation, it grew more popular during the 80s and 90s, then exploded in the Patriot Movements following the attack on 9/11 and then the Tea Parties of 2008, 2009, 2010, and on.
Survivalism as it is referred to today is a mix of backwoods, local militias, rural preppers, and suburban preppers. The purpose of survivalism has changed very little since the 1980s and 90s, although many have taken on the effort to prepare for emergencies and disasters. Many survivalists still believe the federal government is a growing concern but they also know that the world is full of potential threats, especially with a faltering American economy and influence abroad. Most prepping in this format takes the form of early survivalist ideals; surviving off the land, guerilla fighting, first aid, etc. There are some new focuses for survivalists; they prepare for a partial to complete collapse of the United States do to a whole host of reasons, and they have moved much of their ideas of resistance from the backwoods to the Urban and Suburban setting.
Combination: The best format I have discovered for prepping is a combination of all three, but I pick only attributes of each that I feel will suit my family and local network the best. We begin with a strategy to meet all types of contingencies by stockpiling the preps we might need, in different locations. Second I spend time teaching my family survivalist techniques; backwoods, suburban, and even urban survival because I believe your techniques need to be adaptable to whatever emergency might arise. To round out our experiences and capabilities we dabble in Homesteading, which does not make us homesteaders by any stretch of the imagination. However we wish to improve on this and will eventually spend the time, money, and effort to really apply homesteading to our prepping way of life.
More information to come...