Run For The Hills

The lockdown has opened a lot of eyes, life has changed in ways that few could imagine, and now it seems much of those changes are here to stay. Employees around the world have had a taste of working from home, and many will most likely continue that way. The domino effect of such a seemingly benign shift in societal behaviour will escalate, and the cities will pay for their mistake.

For the last decade or two, city managers, corporate developers, and local government have become complacent, doing what they always do. They help bump up property prices until they’re out of the reach of the majority, forcing key workers to commute whilst raising taxes beyond the means of the average employee.

The biggest difference now is that people are starting to realise that city life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, indeed more and more urban residents are fleeing for the country. Money goes further out of town, taxes are traditionally lower, crime is, in general, less violent, and the quality of life is more often than not an improvement.

The wealthiest of the wealthy are about to take a big hit, for their corporations, especially in retail and hospitality, rely on a constant flow of consumers. If the cities are empty, then nobody is buying coffee, or high-priced fashion, or eating out at night, or going clubbing until the wee hours. When the cities die whole branches of the government fall into debt, and even electoral majorities, traditionally liberal in the metropolitan centres, are no longer present to bump up the numbers.

The drudgery of the daily commute is outdated. There’s no reason for most people to pollute the environment by travelling to corporate palaces built by billionaires to impress clients. A vast majority of people working in the city don’t need to be there. They can simply work at home.

Now here’s the problem, the economic divide between the haves and have nots is about to get far worse. Without the cities, whole generations of unskilled workers, working temporary jobs in retail and hospitality are going to find themselves back at their parents’ house. There’s no point serving coffee if nobody’s there to drink it. In an empty city, there’s no need for taxis, and even public transport will be on the wane. The supermarkets won’t fare any better, and even their suppliers will struggle to find new buyers. The restauranteurs and their award-winning chefs might find a better reception out in the country, but they’ll never make the income they make now.

As the cities burn and the police take a knee, and social justice outranks democracy, something strange is happening all around us, the support network for cultural progressives is collapsing. The political map of most countries is much the same; the rural hinterlands are in the main traditionalists and are no place for cultural extremes.

So now what happens, does the war continue, does it spread into the countryside? I’m not so sure, I have a feeling there’s far too much at stake, and that this is one of those occasions where big government declares the cities too big to fail. So, they’ll bail them out, until the taxpayers revolt, and when the uproar becomes too much, they’ll do the same, throw their hands up and run for the hills.

You see it all the time in sci-fi movies, dystopian cities razed to the ground. Vast landscapes of urban decay, nature encroaching, perhaps the odd zombie along the way. For that’s who’ll be there when the walls come tumbling down living big city lives when they turn off the power and the water and abandon the redundant legacy of the Twentieth Century. No need for skyscrapers, no need for micro-apartments, no more traffic jams and new urban initiatives. This is the beginning of the end of modernity; what comes next is homegrown, self-actualising, social fraternity.

Time to step out into the real world and look away from the grey, concrete skies. Travel far and wide for new havens, discover new rural idylls in disguise. Those secret powerhouses of a breed of skilled creatives and entrepreneurs. A legion of forward-thinking individuals and communities who know that the cities have been dying for quite some time.

Imagine nation after nation of independent individuals, learning new skills, trading with each other rather than through conglomerates and the corporatocracy. It might sound like a dream, or a nightmare, depending on where you’re standing, but it’s time to face the facts, this world is changing, and changing fast.

Now make a decision, choose a direction, embrace nature and the traditions of the past, rely on each other by building real communities, live within your means, and live the life you love.

Read More at: www.FrankMaddish.com