5 ms·
I often get the sense that people value land away from the cities not high enough. Sure I understand why people move to metropols, it is a bit like a gold rush.
by geff82 9y ago
I often get the sense that people value land away from the cities not high enough. Sure I understand why people move to metropols, it is a bit like a gold rush. But from some idealistic point, not thinking about money, I feel that the "poor" farmer with a small house and some land is richer than the person living in a 1000-sqf-3-million-dollar-appartment in downtown Hong Kong.
- Hasknewbie 9y agoThe problem is that Hong Kong is a city-state: you can't move away from the city. Your only (and much more complicated) option would be to emigrate out of Hong Kong, but people having low wages are precisely the least likely to succeed at that.
- lmm 9y agoHow much joy does that house/land bring them? If you like having a lot of space then you do you; for me more space would largely just be more responsibility - I feel more comfortable snuggled in a corner than in a big empty space, so even when home on my own I'll often choose to hide away in my bedroom rather than in my main room.
- geff82 9y agoI always feel living in even normal appartments is a bit like living in cages (which of course I did a lot). When travelling a lot, they are great because you don't have to care about much. But an acre of land or so could always provide at least for some food in a crisis, while an apartment leaves you unprotected in the masses. Maybe it's some kind of libertarian logic that occupies my mind.
- lmm 9y agoThat... yeah, that seems pretty crazy. Do you even know how to produce food on your land? (it's not easy in most inhabited lattitudes). What about all the other things you'd need - water, medical care, cloth and minerals? What kind of crisis do you even imagine is that likely yet that survivable? It's worth being prepared for a short-term crisis, but that would be over one way or another well before your first harvest. Put some MREs and a 10-gallon water jug in your broom closet and you're not appreciably worse off in an apartment.
- greendestiny_re 9y ago>Do you even know how to produce food on your land? This isn't as hard as it sounds. The nature is overflowing with edibles of all sorts and we simply have to cultivate it for a little bit. Two years ago, my father planted two chokeberry (Aronia prunifolia) shrubs in our backyard. Now those tiny shrubs have grown to 20 times their original size and yielded about 10 pounds of berries. Two years before that, we planted 8 tiny grapevines and tied them with pieces of string to a nearby metal scaffolding. Today, those vines have wrapped themselves around the front part of the house and provide us with more grapes than the entire family can eat. Both aronia shrubs and grapevines grow unstoppably, without any human intervention. Now, having them fit for commercial consumption is another thing entirely, and we'd probably have to invest much more money in ensuring larger yields and so on. Right now, I only spray grapes with some copper sulphate though I see it's been infected with grape phylloxera, for which there is no control or cure.
- lmm 9y agoSmall amounts of food are easy, sure. I assumed they were talking about growing enough food to live on exclusively, which is a quite different proposition.
- johnchristopher 9y agoThere are some major health related issues to living near farm fields though, especially for children. Depends on the agricultural methods.