I hope we're not fooling ourselves. It is my opinion that anything we can do to take the strain out of a bad situation is generally beneficial. At least I'm not standing in line for gas or water when everyone else needs to.
I think if one was planning for a long term disaster when everything changes and there is no technology or assistance, they should be educated in wilderness survival, foraging and hunting. People have survived horrific conditions from the dawn of man right up to today. I guess we can just learn what we can, practice when we can and hope for the best.
Here's a link for a youtube video called "The Doomsday Prepper Report Card" I'm not sure if it's just what you're looking for but I hope it is along the lines of what you wanted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Y4bc-21ZU

Wow, that was a great write up and so many things touched on in there..

I have to agree that anything and everything you can do to make your own family be more able to make the first year would be very very helpful, now moving on forward to, do you or can you have a skill or a trade that will allow you to barter for things you do need?

Exmaple, I am hoping that i will be able to grow enough extra's, and to use the horse and wagon to haul the extra's to the area's around me, so that I can trade as required, I am on a small farm and I still will need to work in the area to get everything I need, I don't have the bush/tree's to heat the house for more then x amount of time, and my land is cleared mainly, I am on river loam and I have excellent garden soil but right around me is a farm that has hundred plus of woods, creeks etc, she will need some of my produce, I will need some of her woods, and possable need access to her closest bend in the creek, as it would be the closest water source off my own land, down the way is the gent that has a huge! maple shack and does many many gallons of it, but he does not have his land cleared at all, down the other way is a gent with bee's and lots of hay pasture, none of us can honestly do it on our own, but we all have parts, six farms down is another gentleman who has all the horse drawn equipement to plough, drill, seed and harvest crops, plus two teams of horses, the funny thing is, he only has a small horse pasture to go with, which means that others have the plowed, tiled crop land that would need to be work with it.

You will need to look after your own for the first push but once things steady down, you will once again need to find work, it might not be work in the way we think about it now, it will be more like thinking about work back in the day a hundred years ago.. folks will once again need to be working in mines, fields, and hand done factories..

now I am not saying that something could not happen like mad max, because with the right metor hit, we could have real issues but even in a power grid failure, are we over populated, yes we are.. but on the other hand, what we need to live vs what we think we need to live are two very, very different things.

As an example, you said you have a 5000 square foot house, well for what its worth, while you could use parts of the house for storage, and parts to grow things in or even raise a bit of tiny livestock (example rabbits or guinea pig etc), if you had a full winters worth of wood, and things were going south, would it not make more sense to close off from the heat most of that house and only heat say 500 sqaure feet of it..

In my own house, which has far more room then we as two peaple need!, we only have heat added from Nov till march, otherwise, its just what comes from cooking etc. the rest of the year.. layer up and use blankets etc etc, but even in winter, I heat the cellar for the pantry and the pipes, and I heat the bedroom at night to sleep better, but otherwise, unless its ultrabitter outside, its dress for it, and yes, I have been known to be seen wearing a soft but very warm toque in my own living room.

The point of that is simple, its above freezing but its not walk around in shorts and t-shirt warm by any means, and that would just become a fact of life again for most folks, even if you had a huge amount of woods around your home, the time and energy it would take to clear the dead fall, haul it, cut it and split it, should make everyone think twice before using that next log, just to heat the house, it should be a planned move, heat the house, cook the meals, do the wash water, dry the washed cloths etc etc.

So the answer to me at least, I laugh a little when I see folks talk about they are going to come though with the same lifestyle, that to me is fooling yourself, I guess the odd person has enough money, knowledge and just the right place to make that happen, but for most of us, its not that we can't make it with planning and hard work, its that we won't be living the same way on the flip side..

Just my own thoughts on it..

One of the best postings.Faraday that YouTube is excellent check point for everybody.Gets right to it for serious prepping.We went trough it carefully and found few things to improve our standing in prepp. so in next couple days we know what to do.I just can not imagine living in the city and prepping for "long time survival".Thanks GOD i live in the middle of bush with unlimited gardening,hunting and raising small animals.For practice I am going this summer with fellow prepper (from Europe and a trainer of basic life from Russia)for a 150 km ,12 days walk trough remote bush in northern Ont.Just watched documentary (HAPY PEOPLE) it is simple life at its best.
Henry

If you live in a condo, its harder but if you have 100x200 ft of yard and its not covered by your house, then you are good to go. It would be helpful if you were to develop that plot into garden space now while you can add lots of compost and manure but if you do the sq. foot gardening along with companion planting method, you can raise plenty of veggies in that space. Since you theoretically have a 1-2 year supply of food on hand, if you get started right away, you can keep it going. I had a backyard garden in Calgary and we were never short of veggies for a family of 5. You would have to base your choices on what it realistic for the situation and not think with your taste buds.

A good chunk of that house could be used for raising rabbits and other small mammalians. As Farmgal does, you need to adjust your thinking about what comfort is. That is the key.

I know in town on the street where my daughter lives they have a street/community garden. It is really great for socialising, the work is spread over many people, the yeild from this garden is unbelievable and it's about neighbour taking care of neighbour. There are anumberof these types of these garden initiatives in town and they have been very successful.
As far as wood for heat check out what your town does with trees it has to cut down and remove and ofcourse pallets from the business community.

I think that if you live in a city when things go down, there are parks everywhere with trees and land for growing............working along with your neighbours to carve out a new life in the new world. It would be nothing like we have today. Our definition of comfort will surely change.

If you're talking about the low-probability / high-impact events that will knock society out; think about that year or two of food and supplies that you already have as a buffer to give you the time to work with your neighbours / prepper network to do exactly what everyone has said above.

While the other 90% of the city population is starving and/or leaving for the surrounding farmland in hopes of finding salvation, you and your network will be able to keep your heads down to avoid the inevitable disease and criminality that will occur. Once it is safer (not safe), you can come out and tend your existing gardens and build new ones. As for fuel for heating; well that will depend on your scenario and who exactly is part of your network once the dust has settled. You may find that you're all moving to the local park or golf course to be closer to your crops, living in tents or rv's... who knows??

This is assuming a worst-case scenario that is very unlikely to happen of course.
Keep your supplies and plans flexible.

We have similar supplies in place and we hope that they allow us to keep our heads down long enough for the shit to settle before we head out to join our network at our designated location to pool skills and resources. It all depends on what your network looks like and what resources you have already gathered as a group.

I think it is a matter of thinking outside the box. Most people only learn one way to do things or are told you can only do things a certain way. While you have the time, play around with new (or in most cases really old) ideas. I have grown tomatoes in the house in a half green garbage pail. I growing my cucs on a trelis. I put green peppers in the hanging railing baskets and nailed them to a fence. With little space I had to get creative.

You can grow lettuce ( shallow roots, light feeder) in cheap plastic evestroughing. Plant a couple of posts and hang the evestroughs one above the other as high as you can harvest along the side of your house. Good for radishes as well. Peas in hanging baskets...you get the drift.

If you're talking about the low-probability / high-impact events that will knock society out growing food will be, in my opinion, the least of your problems. What would be a big one? 1 mil (if you're in Calgary or Edmonton) hungry, thirsty, scared people, quite a few that got off the leash of the Justice system, others that can't get their medicine , martial law ....

I think that most people don't live in the city and assume it is going to be the best place to be if the SHTF - however - you can only do what you can do and for many reasons people don't feel they have a choice. When I lived in the city I did the best I could with the space and the finances available to me making allowance for bugging out if it was really serious.

Perhaps the best place to be is a private island with 10 years of stored food but I can't afford it so here I am. At some point you have to check your "gut" and ask yourself if you have done all that you can do - if so - live at peace with your answer or you will drive yourself crazy. If not - focus on the things you can do - be it storing more food, gaining more skills or moving out of the city.

There's a perfect world and then the one we live in!!

Lots to think about here.

I think if everyone could survive for one month, that would buy the powers that be time to get organized without having to deal with lots of panicy unpreppared people (it's a happy place in my mind sometimes! 😀 ) Just last night the power went out with the snow storm that came through Ontario and we've had to go about 36 hours with no power. It reinforces the things we had prepped and the places we can improve. A tree came down across our driveway (new family joke: When a tree falls at our place, does anyone hear Dad go "$#$%#E" 😆 ) . We were able to clear the tree out by cutting it apart and we'll return to reclaim the firewood later. To me, that's the practical side of prepping. Never mind solar flares, magnetic pole shifts, or other catestrophic disasters - can you survive the realistic everyday problems that crop up. Certainly with a suburban home, that should be possible.

Keep up the prepping and slowly but surely, you'll get at least 80-90% ready and that will put you way in front of many others.

Just wanted to add, the tree now becoming firewood...this is exactly what making lemonade is about 🙂