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Re: NOT just farming

At 04:17 PM 1/23/97 -0500, YankeePerm@aol.com wrote:
>I had this conversation with Kirkpatric Sale some years ago.  Kirk wants to
>distribute the population of New York City all over upstate New York.  I
>opposed this on behalf of my rural upstate friends.  In my view, this would
>smear the city all over the state and it would soon all resemble the less
>desirable aspects of New York.

Greetings:

I don't know Kirkpatrick Sale's argument for wanting to redistribute New
York's population, but I sure sympathize with his goal.  The carrying
capacity of the land and the happiness of the creatures on it would both be
greater if we were more evenly distributed across the landscape.  

Our collective first attempt at living on this land we took from the natives
has been a dismal failure, and one result has been that most of the smaller
farming communities have been depopulated.  Meanwhile, our cities are
bloated sprawling beasts that devour resources far and wide.  A
redistribution of the population is in order and I hope it will happen
naturally and progressively as cities become less habitable.  Population
redistribution and new thinking are critical to survival.

For that reason, our work in the country is important for developing new
models of relating with the land and each other.  When people start coming
out of the cities--and we already see quite a few urban refugees here in the
Ozarks--there need to be a lot of permaculture farms and other progressive
enterprises there already to offer new paradigms for how we will re-inhabit
the land.  I think we would all be amazed at how many people would like to
develop a harmonious, functioning life on the land, but they don't have any
examples to show the way.

Population redistribution could definitely be ugly, and probably will be,
but I prefer to hope and work for something different.

Regards to all,



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  Greg Jarrett     gregj9@intellinet.com
   P.O. Box 93
    Fox, Arkansas  72051
     USA
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