New York after 9/11 is a bad analogy, though. In post-power (sub)urbia it’ll be more like “Escape from New York.” There won’t be a mere few minutes of terror and destruction, followed by a coming together in numbed relief. There’ll be an endless stream of daily battles to secure just enough food and water and shelter ’til tomorrow, especially during the winter months. So yeah, an every-person-for-self strategy will be typical, and probably more effective, too.

But this isn’t lazy “apocalyptic thinking,” which itself is a lazy man’s epithet — “apocalyptic” meaning nothing more than an uncovering or a disclosure, except when it’s employed as a rhetorical device to evoke Biblical images of end times, which is why you describe it as “public prognostications” and “prophecies,” I suppose, for similar emotional effect, not to mention easier dismissal. But no, it’s just neutral mathematics.

(How you came to know that prophecies have some potential for self-fulfillment would be a much more interesting and informative post than this one, though!)

And since you’re already (or still) of an “us” vs. “them” mentality, and you’re hopeful that “we” are prevailing, I’d say you’re about as well prepared for this publicly prognosticated scenario as anyone! :-)

My upcoming post will also feature a sort of oblique answer to your comment, though I wrote it before reading this.

Fred – I think cities will survive, but they’ll have to shrink quite a bit.

I have written posts set in such a future, I think. A whole blog set twenty or thirty years ahead is a great idea, and would doubtless — if the internet survives — provide people living in that time with a great source of entertainment.

Maybe we could turn this around and make this whole discussion a blog written in the future where people are remembering “the crisis”. Might be fun!

Dave, Dave, Dave….what are you smoking? (Never mind.) Your bucolic portrait of post-oil suburbia simply doesn’t jibe with common sense.

Suburbs will be quickly reconfigured all right, but not so that essential goods and services are nearby. Armed marauders and vigilantes within walking distance? Certainly. Ya think there’ll be “earth-sheltered, passive-solar structures”? Well, yeah, if that’s your euphemism for “foxholes.”

Trees will be cut down for firewood…d’oh. (Please also mention that household pets and young children will be snared and eaten, ‘kay?) Lawns will be dug up? Yes, for burial grounds. People will spend a lot more time outdoors? Of course! We’ll be 24-7-armed-guarding our pathetic little garden patches of succotash. And will we come together in ways we haven’t seen since WWII? Mais oui! We shall engage in hand-to-hand combat over our pathetic garden patches of succotash, and perhaps over the week-old corpse of our shar-pei puppy, as well. (“Hot dog, Mama! We’re eatin’ Chinese 2-nite!”)

But your prediction about people losing no time planting trees? That one is so funny I forgot to laugh.

I theenk you’re just a teeeny leeetle beeet out of touch, my dear Dave.

But yo, I still love yer pretty blog! ;-)

Peter – That something would be me, I guess. :)

If that makes sense. 27 poems in 27 days, written with three preschoolers, has turned my head into a sieve. So thanks for the diversion, anyway.

Dick – I wondered how well this would resonate with folks from overseas. As far as England goes, I think one of the best things I’ve ever read on this subject (housing subdivisions and planned communities replacing natural habitat) was a novel by George Orwell, Coming Up For Air.