I think you have made all the right decisions for all the logical reasons. However when things start to get tight after Peak Oil is recognized more publicly, people start to see their entitlements differently. They also question who is entitled to the reducing resources.

When these stresses occur in society, people look around to see whose face fits. I fear that of the 50 million in England, those that do not look Anglo Saxon will have a very hard time.

It’s sad, but even more so, dangerous to underestimate this.

Listening to stories about ethnic cleansing, it was always committed by people who months earlier happily ‘chatted over the fence’ as neighbors.

Thanks for taking the time to offer your comments. Sad to say, but your conclusion may be correct: a place like yours will likely fare better than the places I described here, if for no other reason that too many of us are spoiled by our excesses and are woefully ill-prepared for the changes Peak Oil is going to impose on everyone

I don’t know about the “What are we all going to do?” bit at the end though.

I left the UK for fear that (for different reasons from America) most of it will be unsustainable once Peak Oil really starts to bite. The population of just England is top side of fifty million.

Here Hungary has an area just a bit smaller than England with a population of less than ten million and a big slice of that population are centred round the Budapest area.

Out here in the countryside is very different. Population of this village is about three hundred. I have neighbours with whom I chat over the fence. The plot sizes are big-ish anyway. Mine is just slightly less than an acre. Some are bigger, some smaller. Many people have more land within easy reach just outside the village.

We have a shop, a pub, a medical centre twice a week and a small library. The next village one way is only about 80 people but still supports a shop and pub. The next village the other way is about seven kilometers away and has pretty well everything. Bakery, eating out houses, petrol station, garden shop and so and so. It is certainly within horse and cart delivery distance of my village.

So, what I am getting at is that I think that a place like this has a far far better chance of sustainability than many other models such as the remoteness you describe in Massachusetts to the serious overcrowdedness of much of the UK. One of the main reasons I came here.