Thanks for the welcome Jules. As for the teotwawki thing I thought maybe it was dating me as getting old. It's been around a long time, as have I. The philosophy of survival has run the gamut with me over the decades. I'm sure many aren't ready for my current views. We all have to come to terms with the cosmos in our own time and in our own way. I suppose it all comes down to what we believe happens when we die. Anyway, welcome back to you. I wish you well.
Ed

I think every one forgot something about the dogs. Alot of dogs people own were bred for hunting. I have a Lab/Shepherd mix who can find just about anything in the woods. They would be very useful in this situation for sniffing out food and such.

Originally posted by SemperParatus
all cities have parks, cemeteries and vacant lots so wild plant knowledge would still be invaluable.

Here in the UK we have allotments...where even in most cities there are plots of land (200 sq. yds on average) that you can rent for a pittance as a 'tenant farmer' well worth the investment and enough space to grow most of the veg that you could need to consume

I just put my name down for a plot with an annual rent of £12!!!

Citizen Smith we should do more stuff like that here.
What are you going to grow in it?? Are you going to save/can/preserve/dehydrate any of it?
Jules

Citizen Smith, If I was doing that with survival in mind I'd plant it in wild plants that others wouldn't recognize as food. You can fry dandelion leaves and they taste similar to pork chops. They also make a good salad ingredient. Any wild plant food would most likely be perrennial so you wouldn't have to keep replanting and there would be virtually no work involved in keeping it going. I'd be very discreet about harvesting though. That's not a scenario where you want to educate everyone around you. If you can get a lot with a damp ditch, put in some cattails. All parts are edible. The cattail is one of the most useful plants in the wild. Maybe an herb garden would be good as well. After people eat bland unseasoned food for awhile they'll trade almost anything for herbs and spices. Good luck.

I think ultimately I will want a place to live out of the city. Hopefully nothing will happen before I can accomplish that. I just don't want to rely on whether or not travel is permitted in any type of national emergency. Frankly most people living in cities and suburbs will be stuck there except the few who get out fast enough. Either the roads will be clogged or the government will be turning people back. There isn't going to be a National Guardsman with a Crossing Guard sash on helpfully waving traffic through.
Jules

Originally posted by SemperParatus
If I was doing that with survival in mind I'd plant it in wild plants that others wouldn't recognize as food.

I don't think there are many people who would recognise a particular plant as the veg they buy in the supermarket..eg: root crops such as potatoes and beetroot just look like a clump of stalks and leaves above ground. Any kind of obviously cultivated ground will be a big clue that whatever is being grown may be edible and prone to raiding though.

I've got access to seed varieties of wild strains of potato, turnip, beetroot, bean varieties, and other root crops which are high in starches and carbs that will propagate well with no artificial fertilizers and give a decent yield.

Blackberry brambles grow viruently in the wild without any tending and can be a good fruit-crop, and also double as a good defensive-plant against human intruders on your plot, as when it grows to a decent density it becomes a form of biological barbed-wire.

A good strategy would be to use river/canal-banks/woodland off the beaten track and other areas that are abandoned by the general public as cultivation spots, which also gives you the chance to get back into the beats and rhythms of mother nature in the wider sense

Originally posted by julesmac8
Are you going to save/can/preserve/dehydrate any of it?

I'm going to eat everthing I grow, with the aim of getting into the swing of what nature provides at different times of the year and try and work in an overlap of crop-seasons so there's always something for dinner. I want to try and get accustomed to the idea of living off the land in whatever small way so any shock of transition to total dependancy (should the worst X ever happen) won't be too much of a shock to the body.

Let's hope there's a few rabbit warrens nearby for a bonus for the pot!

Citizen Smith your lists and suggestions are helping a lot.
I have a question regarding growing things (anywhere outside), and my question is: How would you know if any of it had been contaminated?
Also, what if it does in fact become contaminated? What then?
*By contaminated I mean radioactive contamination. I don't know how it works or anything about it for that matter.
Jules

I would think that because most cities will probably be "gang ruled" the art of scavenging would be much more useful than the art of bartering. If gangs rule and there is no superior force to keep them in check I'm guessing they'll just take anything you have to barter. Shelter shouldn't be a problem.

For those who are stuck in the city, don't over look the subtle art of camoflage. A three story walk up with the ground floor pounded all to heck, broken windows and trashed interior drywall, mangled furniture and trashed cars on the sidewalk will discourage looters and villians of all types from investigating. It obviously has been looted already. That leaves a single point of entry, the stairwell, to defend.
The same thing can be done with a block of flats over shops. If the shops are ravaged, there is little point for the looter to try to search through them.
Although it may sound like a bad plan, staging a car wreck in front of your hidy hole can be beneficial. It blocks access to the street, meaning that people will avoid the area for streets with easier travel, It allows you some cover when arriving and leaving, and it can be booby trapped. This would be of assistance if you were under attack from some gang, etc. When you fire back, they will take cover and the wreck is a natural place to go. Then you can set off the booby trap, disposing of the villians as well as making the wreck look more 'natural'.
While defenses are a definitely good idea, you should try to make them look as if they belong there. A coil of razor wire across the top of a wall screams 'I'm here', while alot of broken glass bottles in large chunks at the base of the wall and across the sidewalk just says that someone was here throwing bottles. If you live in sight of a supermarket, roll all the carts down and place them in a twisted jumble to block a street or path. This just screams vandalism, not defense.
Gruesome as it seems, even leaving the bodies of the dead strategically placed can be to your advantage. People don't like to spend time with corpses. They can be almost as good as guards for areas that you wish to deny access to.
Dirt and grime are your friends. If you wet down the windows and throw dust on them, you block the view from outside fairly effectively. And people don't look twice at a dirty window. Don't use your front door for anything, and let the pall of neglect collect up front. Always use a back door and try to conceal it as much as possible. If you can arrange it so that you emerge from a totally separate building onto the street that is even better.
If you're looking for ideas for this type of thing, try reading accounts of the French Underground and the Russian forces fighting at Stalingrad during WW2. They were both masters of camoflage and hiding out during an active campaign to find them. It's amazing what you can do with a pile of rubble.

What a genuinely cracking thread with some extremely interesting and useful replies..

I was very interested in reading peoples suggestions about dealing with an Alpha dog that wanted to give you the good news and I'd like to add one of my own, if I may. I was taught that if a dog, regardless of breed and and size was about to attack, this is what you should do (this solution works better if you're armed in some way; a Bowie knife would be ideal however a pen or even the raised knuckle of your middle finger in a fist would suffice. N.B You need to be mentally prepared to kill the wee beastie in this situation, not just shoo it away with it's tail between it's legs, but kill it). As the dog charges/runs at you, get down into a sprinters crouch, for example right knee on the deck with your left knee up. Hold out your left forearm to the charging dog and in you right, hold whatever weapon you have (basically anything pointed, about six inches long). As the dog jumps and/or lunges at your proffered forearm, rock backwards pulling your forearm away and at the same time bring your right hand up in a stabbing motion. If all goes well, you'll catch the rogue animal in the chest/gut with your weapon, bringing him down.

As I wrote earlier, this was a technique taught to me however I have been fortunate not to have ever used it!

An idea on growing food...

Since a greenhouse or poly-tunnel is going to be a blatantly obvious attraction, I've wondered if a dug-out greenhouse would be as productive whilst minimising the advertisment that there's food crops being grown and therefore a hideout nearby with other possible goodies to be had...

The idea would be to dig a pit 2 metres deep, by 2 metres wide and 4-5 meters metres long and covered with a clear plastic roof at ground-level...whilst this may not be as effective as a traditional greenhouse, it would enable the surrounding earth to act as a heatsink, and slowly releasing the warmth overnight, maintaining a stable, less-fluctuating temperature range, It would also enable the set-up to be rapidly disguised with brush and branches by piling them on top of the roof-cover as opposed to a free-standing structure.

It may even have the added benefit of attracting and trapping herbivores such as deer, rabbits, even rats who fall into the pit and are unable to climb out...extra grub for the pot or to be bartered

I think if I had to be in a city I wouldnt want to be in Raleigh its a bit to criminal already. But even around here the smaller towns are full of druggies and people who will kill you for your last $1. So whatever I need had already better be here, or be easy enough for me to grow. This year I am going to start doing my own home canning. That way I will know it will last a few years on my shelves. But if I had to survive in a city I would go for an older almost run down type of home, so others wouldnt bother me.

Hilda