What is an Urban Pioneer?

The Urban Pioneer is a type of person who refuses to believe that living a life “in-town” means a life full of only concrete and asphalt, brick and mortar.  We can enjoy a life of natural beauty, of self-reliance, of strong friendships, and conscious care for the earth—and we don’t have to move out to a 40 acre-farm in the country to do it.  We look back to the principles of life taught by our pioneer ancestors to realize that in many cases the “old way” of doing things is far superior to modern ways.

Many people living the do-it-yourself self-reliant lifestyle believe that the ultimate goal is to have their own farm out in the country.  But is that really the ideal situation?  The United States, and other world countries, have increasingly more urbanized populations.  More and more people are living in the cities, yet still believing that their dream is to live in the countryside.  What if it didn’t have to be that way.  What if city living could allow for self-reliant and natural lifestyles like country-living with other added benefits as well?  Benefits to the earth and benefits to the community of the human family.

This is blog is a story of exploration.  The story about looking for the answer to those questions.  Please join me on my journey towards self-reliance while living in the city.

Please excuse the dust on the blog as I get started.  I’ve uploaded a series of posts from my personal blog to start the feel of what this blog is about.  If you like what you see please leave me a message, because “building community” is one of the main purposes of this blog.

City or Country?

The first time Jeremy got some baby chicks (by inheriting them from a highschooler’s science project) when he and I were engaged I thought he was nuts–but I’ve grown to appreciate them and desire even more to adopt some of those older practices related to simple living and self-reliance.

I love checking in on SouleMama with their move out to the farm last year.  Renovating an old farmhouse, tapping Maple trees, raising chickens and pigs and bees.  There’s so much that seems good and desirable about a life like that.

But lately I’ve started to feel a lot of pressure about that lifestyle as a goal, realizing that we have inconsistencies in our family dreams.  Mostly realizing that a dream of living out on a farm and spending most of our time and energy working on providing for our immediate physical needs is not the life that we’ve been preparing for the last seven years of our marriage.  We’ve been in school for 7 years, preparing for a profession most-likely located in the urban setting.

And the truth is–there’s so much we love about that idea: pocket parks, public transportation, community events, outdoor concerts, farmers’ markets, museums, zoos and aquariums, well-designed urban spaces and parks and having a local airport.

But the goal of city living doesn’t mean I have to give up on all my other goals either.  Chickens are legal in many cities and the numbers are growing.  The small amount of gardening we do is possible in a city particularly if we aren’t afraid to dig in to our front yard to do it.  There are also other opportunities in the city, like community gardens, and supporting local agriculture through a CSA membership or farmers’ markets.  And I’m not afraid of urban foraging!

There’s a reason we chose to get started with beekeeping this year, as opposed to getting a goat, or cow or something like that.  Beekeeping is going on in large cities.  When talking the idea of bees over with Jeremy I said how beekeeping seemed like the next logical step for us since we could continue it wherever we go.  It’s a skill that we can continue to use no matter where we move next–city or country.   And that was the first time I started to think about my conflicting dreams and which one was really my dream–not someone else’s.

There’s a continuously growing group of city dwellers that are interested in being self-reliant, and participating in small-scale production practices within their small lots and neighborhoods.  Jeremy and I have followed a lot of this development–and really, we’ve become a part of it all.  The Real Food movement is such a big part of our lives too, along with recycling, reusing, and all manner of “going green”.  The sense of community is high and a big motivating factor in a lot of these urban groups, and that to us seems like the biggest difference between city and country–and something we desire.

It’s true, I would love to see my boys running wild and barefoot through the forest.  But maybe my boys will just have to rely on their grandparents for that wild natural play–that’s what grandparent’s houses and cabins are for right?  And at home my boys will participate in wild urban (or at least suburban) play.  Chickens, bees and vegetable gardens included. And the thoughts of that idea make me truly happy.