Can You Live 100% Autonomously in a City or Suburb?
Modern city life is amazing: we can order a burrito on a bike to our door and (usually) have reliable internet. But cities are built on a thin network of interconnected services and infrastructure, and perhaps you don’t want to depend on its whims. If you are the type of person who is interested in living offline—for economic reasons, privacy and security, or because you suspect civilization is about to collapse—offline will be much easier in the countryside.
This does not mean that it is impossible in the city – it is just more difficult. If you want to go off the grid but also want to have a choice of 174 restaurants within walking distance, it can be done with a little research and some workarounds. If you need to go beyond the garden of the apocalypse or pantry of the end of the world and go completely offline, here are some things to consider.
Unplugging your home from the grid is (mostly) legal, but…
In order to make a house autonomous, it is necessary that you supply it with the basic things: water, sewerage, electricity, heat and food. The good news is that unplugging your home isn’t technically illegal anywhere in the US…but “not technically illegal” doesn’t mean it’s just allowed. There may well be legal barriers to doing so.
Many homeless residents have looked at their water bills and decided it’s better to use water that falls from the sky for free, but some states make it very difficult to install rainwater harvesting systems in your home or have strict limits on the amount of rainwater. can be collected and how it can be used (for example, in Colorado, only 110 gallons are allowed to be collected at certain facilities that can only be used outdoors). As far as waste management is concerned, installing a septic system in a crowded urban area would be next to impossible, and many states have extremely strict regulations regarding the installation of dry closets (not to mention extremely strict regulations regarding what you can do with all that waste, once you remove them). I collected it).
In addition, local governments may have laws that remove or increase state restrictions, and homeowner associations (HOAs) may have rules that prevent you from making necessary changes to your home. These rules can also be quite comprehensive – some HOAs do not allow clotheslines for drying clothes, for example, and may even ban solar panels for aesthetic reasons. Condominium councils may also resist some of your offline decisions. Bottom line: Before doing anything, check out the local laws and regulations that may apply to you.
Finally, while installing solar panels on your property is more or less legal in every state (and many states encourage it), not all states or local governments will allow you to actually disconnect from the grid. If you feel like it’s important to literally be offline, you need to do some digging before assuming anything; and in multi-family structures such as condominiums, it may even be physically impossible to accomplish. Of course, the downside to staying connected is that, in many cases, you can sell excess electricity back to the grid, and if your solar plant fails during the Super Bowl break, you’ll still have electricity.
Consider the type of your property
Something else to consider in relation to your dream of living off the grid in the city is the choice of real estate. Unplugging an apartment may not be possible because you have as much infrastructure as your neighbors, and most likely you won’t get permission for something drastic – for example, your apartment may resist rainwater harvesting schemes or composting toilets even if your state and local area allows them. Some states also have minimum square footage requirements when a property goes offline, so a shoebox apartment near all of these restaurants and museums may not qualify.
Of course, if you’re going to be growing food in the city, you’ll also need enough space to do so. It’s not impossible to find city houses with yards or large open areas where you can grow your apocalypse garden (and even raise chickens!), but these houses will obviously be more expensive. And your title deed or local regulations may limit your ability to have “animals” of any kind on your property (and your neighbors may or may not be thrilled by those chickens).
bottom line
Living off the grid has many benefits, both short-term (less—or zero!—electricity bills) and long-term (when the zombies come, you’ll pick zucchini while the world burns). The closer you are to the city center, the more difficult it can be, but it can be done if you do your due diligence first.