Urban Homesteading: Integrating Self-Sufficiency into City Living
This person is making the best of their situation. It has to be a pleasure to drink coffee on that balcony.
After reading our post “The Making of a Modern Homestead,” Claire asked – “What are your thoughts/tips on urban homesteading? How can I incorporate these principles into my city lifestyle without a backyard?”
To answer this question, we need to know what our goals are with a homestead. For us, they are the following:
Live amongst nature: We want to be able to step outside our home and immediately be immersed in nature. We want to go hiking, camping, hunting, exploring, and stargazing without ever having to get in our car.
Produce our own food: With what we perceive to be a war on meat and the complete corporatization of our food system. We want to ensure our family always has access to quality animal protein and organic produce.
Insulation from noise pollution: Humans were not meant to be inundated 24/7 with noise from cars, planes, sirens, and industry. All that noise is stress on our minds. We want to be able to step outside and hear the birds, insects, and wind through the trees.
Increase preparedness: Living outside of population centers, producing your own food, and having resources on your land will make you more resilient in the event of a pandemic, civil unrest, terrorist attack, or any other Black Swan Event.
Maximize freedom: No one should be able to tell you that you can’t have a few chickens or grow food in your own yard. Also, we want to be able to shoot in our backyard and stand outside fully naked if it strikes us.
Now, don’t get discouraged thinking that you can never achieve all those things. I’m 38 years old and just recently started creating a homestead and it’s still not done. No matter where we are in life, we can always improve our position. To do this I subscribe to the mentality of good, better, best. And don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
While “best” might be the secluded homestead you’ve always dreamt of, “better” may be that one acre yard in the suburbs, and “good” might be an apartment with a balcony or a condo with a 100sqft yard.
It’s amazing how much food you can grow in a tiny space. You won’t feed your family from what you produce in your apartment, but you can still learn a lot about growing, harvesting, and seed saving. Plus, it helps bring in more of a natural feel to your apartment.
Obviously having a small yard will make incorporating homestead principles a lot easier because you can just scale everything down.
• Berry bushes instead of fruit trees.
• Rabbits or Chickens instead of cows or sheep.
• Raised Garden beds instead of food forests.
Even achieving something like backyard chickens may be challenging based on local zoning regulations or if you have a Homeowner's Association. If this is the case, we recommend you fight and don’t stop fighting until the rules are changed to allow small-scale food production or you move.
If We Must Live in an Apartment
Now, let’s consider how we would set up our home if we lived in an apartment with only a small balcony. We’ll assume we are going to be there for a while, so we’d be willing to make the investment. Let's see how we can adapt to the goals for our large homestead and achieve something similar while living in an apartment.
Live Amongst Nature
Find an apartment next to a park or within walking distance of a park.
Put some native potted plants on your balcony to attract birds and pollinators.
Bring plants into your apartment to give yourself the feel of being in nature.
Change out your lightbulbs to HUE bulbs or something similar to adjust the lighting inside to more closely resemble sunrise and sunset.
Acquire furniture that’s made of natural materials like wood, leather, and stone.
Produce Own Food
Grow herbs inside and get some dwarf fruit trees or berry bushes for your patio.
Depending on space, shelves with grow lights can be put inside to grow almost anything.
Create your own fermented foods from grocery purchases, like sauerkraut, pickles and kimchee.
Employ “Gorilla Gardening,” which is when you plant food in public areas where no one will notice. Maybe dispersed through the park near your apartment.
Insulation From Noise Pollution
Invest in double or triple-pane windows.
Put up thick blackout curtains. (Helps with artificial light pollution as well)
Choose a building outside of flight paths and choose an apartment away from the street if possible.
Increase Preparedness (My favorite topic)
You should have the largest fridge and freezer you can fit, along with a chest freezer in any room it will fit. Keep both freezers full of meat year-round.
Have a backup battery bank like the Goal Zero Yeti 6000X to run the freezers in the event of a power outage. Bonus if you have a balcony that gets some sun, and you can hang the solar panels to recharge it.
Have a way to collect rainwater from your balcony or collect it from other sources in the event of all hell breaking loose.
Fortify your front door with anti-ram additions and three-inch screws for all the hardware and hinges.
Know who your neighbors are and determine if they will be an asset or a liability.
See our guide, Prepping 101, for additional ways to start preparing.
Maximize Freedom
In whichever city your apartment is in, participate in all local elections and vote for candidates based on their track record, not their party affiliation.
If you’re able to, live in counties with less restrictions on individual liberties.
Find like minded individuals and groups in your community and work together to ensure liberty and freedom in your community.
Having a full freezer is a great feeling. 100lbs of ground beef from White Oak Pastures.
Conclusion
This post is not all-inclusive, and there are myriad ways to adapt your home, condo, or apartment to increase your health, resilience, and independence outside of living on a secluded homestead. Continue to improve your position, no matter your location or stage of life.
At a minimum, you can set up your home in a way that prioritizes movement and health over a contrived notion of what a home is “supposed” to look like. Check out our posts on “Setting up a Movement Friendly Home” and “5 Common Household Toxins and Natural Alternatives for a Healthier Home.”
Related Posts
Rethinking Home Yards: A Sustainable Shift Towards Biodiversity and Resilience
Embracing Resilience: Lessons from WWII for Modern American Self-Sufficiency
A Call to Action for America’s Current Predicament
TRUE FREEDOM: The Ability to Maintain Your Convictions Against Popular Opinion
