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"I hope you’re right."

He's right. During the '70s, I moved closer to a job and into an urban neighborhood that nearly no Freepers would drive through (for several years, over 300 unsolved murders each year in that one municipality and over 700 in the metro there). Lived in another one during the '90s for over a year (not really bad at all, that neighborhood).

Mention of staying anywhere in rural areas scared most of the urban folks. As for suburbanites, I see them each visiting some of the vacant lots here, in the middle of nowhere, once in a while. Mostly people who get their incomes from government or contractors (bureaucrats, Java developers, office admin., public teachers, pensioners from the same, etc.).

They look around, baffled by their perceived lack of possibilities (no building experience or other useful technical experience in those folks, property taxes here going up fast, regulations like NY), and drive back to the cities. They see the land, some of the animals (mostly rodents), the wind--nothingness, from their point of view.

Others...most all others are out of work and wouldn't be able to afford to go anywhere (unemployed true private sector workers and other poor--high fuel costs, other travelling costs, lack of fuel with no electricity anyway, weather and other dangers of travelling far on foot and so on).

And besides, contemporary "marauders" wouldn't get enough to sustain themselves for any noticeable distances. Long intervals between successful robberies with neighbors watching them, police catching them (always rural police, even after power outages in distant cities). Exhaustion, common obesity, intolerances for absences of comforts, disease, starvation, stress fractures, weakness, etc. No TV, no drugs, no physical fitness, lack of realistic knowledge of rural areas, lack of durable, useful hardware (silly axes, plastic water purification gizmos, the sunlight and other natural effects waiting to age such things very quickly,...), no technical abilities,...

If the economy continues to slow down with debts piling up, for the most part, most people would just get poorer--especially remaining middle class folks. There's no way out for Walter Mitty except for his dreams. Others, more realistic, would more likely do well with ingenuity where they already live (technical/agricultural experience, continuing technical study and technical tinkering). There are always ways. More civilized people woud generally do best. Troublemakers, as always, would be hunted like bad dogs and rounded up.