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Letter Re: Oregon's Willamette Valley as a Retreat Locale?

Mr Rawles,
First off, I just wanted to thank you for having such a fantastic blog site, so much information and advice from one site is truly a time and hopefully life saver, thank you. Both me and my girlfriend have been rudely awakened by Peak Oil after watching [the documentary] "The End of Suburbia" on PBS last year, and after gathering as much information as possible from sites ( Peakoil.com, LATOC.com, TheOilDrum.com, et cetera) with what little spare time we have had, we have come to the conclusion that this will be the opening salvo for TSHTF. Add in global climate change, a collapsing economy and we come to the possibility of the beginning of TEOTWAWKI. We hope not yet.
Our question to you is about Oregon, specifically the Eugene area. We think this area might do well, but would consider all advice from someone such as yourself. Again thank you for your time.
Keep safe, - Todd and Kaye

JWR Replies: I do not recommend living anywhere within 125 miles of Portland. I do recommend some portions of eastern Oregon, and southwestern and south-central Oregon (detailed in my recently-released nonfiction book Rawles on Retreats and Relocation), because of their relatively lower population density--much lower than Portland and the Willamette Valley that stretches to the south. Although it is a agricultural region with a mild climate, the Portland-Eugene corridor has far too much population to leave me with a confident "comfort level." The region might fare just fine in a 1930s-style depression, but in the event of something more severe--like a grid-down socioeconomic collapse, in my estimation there are about three or four times too many people than can be supported peaceably. (OBTW, if you'd like a glimpse of what the Willamette Valley might be like in a worst case economic collapse, read S.M. Stirling's science fiction novel "Dies The Fire".) Since you are concerned about a post-Peak Oil collapse, you might look particularly at the Grande Ronde Valley. Its population density is much more in line with sustainable self-sufficiency. And it gets a lot more sunshine than western Oregon, so it is more advantageous for photovoltaic (PV) alternative power systems. Just be sure to get a parcel that has plentiful water. And unless you have your heart set on Oregon, my personal recommendation for a much better Peak Oil retreat locale is the Palouse Hills region of north-central Idaho. It is a very good agricultural region with reliable rains, but it is far removed from the population centers of Portland and Seattle, as well as California's enormous Golden Horde. (Again, for details on the Palouse, see Rawles on Retreats and Relocation.)

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