Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Housing Crisis

I didn't expect to write this post today. I knew in yesterday's that I'd be discussing the first group of this massive wave of new arrivals coming in. For several reasons, we were pretty sure there would be an attack. The expectation was mostly negative; a protracted and costly battle. We've seen the willingness of our enemies to endure losses to accomplish a goal. Conditions worked out nearly perfect for us, which left me without the two days of posts I was planning on.

Since things worked out well for us, I'm free to spend today talking about pretty much anything instead of lamenting the deaths of settlers in defense of others. Which is a pretty awesome option to have, I must admit.

With that in mind, I'll point out that yesterday I mentioned an ingenious solution to some of our housing problems. It's something my brother has been working on for a while, and this particular idea has long been one that we've tried to get going. The problem has been one of manpower and resources, not the solution itself.

I'm talking about trailers. Well, those of you outside the south might call them mobile homes or something, but 'round these parts they're trailers. Prefab houses, mostly uniform in height. Flimsy compared to houses like mine, for example, but with the right modifications and support they're capable of withstanding a lot.

David had the idea to solve several problems at once by hauling trailers in and building a wall out of them. Obviously not just the trailers, as he would have to cover the outside-facing windows and gaps with solid material and extend their height to prevent zombies from easily getting on top of them, but those are minor things when faced with how much land we could capture by using preexisting structures as homes as well as a defensive perimeter.

And with some of the supplies funneled to us by our new arrivals--which includes fuel and a few pieces of equipment that makes hauling trailers much easier--this is now a workable scenario. For the moment we've got a small section of them set up as a test, a square three trailers on a side. It's both a good way to see the weaknesses in the idea as well as a nice means for Dave's crew to get some practice with the needed modifications. People are already living in them, and if it works out the piece of land they sit on will be surrounded by a much bigger wall made almost entirely out of what used to be several large trailer parks' worth of mobile homes.

I'm stupidly excited about this. I know it may not seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but there's a lot of work that goes in to detaching a trailer and hauling it around without ruining the damn thing. We've wanted to do this for a while and now that we've got the resources to attempt it I'm thrilled at the possibilities. Expansion has always been our goal. We managed a lot with the shipping containers, but this is elegant. We capture land to farm on, provide a wall to defend it with, and house our new folks all in one go.

Looking back at the last two and a half+ years, it's clear to me now that this moment, this insane and breakneck growth, was always going to be the end result. Either that or death. Human civilization has always centered on controlling land, and for us long-term survival and societal evolution will hinge on stable food supplies, safe land to build on, and the safety and numbers that will allow diversity. Diversity means different ideas, which hopefully will bring advances in technology, which will make our little corner of the world a better place.

Yeah. I'm on a tangent and one pretty far out there, but that's how I work. When I'm down and depressed I think about a few billion years from now and wonder at the pointlessness of everything we do because eventually the sun will go red giant and swallow the Earth. When I begin to crawl out of that mental hole, I find myself inspired by the stupidest, most mundane things. I can see a better world ahead than the one we lost in The Fall.

All because of trailers. Wrap your head around that.

1 comment:

  1. What about the "apartments" Dave was talking about building awhile ago?

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