As to the question of regional differences within the US in response to societal collapse, I think that the differences are more apparent at a local level.

I have visited several rural areas and small towns in the US where the local residents could not care less if the “older, more diverse cities” disappeared completely tomorrow, since they are already 99% self-reliant. So what if their cable service would go away and they couldn’t get out-of-season vegetables and seafood from the coasts?

Americans who live in the overpopulated areas of the east and west coast regions are pampered, arrogant, and highly dependent on large-scale public services, so naturally they assume that everyone else is the same. Being close to centers of power, they would still be provided for in some fashion by the atrophied subsystems; however, the people who don’t rely on them in the first place will be able to form safer and more sustainable communities going forward.

If you want to be literal about the word industrial, then China has been the linchpin of that system for a while now.

The War Nerd had a great post about societal collapse some time ago:

http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-apocalypse-never/

He ridiculed the survivalist ideal of a single man or a family with lots of guns and canned food making it very far in the absolute worst case scenario. He said that highly motivated groups in which everyone trusts each other like the Mormons or small religious cults will be more likely to survive.

If you haven’t seen the movie The Road, you should. It treats the theme of complete societal collapse in what I thought was a surprisingly realistic way for a Hollywood movie.

I must agree that smaller communities are better suited to withstand an event of collapse. For example in the place I come from the people generally know each other, not that their relationships are always good but a change in fortunes might bring them closer together.

On the other hand in London I don’t know any of my most immediate neighbours at all.

I agree with you that in an Argentina-like collapse, the best off places will be the North-East, the North-West, and perhaps the Bay Area (though I’m skeptical about California in general). The South-West will get screwed in a big way, though.

I think the important focus is finding like-minded community members to share the psychological adjustments.

As you know from FaceBook, I am slowly working on that – I hope to build a Collapse Party.

About the Party:

Anatoly Karlin founded the Collapse Party in December 2009 after coming to the realization that industrial civilization (the “System”) is unsustainable and that there is very little chance of averting its Collapse during the 21st century.

The immediate inspiration was Dmitry Orlov’s essay The Collapse Party platform, which argued for setting up a mechanism to clean up the mess left behind industrialism and prepare society for collapse. Although Orlov is personally pessimistic about the chances of political organizations achieving any of this, we are willing to take him up on the bet.

As such, the Collapse Party is dedicated to the following three principles:

* Reinforce resilience in the face of collapse.
* Inform the people that business-as-usual will lead to collapse.
* Prepare for collapse by focusing on “sustainable retreat” and targeted technological development mitigate the severity of any ultimate collapse.

If you sympathize with these ideas, please read our Manifesto and join the Collapse Party!

One thing you should focus on in a future segment: the difference between regions. Right now, as much as different parts of the US try to claim they are nothing like one another (Southwest vs Northeast vs South, etc), it is an incredibly uniform country, in terms of life expectations, legal processes, corruption indexes, public services availability.

How will this change? Which cities/states/regions will see the most dramatic dissolution of public services and law and order? Which will see relatively little change, even in the case of significant resource or climatic upheaval?

My personal feeling is that the west coast and northeast will see the least effect from a collapse of social complexity, even though in terms of development they are the most complex parts of the US. This of course has to do with my theory that older, more diverse cities are better prepared from a social services standpoint. They are less reliant on auto transit, they already have lots of corruption so people are already prepared to deal with it on some level, they have a ‘shop local’ mentality and are more resourceful in terms of sourcing basic needs, and most of all, they are where the current wealth and power reside and thus would be best able to suck resources in from the periphery if a major collapse occurred.

And, ultimately, they’re more fun to live in now, so just in case there is no collapse I can enjoy something I already do