Northern Italy shows the likely future: an empty countryside with oversized, if decaying, infrastructure that places enormous strains on what's going on in cities
Instead of providing a map where you can search for specific communes or towns or areas, this is what our official statistics authority can put together. They can't even make it fully zoom-able.
Anyway. I'm in one of the white areas, each square being 5x5 km. So where I live, there's "no population". Norway is much the same I guess. What's funny to me is that 200 people per sqkm is considered dense here; Malta is some 1 500+/sqkm. Tokyo I daren't even guess - I can feel the cortisol levels increasing just thinking about it.
In the interior, there lots and lots of towns that look like there's already been a war. Lesjöfors in Värmland is a prime example: boarded up windows on abandoned dilapidated and decrepit buildings right in the center of town, burned out husks of industrial buildings, and everything giving off the same feeling as did DDR right before the end: grey, old, worn out and worn down, and covered in dust, the landscape radiating hopelessness. Different from DDR, everything doesn't smell of boiled cabbage, and there are plenty of migrants engaged in the drug trade.
Let the cities collapse, I say. Slowly and controlled, and but let them collapse.
Here in Sweden for ten years now, there's a real migration of Swedes going on: to the countryside, if 40+ and abroad if younger. What isn't said out loud, but is obvious: they move away from Negros, Arabs, Afghans and so on.
*slowly sticks head above parapet and raises hand… Yes Rikard your last couple of sentences is exactly why I’ll be moving as far into the countryside as possible. I’ll be looking around at various locations across Europe so if anyone has any leads I’d be grateful. As long as I can live amongst other indigenous Europeans I don’t really care where it is… I’ll learn the language, keep my head down and adapt. My only worry is that the diversity will reach even the most far flung places… as has happened in my home country Ireland. Even the most isolated towns and villages are starting to look like a combo of Mogadishu/Mumbai and the island is too small to escape it. All of this in the space of 20/25 years… it’s heartbreaking.
Here in my neck of the woods—which my esteemed professorial colleagues consider ‘the dark side of the moon’ (although we lack space Nazis)—we have 25-30% non-Norwegians, myself included, although I’m blending in with the locals a bit differently than, say, our neighbours from Burundi…
Central Italy was almost totally depopulated in the late Roman Empire. The rich owned vast estates there, but the only people living year round were shepherds and others in their employ. Then they opened the border to the Goths. Between Goths and Huns, the empire came to an end and people moved back to the countryside to survive as there were no more "bread and circuses" in the cities. Civil instability and continual war led to the severing of supply lines. Modern Europe shows the same trends. Rural areas being depopulated, and a scorched earth war on remaining farmers being launched in the Netherlands and now by Starmer in the UK. (Where do these folks think the food for the cities comes from - grows on supermarket shelves?). Breakdown of supply lines bringing vital goods (Think Yemen). Opening borders to those of totally different religious and cultural values. Debasing of currencies. Continual warfare and obsession with past grievances totally irrelevant to today.
Here's the official map for pop-dens for Sweden. As is usual with our official webpages, quality and usability is on a 1995-level of competence:
https://www.scb.se/contentassets/3bbd9712c3c54b68b271562998c2f6b6/befolkningstathet_5km_rutor2.png
Instead of providing a map where you can search for specific communes or towns or areas, this is what our official statistics authority can put together. They can't even make it fully zoom-able.
Anyway. I'm in one of the white areas, each square being 5x5 km. So where I live, there's "no population". Norway is much the same I guess. What's funny to me is that 200 people per sqkm is considered dense here; Malta is some 1 500+/sqkm. Tokyo I daren't even guess - I can feel the cortisol levels increasing just thinking about it.
In the interior, there lots and lots of towns that look like there's already been a war. Lesjöfors in Värmland is a prime example: boarded up windows on abandoned dilapidated and decrepit buildings right in the center of town, burned out husks of industrial buildings, and everything giving off the same feeling as did DDR right before the end: grey, old, worn out and worn down, and covered in dust, the landscape radiating hopelessness. Different from DDR, everything doesn't smell of boiled cabbage, and there are plenty of migrants engaged in the drug trade.
Let the cities collapse, I say. Slowly and controlled, and but let them collapse.
Here in Sweden for ten years now, there's a real migration of Swedes going on: to the countryside, if 40+ and abroad if younger. What isn't said out loud, but is obvious: they move away from Negros, Arabs, Afghans and so on.
Why not just admit it instead?
Because that kind of admission will make their racket collapse in a heartbeat?
*slowly sticks head above parapet and raises hand… Yes Rikard your last couple of sentences is exactly why I’ll be moving as far into the countryside as possible. I’ll be looking around at various locations across Europe so if anyone has any leads I’d be grateful. As long as I can live amongst other indigenous Europeans I don’t really care where it is… I’ll learn the language, keep my head down and adapt. My only worry is that the diversity will reach even the most far flung places… as has happened in my home country Ireland. Even the most isolated towns and villages are starting to look like a combo of Mogadishu/Mumbai and the island is too small to escape it. All of this in the space of 20/25 years… it’s heartbreaking.
Here in my neck of the woods—which my esteemed professorial colleagues consider ‘the dark side of the moon’ (although we lack space Nazis)—we have 25-30% non-Norwegians, myself included, although I’m blending in with the locals a bit differently than, say, our neighbours from Burundi…
Complete uprooting- a Pentagon Brief given by Thomas P. Barnett on how the world will be split into two groups by mass migration. francesleader.substack.com/p/complete-uprooting
Very interesting, thanks for the link!
Central Italy was almost totally depopulated in the late Roman Empire. The rich owned vast estates there, but the only people living year round were shepherds and others in their employ. Then they opened the border to the Goths. Between Goths and Huns, the empire came to an end and people moved back to the countryside to survive as there were no more "bread and circuses" in the cities. Civil instability and continual war led to the severing of supply lines. Modern Europe shows the same trends. Rural areas being depopulated, and a scorched earth war on remaining farmers being launched in the Netherlands and now by Starmer in the UK. (Where do these folks think the food for the cities comes from - grows on supermarket shelves?). Breakdown of supply lines bringing vital goods (Think Yemen). Opening borders to those of totally different religious and cultural values. Debasing of currencies. Continual warfare and obsession with past grievances totally irrelevant to today.