MUST READ if concerned about self-sufficiency issues. This is a great book for evaluating places to live in the U.S. Lots of thoughtful analysis, lots of maps and tables. To fully enjoy and benefit from his book you will need to be sympathetic to his distrust of the "common rosy view of life and people that others possess." There's lots of meat to this book... yet it is very readable. I like it more every time I read it. Lots of original research. This is NOT the kind of guy who would have allowed our Marines in Lebanon get blown up by a truck bomb. This guy thinks through the deep issues of safety and security. "...it is the inevitable tendency of all societies to slowly degenerate into dullness of conscience, insensitivity to higher moral values, and finally into general corruption of good judgment. The end result of this process is always the eventual death and destruction of individual societies, one or two at a time -- usually through the instrumentality of war, and sometimes through direct judgments of God." "WHY NORTH AMERICA? Neither Canada or Latin America offer the same degree of liberty... Australia is rapidly succumbing to the same socialist ravages and control mania of the Canadian variety... only time will tell if New Zealand is experiencing only a respite from its almost fatal dose of socialism... Asia is generally overcrowded in the extreme... Europe has a tarnished track record for safety and stability... too much cultural diversity in close quarters leads to near constant conflict, as European history has so amply demonstrated." Skousen believes that given the high number of nuclear and biological weapons floating around, it's just a matter of time before one goes off in an urban area. Regardless of where it happened, this would drastically change the safety of urban living. At that point there would be a mass exodus of "forward thinking" (but late) families out of the cities and suburbs and into the rural areas. If you want to get a head start (before the crowd) so you can sell your house at a reasonable price, then you should get this book. Skousen believes this military threat to some world's city to be a greater threat than Year 2000, or any other economic calamity. The criteria listed below are important for you to understand as they illustrate the orientation of Skousen to this issue of location. If you don't share his criteria... then don't get the book. If you do agree with his criteria... then GET THIS BOOK because the cost to gather the research and duplicate his tables and maps far exceeds the cost of the book. For example, one of his criteria is "low crime". His book includes such statistics. You can look up the crime statistics for any recommended county, for example. His book lists the recommended regions... and also the acceptable counties within various states. These recommended regions and acceptable counties are the great benefit of this book. You could combine the list of counties from this book with those of the Penturbia book . This book is more readable than the "Boom Counties" book but their orientations are completely different. This book is concerned for your safety and welfare, the "Boom Counties" book is concerned with buying land that will be more valuable 10 years from now. Suitable For: Concerned Americans who want to relocate to rural areas within the U.S. before any accidental nuclear or biological weapons disasters make city living irreversibly dangerous. Provides maps of the areas and tables of the acceptable counties.

STRATEGIC RELOCATION: North American Guide to Safe Places

In today's bookstores, you can find a fair amount of literature on the "best places" to live. Almost all of these books concentrate upon the positive aspects of life--especially for the retired person: numbers and ratings of golf courses, doctor/patient ratios, warm sunny climates, availability of cultural activities, status of educational institutions, and the growth potential of the local economy. While all of these may be welcome amenities to a retiring life-style, what happens to these highly rated metropolitan areas when a major crisis strikes? Are these communities going to provide the basic necessities of life when a labor crisis brings the inflow of food and business goods to a halt? Or what about an economic crisis that threatens, pensions, investments and other so-called "guaranteed" income? What about a major earthquake or other natural disaster that suddenly upsets the natural social order for months at a time? Can you get out of harm's way if massive social unrest erupts in the wake of a crisis? Have you got contingency plans to exit an urban area when all of the freeways are clogged? What happens if the "unthinkable" happens--if the Russians have been cheating on disarmament all along, just waiting for the United States to fully disarm before they strike? Or have you thought about the potential of a major terrorist attack on a US city with chemical or biological weapons? These are not simply musings of the paranoid mind. These are real threats to society that are increasing in probability each year, despite the illusions of peace and prosperity to the contrary.

This then, is what STRATEGIC THINKING is all about--watching ahead for potential threats that most other people fail to see or choose to ignore. Living in a sea of unprepared people only makes us all more vulnerable, especially when we live in one of the US or Canada's 150 major metropolitan areas. STRATEGIC RELOCATION is a complete discussion of the strategies and relocation contingencies to help you avoid or mitigate each of the major modern threats to your well-being--from NATURAL DISASTERS to ECONOMIC COLLAPSE and NUCLEAR WAR, plus much more. If all this seems a little far fetched, then you may be one of those that can benefit most from this book.