What events will trigger your departure from The Big City?

The Death of the Hired Man by Robert Frost (abridged)

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table

Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’
She pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said.

.

.

.

She put out her hand
Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,
Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,
As if she played unheard some tenderness
That wrought on him beside her in the night.
‘Warren,’ she said, ‘he has come home to die:
You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.’

‘Home,’ he mocked gently.

‘Yes, what else but home?
It all depends on what you mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.’

‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.’...

Failure to plan is to embrace failure as the default plan

The worst time to make a plan is when you can hear the bullets whizzing overhead.

It is impossible to accurately predict collapse. By its very nature, chaos is unpredictable. Nevertheless, it is irresponsible to not attempt to plant some road signs and define the triggers to change directions.

The "triggers" for me to take flight will be different than the triggers for you or your neighbor or your cousin. Some of that is related to "Do I have a place to flee TO?" Much of it will involve your spouse's comfort level with drastic change. This is not something to plan unilaterally 

It might be useful to flesh out a landscape. By "Landscape" I mean defining a set of cardinal directions (north, east, west, south, elevation) that provides a framework for planning. The map or landscape can be fleshed out by estimates of resources along various paths and time-horizons. The landscape or map will evolve and change with time.

I am not going to create a "universe" in this post. I will share a few observations and let people flesh out what interests them in the Comments.

Freedom of movement

One cardinal direction involves freedom of movement. It is too late to move to your "home" if travel is locked down.

Two months ago who would have anticipated 5G roll-out messing up aviation? Two years ago who would have anticipated vaccine passports? Twenty years ago who would have anticipated TSA checkpoints? 

There was even talk of shutting down borders between states and enforcing in-home quarantine for recent arrivals. Impossible to execute, you think? Your cell-phone will rat you out. You may pay for the privilege of carrying your smartphone around but you really don't own it.

Besides the heavy-hand-of-the-state, there is the more mundane issue of fuel availability. Maybe you always have enough fuel in the tank to drive 200 miles. Spiffy! But what if you are pulling a trailer? What if you need to be able to drive around once you arrive at your destination? You are screwed if there is a high probability of encountering gas stations that are closed for business.

Better to be the first than the last

Be mindful that if you will be throwing yourself on the charity of your family that there are physical limits to the charity they can extend.

Aunt Thelma in Sulfide, Alberta might be a loving and generous person but there are only so many bedrooms in her house. There are only so many square feet in her garage and the old chicken house. Do you really think Aunt Thelma will push her own children into the snow to make room for you? Or even one of her other nieces or nephews?

Aunt Thelma cannot give you what she does not have to give.

Economics

There are a lot of Vampire companies out there. A lot of people, maybe you and/or your spouse are going to lose their jobs when the IV drip of cheap credit stops.

What is a Vampire company? It is a company that should be dead based on traditional measurements of what makes a company viable. Profits, for example. There are many companies that have not made a profit in years, maybe even since 2009. They live the life of the undead by floating bonds to finance the appearance of operating. Some sectors (electric cars) only exist because of government subsidies.

Nobody wants to spoil the party by pointing at the turds floating in the punch-bowl so people keep partying.

If/when interest rates go up, those vampires will die and millions of college educated "knowledge workers" will be pink-slipped.

That might be a case of God telling you to make the move.

Civil Unrest

Ahhh, the stuff of suspense novels.

It remains to be seen if the Woke DAs get broomed out or if they stay. If they stay then unrest will continue to metastasize. 

Look for more cases like the McCloskeys in Missouri where they were arrested for "brandishing" their firearms when trespassers/looters paraded past their house. You might want to start loading the trailer if it happens in YOUR county.

Civil unrest is probably the least predictable of the cardinal directions. It is inherently chaotic. Thing could be settling down and some whack-a-doodle (or agent provocateur) could gun-down the governor or the state attorney general. If several high-profile assassinations happened within the space of a couple of weeks then the fabric of civil society could disintegrate.

Tactically speaking, cities near mountains are effective choke points because there are not that many freeways nor is there much redundant capacity to support over-flow. 

Civil unrest intersects with mobility. What if the only good path to your hidey-hole takes you through a city that is in flames and rioters are shutting down the freeways?

Plans

Plans are easy to modify if you have them. If you don't have a plan they you will be the proverbial frog in the sauce pan.

Lack-of-a-plan enables the luxury of willful-blindness. We cannot see what is unfolding before our eyes. That luxury might prove very expensive. 

Plans are a tool, just like a defensive firearm or a sand-wedge. You hope you never need to use the tool. It is grand if you do not. But when you need it, there really is no substitute.

What is important is that you get with the other adults in your household and hammer out the events/conditions that will trigger your departure.