Long before I ever picked up a copy of the book “The Urban Homestead”, which is a guide to self sufficient living in the city, I had dreamed of making my suburban lot more eco-friendly and productive. My idea a few years ago was to make our property a sort of “urban homestead”, in some ways reminiscent of a tiny rural farm, but with all the accoutrements of urban life such as high speed internet.   I wanted to use solar power, passive solar and also produce a fair amount of the  food we ate from our city lot.   I’ve succeeded at most of these, with a small garden, patio garden, solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the roof, composting, etc.  However, I bought the book “The Urban Homestead” a few years too late, since I learned from reading it where we had gone wrong in some areas.  For the most part my wife and I are pretty on track for making our city lot an urban homestead and I am going to implement some of the ideas from the book this year.

The New Urban Self Sufficiency and Sustainability Movement

A quiet movement is sweeping the country as city dwellers and suburbanites rediscover the joys and advantages of growing food, cleaning without chemicals, gardening without pesticides and using things like solar power and gray water.  Things that some American’s used to associate with “hippies” have been mainstream in other countries for years. A couple decades ago I visited Australia, where nearly every home in Queensland had a solar water heater and many homes used rainwater and gray water to irrigate lawns and gardens.  In Israel, things like canning food, gardening, solar and gray water use are very commonplace today.

Review Of “The Urban Homestead” self sufficiency book.

The first thing that I noticed was different about this particular urban self sufficiency book is that it doesn’t dwell on things like a coming “apocalypse”, “new great depression” or worldwide crisis. These are all highly possible these days, but I just wanted a book that shows me how to be more self sufficient in urban areas.  Also, I don’t want an urban self sufficiency book that dwells on impractical things like grinding your own flour, weaving baskets, etc. Practicality  should be the focus of any book on urban self sufficiency. For example, “The Urban Homestead” discusses how to grow food on your patio or small porch, how to use passive and active solar, and how to plant a survival garden in your yard.  It  touches on green cleaning and pest control methods and even “urban chickens”, or raising hens in suburbia.

For the money the “The Urban Homestead” is a great value. While you probably won’t adopt every idea, such as “urban chickens”, everyone can find something in this book that they can use, such as growing herbs and lettuce in small containers. If you are interested in the urban self sufficiency movement, this book is one of the best guides.

A Valuable Resource For Urban "Homesteaders". Click on image for details on Amazon.com