Not too sure that I want to post on this LOCAL site...but I will take a stab at it and give my views.

First you seem to have originated as the NYC site of TOD..and therefore the references to New York..but you might consider that many folks in the outback might not be too hot on whats doing in New York.

Talking about NYC will not endear you IMO to those who live on the REAL local level and I use the term generically to refer to those in the vast 'flyover' forgetting about the problems of LA and NYC..which are going to die real real fast anyway and the true sustainability will have to be by those who have the ground and land to produce food.

For as another key poster noted in his TOPIC post..we are truly in the Agriculture Age..not much ag in NYC or LA..they just get what we produce and add static to the grand picture of how things really are down where the body meets the dirt.

Ok..no offense. I have been to both and lived in LA for some months attending very long schools and worked in upstate NY for long months. So I am not some country dude who doesn't 'get it'.

Thanks for the concern and I believe it can be productive but whose prism are we going to be looking thru? Those with the background? Those who are scientists? The politicians? The News media? Or those who produce food and tend the soil?

I think you got your work cut out for you. Good luck.

I do no graphs,nor compile data. I just give my observations as to my region,Southern Upper Mississippi Valley Region.

On TOD I hear a lot of conjecture but only a few tell us how it is where they reside and whats happening.

Whats it really like then down in the bowels of NYC? I was there many years ago and it seemed they mostly spoke foreign languages and I felt I was no longer in the US. Upstate I could handle. I went to school with some guys from NYC and they had never seen a cow. They never drove. They talked a lot but the southern boyz hammered them in Pinochle,Golf, and bowling.They hated those Rebel flags on their pecan pie down there Atlanta at The Johnny Reb Cafe,way before it went bad. They didn't care for Mammy's Restaurant much either. A resolute bunch that finally almost went mad in the south for lack of pizza(hot pies).

airdale-we drive pickups and get poor gas mileage,we kill game and some eat it,some raise vegetable gardens and eat that,most are like some of those boyz from NYC..they don't want to do much work anymore,,some are old school and survive well and some are very high tech farmers and don't do so well at it,many do just like city folk..mow huge yards and waste tons of money on stupid shit,a lot cook meth and raise pot..and get caught and have bad teeth as a result..a few still take snuff..well actually a lot who are jocks and big games turkey hunters..very few are like airdale but my folks were here before theirs and so they are not my peers. I tolerate most though and kin to most. We will have about a fast 50 percent die off IMO. Then the rest go slowly as they just won't and don't "get it". They will cluster up in the churches and try to figure it out but it will be too late. Again IMO.
Its a crap shoot if you don't read TOD.