The "golden hordes" (Rawles) that you are referring to are certainly a consideration... I did get kinda thrown because you really digressed a lot into how "people ain't what they was". But now i think what you mean is that you don't want to be in the path of the golden hordes. Certainly that can be a part of it depending on the situation.

However, the golden hordes are more a factor when a single large event happens. I was saying that I think a "nonevent" is more likely, probably in the form of a very long recession, which wouldn't create the same kinda golden hordes that you would see from an "event".

In the event of a 15 year recession, you want to have a place that can sustain you as much as possible, maybe a farm like Russ is saying.

It really all depends on what you feel is "the most likely". A lot of popular survival fiction goes into the whole cannibalism stuff. I'm afraid what we'll be dealing with will be a lot less interesting than that...