I grew up in a rural area and lived among people who had been on the same piece of land for generations. Some, including us, lived in log houses (not cabins!) built before the Civil War. I suspect that some of those people would laugh at the idea of living "off the grid." One reason was that most of them remembered when they weren't even on the grid. I even remembered when the telephone line came through, although by then I was in the army and overseas. However, I take your point because other issues beyond that of "public" utilities have always been there, which are actually more important. Anyway, there will be no flying below the radar. Land ownership is an issue worldwide, not just in "thickly settled" (as my father would put it) Southern England, for all the same reasons. Ultimately, wars are fought over land. Any other reason is just an excuse. In this country land values vary greatly according to where the land happens to be, more so than any intrinsic value of the land itself. In other words, good farm land will quickly be developed for industry or housing if someone wants to do that badly enough. One could be forgiven for thinking that there is a lot of idle land in this country. In some rural areas land ownership becomes tangled in legalities, which makes legal acquisition highly problematic. As long as the real estate taxes are paid, the county usually has no particular interest in anything else. But no one can buy the land if there is no clear legal title to the land and of course, no one can sell it. But whoever pays the taxes has practical ownership of the land, which means you can't squat there. This comes about when someone dies without a will and no one goes through the legal hoops to get it settled. It's called heirship land but there probably isn't a lot of it, frankly.My reference to Woody Guthrie's song "This land is your land" is a mildly anti-establishment song. He supposedly wrote it as a sort of rebuttal to "God Bless America" which was used in an old Ronald Reagan movie. Conservatives here think they own God. But in regards to "off the grid" and all the thinking behind it, I wonder if the people I left behind when I came to the big city--or rather, the big suburb, think differently now. They tend to be a far-right crowd and may see a wood-burning stove as much of a political statement as something just to heat the kitchen. You sound very much like a modern day Thoreau, Mr hobbes. But neither he nor I ever had to carry water that far nor do I recall reading that Thoreau ever volunteered for anything. I tended to think of Thoreau less often, however, when I lived past the age he died. I've also known a few hard-working men, too, but they all died relatively young. None were especially community oriented in the least except for my father. He was an active churchgoer. I wonder if that's why he outlived all the others I'm thinking of but more likely it was just because he didn't smoke. Anyway, you can't disconnect from "modern western" life just so you can devote more time to the community. Maybe I'm more conservative than my wife thinks.