After the country-wide quarantine was lifted here in France, I hoped for a moment that we would capitalize on the remote-work experience to push as much employment as possible out of the cities and suburbs and into rural communities, but that never materialized.

I don’t think it’s necessary to empty rural villages, but there definitely needs to be a concerted effort to revitalize these parts instead of letting what amount to market forces drain them of their capacity to sustain life and communities.

The currently-employed “more efficient” farming methods are also only possible by continuing to centralize more and more land under single owners and by heavy use of fertilizers and mono-culture; there’s no telling how long they will remain effective and in the meanwhile we’re starting to recreate the landed gentry/ serfs class divide…