Think about predators - everything: rats, cats, dogs, hawks, mink, snakes, raccoons, foxes, bears, alligators, human thieves etc - depending on where you are. They taste like chicken. Can you predatorize the coop or will you accept a certain rate of loss (be aware that once they know the chickens are there, they’ll be back). And what are you going to do with injured, not dead chickens?

Our run has hardware netting on all sides including the top and under the dirt, and we let them out in the garden to live their best lives when we’re at home. So far this has kept predation down although we have had some curious cats.

Also if you have kids think about whether your chickens are livestock or pets. Ours are pets that lay eggs.

You can definitely take the train from Italy to Sweden. This summer we took the train back and forth from Denmark to Italy, with children.

Where is the existing building mass in those pictures? It’s all weird glass pods. I don’t want to live in a glass pod. Did we just blow up all the old brick warehouses, Victorians, old farmhouses that got engulfed by the city, etc etc?

I want to see my little old house from the 1930s that’s been energy retrofitted, with solar panels and a solar water heater and barrels under the gutters, with apple trees and chickens in the backyard and some bicycles in front.

It’s still important to acknowledge that the usage in the medical/health sectors is also dehumanizing. It’s so disempowering and alienating.

I work in the health sector not in the US and I would never refer to a patient that way no matter what language I’m speaking.

I actually live in this already. In 15 minutes I can get to: groceries, pharmacies, school, daycare, after-school club, library, postal services, train station, bus routes, mechanic, restaurants, public pool, hairdresser, hardware store, our general practitioner. The hospital is also within 15 minutes but that’s kind of random. Just a little outside that range is a shopping center.

Unfortunately i work further away but my husband walks to work.