Crab Apple said:

If mobility was limited by lack of fuel or the fact that decent folks might snipe any group that looks like trouble (like gangbangers out for a picnic) it could mitigate the rural home invasion problem but in my opinion some kind of perimeter alarm, perimeter fence and method of channeling vehicles to  limited approaches AND a 24/7 sentry and mutual defense agreements with neighbors  would be needed.

Ahhh: now we're getting back to the meat and potatoes of prepping!! Has anyone actually contacted their neighbors and brought up this type of mutual arrangement with any success; ie: not being thought of as a nutjob?

The rural vs. urban question may not have a clean answer. 

When hyperinflation was in force in Germany during the mid 1920s, farmers kept their produce off the market for as long as possible.  Townspeople reacted by visiting the farms and taking what they needed (often violently).  Then after Germany started stabilizing the currency, food became plentiful on store shelves, but few townspeople could afford it.  Perhaps people looted stores, but they didn't have to bother going to the country anymore.

When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse

Chapter 11: Havenstein

The new danger was that when the peasants finally refused to deliver produce to the towns, the towns would go and fetch it. It had happened in Austria during the blockade. It had happened in the Ruhr and the Rhineland under the provocation of French militarism and enforced idleness. Now there were reports from Saxony -unoccupied Germany — that bands of several hundred townspeople at a time had taken to riding out into the countryside on bicycles to confiscate what they needed.

Chapter 14: Unemployment breaks out

Stabilisation brought as little relief for the middle classes dependent on fixed incomes as for the working classes who could find no employment. A year of stability in Austria, it was observed, had gone far to prove revolution achieved. The closing entries in Frau Eisenmenger’s diary give some idea of what she had undergone:

Foodstuffs which three years ago were entirely unobtainable in Vienna and the rest of Austria [she wrote in December 1923], can now be bought everywhere. But who can buy them? Whose income has kept pace with the tireless activities of the banknote printing-press? Although my holding in shares is worth at today’s quotation more than 10 million kronen, I am at my wits end to know where to find money to buy food … today the value of our krone is quoted in Zurich as 0.00705 centimes …

Having grown up in rural America, I believe that most farmhouses are defenseless against bands of looters.  Farmhouses tend to be isolated.  Barking dogs may alert one to the arrival of strangers, but if they have more weapons than the farm family has and want what the farm family has, the strangers will end up taking what they want.  The authorities will find the bodies of the farm family victims long after the looters are gone.

Farmhouses that are set back from the road might be missed by bands of random looters traveling through the territory.  But drug gangs are going to know the area well and if they decide they want to use the "back 40" for a drug crop, they will end up using that land for their drug crop.  Anyone who stands in the way of that profitable goal will be terminated with extreme prejudice.

The population in the cities and suburbs is a lot more concentrated and the authorities can focus their resources better.  But if the authorities are corrupt or overwhelmed (or leave, as some police officers did after Hurricane Katrina), the population ends up being the losers.

In the final analysis, I think it's best to be where one feels most comfortable.  I don't believe I could survive in rural America anymore because I've been away for too long.  I would be more comfortable taking my chances in a suburban environment (such as where I've been living for the past several decades).  But things could change and if they do, I will adapt my strategy.

SD,

There is remote and then there's you. Few people in the lower 48 could bug out as remotely as you. Most rural properties are reachable by a FM road in the lower 48. In your case, the biggest threat comes from the elements. Your situation is fairly sustainable provided the supply line of food and services isn 't interrupted. And provided that you die a swift death when the times comes. It sure would suck to have kidney stones and be 90 miles away from a doctor.

But we all got to go one way or another. I too would stay put where you are.

Pete said:

Crab Apple said:

….. and mutual defense agreements with neighbors  would be needed.

Ahhh: now we're getting back to the meat and potatoes of prepping!! Has anyone actually contacted their neighbors and brought up this type of mutual arrangement with any success; ie: not being thought of as a nutjob?

I am developing contacts with neighbors as possible so when I suggest the "Neighborhood Watch" it won't be my first time talking to them. I would not breech the subject until after  crime gets to the point where reasonable folks could see the benefit of having a neighbor assist them with some crossfire.

Two of my near neighbors are kin, I can count on them. I have Boyscouts on Steroids Friends about 15 miles away, I can also count on them but because they are 15 miles their assistance would only be usefull in a real siege type of situation. (Hmmm….. am I allowed to say siege on this forum?)