[Coda]

Areas prohibit them because livestock within city limits are a public nuisance and a potential health hazard, not because it takes away from the government. Cows stink and pollute; chickens make a lot of noise. Cows also have a HUGE carbon footprint; they eat a LOT and produce methane due to the cellulose-reducing bacteria they need to digest grasses.

Remember that every hour you spend on your self-sustaining lifestyle is an hour not spent doing something else. If you need that hour working a paying job in order to avoid going broke in the first place, which are you better off doing? Having food when you go broke, or not go broke at all?

I feel the need to repeatedly reiterate that I'm NOT against the positive things that can come of this, but it's very important to treat it rationally and not romanticize the idea, because if you actually try it you'll quickly discover it's NOT romantic at all. It's a lot of hard work that results in a lifestyle with a lot less free time and relaxation, and nowhere near the kind of financial freedom people tend to think it grants. This is important: time is money. What good is having a "cheaper" lifestyle if you can't actually enjoy it?

But being frugal, reusing things, getting free stuff, eating more vegetables and less meat, these are all good things, and everyone can benefit from it.