I sympathize with people who are sick of dealing with restrictions on trying to live a sustainable life.
Also, Mexico is beautiful. The land, and the culture.
That said …
It’s actually not that hard in the United States to use composting toilets and so on. yes, a person may have to be hooked up to utilities, but nothing prevents us from minimizing our electricity use, minimizing our city water use, and so on. Some of us live almost off the grid in cities. Even while being hooked up to the systems, we are able to keep our dependence on them to an absolute minimum by minimizing our consumption.
I give lots of tips on this in my book, and on this blog over the years. And on my social media platforms.
Some people think that collecting rainwater is illegal but that is mostly not the case in most places.
Regarding moving to other countries in search of an “easier” life (be it freedom from restrictions, lower cost of living or what have you) …
I think a big part of our work as permaculturists, degrowthers, and other assorted categories of earth guardians is to work to dismantle the capitalist systems that are putting restrictions on living a sustainable life. And yes, I realize that people have varying degrees of willingness to engage this work. I myself was not even willing to voluntarily talk to anyone from the government until relatively recently in my life, let alone actually go to meetings and try to engage with city & county government officials.
But, the systems are impeding degrowth. So as many people as are willing to stick around and try to do this work, the more the better.
I’ve always found it strange that USA Americans can just up and move to Mexico (and other Latin American countries), while many Mexican citizens are in terrible circumstances that push them to flee their homeland and come to the USA. I wonder how it is that we have the privilege to do this thing, while the people whose homeland it is do not have the safety and stability they need.
Also, I’ll repeat what I’ve heard people point out on other platforms. It’s funny how white people from the USA can just up and move to someone else’s country and have an anchor baby and it’s considered OK. Whereas when brown people from outside the USA come to the USA and have an anchor baby, people are up in arms about the “border crisis.”
USA culture has put constraints on resources and indigenous cultures throughout the world. I don’t think it’s OK for us to just escape it and go move to other countries. As long as the endless growth and consumerism exists, no corner of the world is really safe.
So I hope lots of people in the USA and other capitalist-dominant nations will engage their local government in, for example, removing restrictions to raising chickens in backyards. And removing restrictions to having native plant gardens in yards. And removing minimum size limits on houses. And so on and so on. I think a lot of the leverage points are at the level of local government.
PS. This is really important for anyone who thinks that rainwater collection is illegal. Check out Brad Lancaster’s books and website. “Rainwater harvesting for drylands.” This is information we all need to use and share, no matter what climate we live in.
Later: Someone accused me of being racist for saying this stuff. But it’s not racist to point out white colonizer behavior patterns.