Erik and Kelly have faced some serious life circumstances in the past year, and as a result Erik came to our talk with some new truths to reveal about the realities of running an “urban homestead,” the fool’s errand of self-sufficiency, and the real importance of community. But as so often happens in these interviews, what transpired turned out to be a much different conversation than the one I had anticipated. I’ve been following Erik and Kelly’s work here in LA for nearly a decade now, and was excited to have the opportunity to check in with Erik to hear how far he and Kelly have progressed on the path toward self-reliance, since the book’s release. From their hilltop bungalow set on 1/12 acre in Eastside Los Angeles, the pair sparked a DIY revolution - bringing permaculture front yards, backyard chickens, wild-fermented beer and home-constructed milk crate dry toilets forever into the (almost) mainstream. But seven years ago, Root Simple founders Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne delivered us an alternate path forward with the release of their bestselling book The Urban Homestead and seminal follow-up, Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World. As we hurtle toward a world of digital jobs and automated consumerism (hello, Instacart and Amazon Dash), we urbanites who long for a deeper connection to the natural world, to our food sources and to do something real with our own two hands that doesn’t involve the pushing of a button, often think the lifestyle choice has to be either-or: Either we sock those dreams away in the “one day” file and surrender to the economic leviathan of modern city life, or we leave the city (and our livelihoods) behind to pioneer a homestead somewhere out in the country.
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