“Cities won’t be pretty, but there’s always a jerk there to organize them.”
Organized or not organized, there won’t be any food coming into cities if the grid goes down. And marching in an organized fashion out of the cities won’t solve the food problem when the food used to come from 1,000 miles away via trucks that are no longer running.
There are multiple ways to generate power that don't involve giant coal plants and mega transformers.
Sure, they suck, but they work... well enough to get the job done.
Now, I'm off to impart practical knowledge of how to run and maintain a civilization to my grandkids.
/johnny