"In times like this go to the mountains"

Holy shit!

Holy fuck !

The soil on the hillsides probably isn't stable enough to build on, this area would have started off as a handful of families running livestock and growing vegetables on the river flats a thousand years ago or whatever.

If you live on a ridgeline in that part of the world (many do), you're looking at days of travel to reach a store 20km away (as the crow flies). And unless you're growing opium or similar high-value-density goods, you won't have any money to buy. Tradeoffs. Always tradeoffs...