Government policy in the 1930s pushed farmers onto the Great Plains, lands that had been stable grassland since the ice age ended. Prairie grass six to eight feet high had held the topsoil in place for thousands of years. When those roots were plowed under, the soil had nothing anchoring it. Meanwhile, communities with local networks and land-based economies barely felt the Depression. They had systems in place that weren't tied to the larger financial collapse. The contrast is stark: resilience came from working with natural systems, not against them. When you remove what stabilized a landscape for millennia, you're not just farming. You're gambling with forces you don't fully control.