In what way does the narrator imply that staying in the city might be risky?

The narrator, Bill Masen, implies that staying in the city might be a risky thing to do by comparing the city to the countryside. The city is filled with people who've been blinded, panic and fear create chaos, and a lack of food and water create a population that is desperate to survive. In contrast, life in the countryside might be an unknown entity, but as the city colllapses around them... the countryside appears as a beacon of hope and safety.

The sight of the open country gave one hope of a son. It was true that the young green crops would never be harvested when they had ripened, nor the fruit from the trees gathered; that the countryside might never again look as trim and neat as it did that day, but for all that it would go on, after its own fashion. It was not, like the towns, sterile, stopped forever. It was a place one could work and tend, and still find a future. It made my existence of the previous week seem like that of a rat living on crumbs and ferreting in garbage heaps. As I looked out over the fields I felt my spirits expanding.