> You can make a good argument that policy in the US is set by urban elites that favor city people and values, and result in an impoverished rural population.
You could also make an argument that policy in the US is set by politicians catering to rural voters by vilifying liberal values to distract from the fact that it's the corporations they really care about improving the life of at the expense of both the urban and rural mid/lower class.
> Folks shouldn't sacrifice quality of life (moving to rural areas versus areas they might desire more) to tip the state faster than it will already tip
Personally, I don't think "quality of life" is the word that should be used to distinctualize rural and urban living. I've lived in both and had a quality life in both, each came with their tradeoffs and sharp costs I had to manage.
No it isn't. There may be some aspects of it that would have good results. But there would also be aspects that would have poor results.
Pretending that larger population centers will make better electoral decisions and that those decisions will not ignore the legitimate needs of more rural areas reeks of unjustified superiority and is unbecoming.
> The entire federal system in the US is built to favor rural areas
That’s because those who choose not to live in filthy crime ridden cities shouldn’t have to suffer from the lowest common denominator laws and high taxes said cities “require” to not fall apart since people aren’t meant to live that close together.
>I say this a lot on HN: rural interests are urban interests.
No, they don't always align. There are different needs in rural areas and urban areas that compete with one another.
Transportation needs, for instance, are vastly different in rural Illinois than in Chicago. Farmers might lobby for more and bigger roads and dislike public transit because it doesn't make sense in their regions. Meanwhile people in Chicago want more and better transit. These needs compete for the same infrastructure dollars.
People in cities need to eat, but their interests are directly harmed by the various food price control mechanisms that the Feds put in place. Price floors, for instance, ensure that milk won't get too cheap. Who benefits? Farmers who couldn't compete at lower prices. Who loses? Every other person.
Cities can pollute rivers that farmers depend on or even dam them for power needs. They can seize agricultural land for urban needs like high speed rail or airports or landfills.
So no, urban and rural interests don't always align. There are quite a number of issues that can benefit one or the other but not both.
I don't agree with stacking the deck so that they get more power per capita.
Maybe one policy for an urban area doesn't fit for a rural area, and vice versa. Maybe... life is complicated and there's no intellectually easy solution for everything.
>Rural areas account for 14% of the US population. Why should they have veto power over the urban planning and transportation policy in metro areas?
They shouldn't. And neither should the urban planners have veto power of the planning and transportation policy of rural areas. Yet in my experience, these conversations never stop at "I want my urban area to be less car focused". It always seems to extend to "I can't wait until we ban cars everywhere"
> Cities live on the backs of rural people and it's time to stop subsidizing them and send some of that money to the rural communities.
Cities subsidize rural areas fiscally, look at the tax base in a city, and a rural area. Suburban US by the way is the most subsidized part of the country, BTW. StrongTowns has published an enormous amount of work in this arena.
> Rural people love their subsidies. We should encourage people to live in denser areas, not all cities, but towns. How many rural people do you think are involve in food production? It's only around 10%.
I have no idea. It's a hard question to answer. You are sure with no citation so I think you're wrong.
How do you define "rural" and how do you define a "town"? The US Census—which probably was directly or indirectly the source of your 10%—defines rural as not urban. Urban clusters must have a population of 2,500, [1] which already excludes a lot of what I'd call towns. And as a spot check, I don't see Grundy Center, IA on the list, despite meeting the population requirement (and not being included in a larger urban cluster AFAIK). Maybe it fails one of their other requirements. It is in their list of "incorporated places".
How do you define "involved in food production"? If I live with my family on a farm but picked "truck driver" as my occupation, am I involved in food production? If I am a teacher to farmers' kids, in a town of 500 people (see above), am I involved in food production? etc. Farmers don't exist in a vacuum. They need services like everyone else.
Even if you are right, "only about 10%" doesn't mean you won't cause pretty significant problems for everyone by messing with those folks...
The author's obvious disdain for rural Americans makes it hard to see through to his main point, that urban centers' power should not be inhibited by state governments.
I don't think that point stands up to scrutiny. Are state governments really hindering cities? Then why are cities growing ever more powerful, economically and culturally? And since cities contain such a large proportion of the population, they already wield proportionate power in state capitols.
The notion that urban centers are superior to rural areas is ridiculous given cities' dependence on rural agriculture, natural resource extraction, etc.
Could it be that urbanists simply don't want to be forced to confront in state legislatures the potential negative impacts their sprawling cities impose upon rural neighbors? That's the impression this article gives me.
I think the argument is something like: It is not profitable to provide the current level of service to rural areas. Because of the high productivity of urban areas, we can redistribute resources and improve rural public infrastructure.
> The govt needs rural people settling remote areas more than those people need govt.
I'm not sure I agree with this, but I'm curious to hear your logic. My understanding is that more urbanization is required for both environmental and infrastructural reasons.
> I'm all for rural representation, but people in rural areas essentially have their vote count more than people in cities, right?
Yeah but maybe that's a good thing. Otherwise you have a situation like New York where NYC gets to dictate everything since it's super high population density even though the majority of geographical NY state is farmers. So the farmers get screwed over by the interests of the city folk who have never even stepped foot out of the city. For example, city folks are more likely to vote for increases in property taxes - not that they care too much since they only have a tiny apartment - but it hits the people outside of the city with lots of land (for farming) really hard.
It's just like the "rich getting richer" conundrum. Once you have a large city, it will gain more people faster than a small town just by virtue of the properties of growth. So pretty soon you'll have a few megacities that get to dictate the government of the entire country and if you live anywhere else; too bad, the city folk are in charge now.
This is by no means an "edge-case" if you live in a rural area. "Sound policy" within a heavily urbanized area may be unworkable elsewhere.
> Can't base sound policy at scale on the stars aligning
"Failing to scale" here would be to allow urban population centers to dictate policy that would be untenable in other areas of the country.
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