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I've been thinking we should have a Federal program that helps people in small towns relocate into urban areas or suburban areas at the outskirts of cities. I t

I've been thinking we should have a Federal program that helps people in small towns relocate into urban areas or suburban areas at the outskirts of cities. I think letting sparsely populated rural areas depopulate would save us billions on infrastructure since it costs far more per person to run and maintain miles of road out to nowhere rather than short roads to apartments, townhouses, and neighborhoods. As a city dweller, I would gladly exchange the massive federal infrastructure costs that incentivise rural life for the much more consolidated stress this would put on my local infrastructure. The irony of my proposal is that, while it is in a sense the converse of what NY is doing, I guarantee you it would draw vastly more outrage. The costs of sheltering the 60,000 homeless in NY is nothing compared to the costs of subsidizing rural America to the tune of trillions of dollars. The former is considered a debatable charity, while the latter is never questioned.

maxerickson 9y ago
The rural America you speak of doesn't exist. Rural America is mostly small towns that look just like a suburb when it comes to population density. And it doesn't sit there doing nothing, it provides services to the people that work in resource extraction (along with manufacturing sited to take advantage of local materials) and agriculture. There are certainly lots of dying small towns, but that is hardly evidence of profligate subsidization.
tylerhou 9y ago
>subsidizing rural America to the tune of trillions of dollars I'm not sure where you're getting that number from. Here's a federal budget breakdown for FY2016 [1]: Non-discretionary spending: Social Security: $910 billion Medicare: $588 billion Medicaid: $368 billion Other: $563 billion Interest payments: $241 billion Discretionary spending: Defense: $584 billion Non-defense: $600 billion Spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest payments, and defense would not decrease if rural citizens moved to the city. Thus those subsidies aren't solely for rural America, so I won't include them in your "trillions of dollars" claim unless you want to make the claim that the government is subsidizing both rural and non-rural citizens to the tune of trillions of dollars, which nobody would doubt. The rest of the budget adds up to $1,163 billion dollars. Even if you made the wild assumption that all that money went straight into the pockets of rural Americans, it's hardly trillions of dollars. (Note that I'm ignoring state budgets. But I think the trillions of dollars assertion is so absurd that I'm not going to waste the time to look up those stats as well.) [1] https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs-images/52xxx/52408-Land-Budget_Overall.png https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs....
- icebraining 9y ago
  Parent never said "per year".
- ideonexus 9y ago
  The problem is that you can't look up those stats. They don't exist. I'm not talking about Federal Budget alone or roads alone. I'm talking about Federal Taxes, State Taxes, and Local Taxes as they apply to roads, electric lines, sewage, bridges, community centers, and the myriad other projects that go into supporting a healthy community. There is a well established flow of taxes from urban areas to rural areas. We frame it as a progressive flow of taxes from high-income to low-income, but much of that low-income is tied to geography. I think the reaction to my post reinforces this. Comments in support of NY's export of low-income citizens out of the city have been up-voted. But, as I predicted, observing that rural Americans are consuming more public services than they pay for has drawn outrage. It's easy to call homeless people a problem, but people get angry when you point out how reliant they are on the government for their rural lifestyle.
  - Veratyr 9y ago
    > The problem is that you can't look up those stats. They don't exist. Yes you can. You can obtain just about every budget online, whether it be state, federal or local. The person you're replying to showed you the federal budget which you seem to have conveniently ignored: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs-images/52xxx/52408-Land-Budget_Overall.png https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs... You can see on that chart that the chunk which might apply to "roads, electric lines, sewage, bridges, community centers [...]" is the "Nondefense" chunk, which is $600b, or about 15% of the total federal budget. I can't be bothered listing the budget for every state in the country but they're there. As for local budgets, they're going to apply to the local area.
bschwindHN 9y ago
You know, your food is probably produced in these rural areas and you need infrastructure to transport that food. I don't think your "solution" is so simple and straightforward as you make it seem.
- R_haterade 9y ago
  he proposed concentrating people into cities. Sounds a lot like a final solution to me. For real though that would be a situation where people were like lambs to the slaughter. People that close together are much easier to control, and that's not a good thing.
  - ideonexus 9y ago
    Actually, if I were proposing a "final solution," I would simply advocate that urban areas simply stop paying Federal and State taxes. Without government subsidization, rural areas unable to financially support themselves would vanish very quickly. But I'm not advocating that. I'm suggesting we provide support to dying communities to voluntarily relocate to where the jobs are. Communities that are doing fine would obviously forego such an option.
    - R_haterade 9y ago
      But they wouldn't be doing fine for long. Inevitably, policy would be structured that made those communities less able to fend for themselves. It always happens--structures of control always seek more control, and more people in fewer places means easier to control. I'm afraid we're talking past each other--your arguments are about economics, mine concern the right to self-determination.
      - ideonexus 9y ago
        I don't think we are really talking past each other. To me this an issue of self-determination as well. I lived in a small town completely lacking employment opportunities for 10 years. The kids who were able to move out got careers, those who couldn't are stuck working in the service industry. With a little government assistance, they could move to where the careers are. I regret the blunt, clinical way I communicated this in my original post.
marcoperaza 9y ago
Yes, let's replace dignified rural living with the squalor of urban poverty. Only then can everyone become subject to city planners' and progressives' social engineering schemes.
R_haterade 9y ago
This ranks right up there with the most bigoted things I've ever read.
gok 9y ago
Ok so rather than spread poor people out, let’s put them all in cheap high density housing with low infrastructure costs. This is precisely the logic that lead to the housing project catastrophes. As for the characterization of rural and suburban areas as some kind of federal infrastructure spending black hole, that’s not an accurate representation of the United States. Only a quarter of all infrastructure spending comes from the federal government, and only about half of that goes to highways, most of that is for interstates which help us city dwellers get free shipping from Amazon, not “roads to nowhere”.

maxerickson 9y ago

The rural America you speak of doesn't exist. Rural America is mostly small towns that look just like a suburb when it comes to population density. And it doesn't sit there doing nothing, it provides services to the people that work in resource extraction (along with manufacturing sited to take advantage of local materials) and agriculture. There are certainly lots of dying small towns, but that is hardly evidence of profligate subsidization.

tylerhou 9y ago

>subsidizing rural America to the tune of trillions of dollars I'm not sure where you're getting that number from. Here's a federal budget breakdown for FY2016 [1]: Non-discretionary spending: Social Security: $910 billion Medicare: $588 billion Medicaid: $368 billion Other: $563 billion Interest payments: $241 billion Discretionary spending: Defense: $584 billion Non-defense: $600 billion Spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest payments, and defense would not decrease if rural citizens moved to the city. Thus those subsidies aren't solely for rural America, so I won't include them in your "trillions of dollars" claim unless you want to make the claim that the government is subsidizing both rural and non-rural citizens to the tune of trillions of dollars, which nobody would doubt. The rest of the budget adds up to $1,163 billion dollars. Even if you made the wild assumption that all that money went straight into the pockets of rural Americans, it's hardly trillions of dollars. (Note that I'm ignoring state budgets. But I think the trillions of dollars assertion is so absurd that I'm not going to waste the time to look up those stats as well.) [1] https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs-images/52xxx/52408-Land-Budget_Overall.png https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs....

icebraining 9y ago
Parent never said "per year".
ideonexus 9y ago
The problem is that you can't look up those stats. They don't exist. I'm not talking about Federal Budget alone or roads alone. I'm talking about Federal Taxes, State Taxes, and Local Taxes as they apply to roads, electric lines, sewage, bridges, community centers, and the myriad other projects that go into supporting a healthy community. There is a well established flow of taxes from urban areas to rural areas. We frame it as a progressive flow of taxes from high-income to low-income, but much of that low-income is tied to geography. I think the reaction to my post reinforces this. Comments in support of NY's export of low-income citizens out of the city have been up-voted. But, as I predicted, observing that rural Americans are consuming more public services than they pay for has drawn outrage. It's easy to call homeless people a problem, but people get angry when you point out how reliant they are on the government for their rural lifestyle.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  > The problem is that you can't look up those stats. They don't exist. Yes you can. You can obtain just about every budget online, whether it be state, federal or local. The person you're replying to showed you the federal budget which you seem to have conveniently ignored: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs-images/52xxx/52408-Land-Budget_Overall.png https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs... You can see on that chart that the chunk which might apply to "roads, electric lines, sewage, bridges, community centers [...]" is the "Nondefense" chunk, which is $600b, or about 15% of the total federal budget. I can't be bothered listing the budget for every state in the country but they're there. As for local budgets, they're going to apply to the local area.

bschwindHN 9y ago

You know, your food is probably produced in these rural areas and you need infrastructure to transport that food. I don't think your "solution" is so simple and straightforward as you make it seem.

R_haterade 9y ago
he proposed concentrating people into cities. Sounds a lot like a final solution to me. For real though that would be a situation where people were like lambs to the slaughter. People that close together are much easier to control, and that's not a good thing.
- ideonexus 9y ago
  Actually, if I were proposing a "final solution," I would simply advocate that urban areas simply stop paying Federal and State taxes. Without government subsidization, rural areas unable to financially support themselves would vanish very quickly. But I'm not advocating that. I'm suggesting we provide support to dying communities to voluntarily relocate to where the jobs are. Communities that are doing fine would obviously forego such an option.
  - R_haterade 9y ago
    But they wouldn't be doing fine for long. Inevitably, policy would be structured that made those communities less able to fend for themselves. It always happens--structures of control always seek more control, and more people in fewer places means easier to control. I'm afraid we're talking past each other--your arguments are about economics, mine concern the right to self-determination.
    - ideonexus 9y ago
      I don't think we are really talking past each other. To me this an issue of self-determination as well. I lived in a small town completely lacking employment opportunities for 10 years. The kids who were able to move out got careers, those who couldn't are stuck working in the service industry. With a little government assistance, they could move to where the careers are. I regret the blunt, clinical way I communicated this in my original post.

marcoperaza 9y ago

Yes, let's replace dignified rural living with the squalor of urban poverty. Only then can everyone become subject to city planners' and progressives' social engineering schemes.

R_haterade 9y ago

This ranks right up there with the most bigoted things I've ever read.

gok 9y ago

Ok so rather than spread poor people out, let’s put them all in cheap high density housing with low infrastructure costs. This is precisely the logic that lead to the housing project catastrophes. As for the characterization of rural and suburban areas as some kind of federal infrastructure spending black hole, that’s not an accurate representation of the United States. Only a quarter of all infrastructure spending comes from the federal government, and only about half of that goes to highways, most of that is for interstates which help us city dwellers get free shipping from Amazon, not “roads to nowhere”.