I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion from either my comment or contact with the real world. I chose my words pretty precisely to avoid my point getting

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion from either my comment or contact with the real world. I chose my words pretty precisely to avoid my point getting buried by a tangential conversation about the other direction of dependency: "dense cities in their current form" depend on rural areas. It's pretty easy to imagine an almost-fully urbanized society that grows food without having to sustain a significant amount of population spread sparsely. On top of that, the idea that rural areas' standard of living without urban subsidization would amount to losing "some luxuries" is so out of touch with reality that I don't even know where to start (though the sibling comments do a good job).