4 ms·

+1 suburban / rural areas are heavily subsidized by the federal + state governments. It isn't cheap to maintain that amount of roads / utilities and I could cer

+1 suburban / rural areas are heavily subsidized by the federal + state governments. It isn't cheap to maintain that amount of roads / utilities and I could certainly foresee a future in which it becomes much more expensive to leave so far apart.

Clubber 4y ago
Do you have any figures on this? I know during the Reagan administration the federal government heavily cut subsidization of rural areas, helping to accelerate their decline.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  It's hard to find data on this is general. I've seen a couple maps before of counties within states, and their state-level spending/revenue, but finding the same for counties when it comes to federal revenue...never seen anything like that. edit: I mean a map similar to this - https://streets.mn/2015/01/14/map-of-the-day-state-highway-taxes-vs-state-highway-spending/ https://streets.mn/2015/01/14/map-of-the-day-state-highway-t... Though it should really be a percentage-based map using population size, rather than using absolute amounts. edit2: ah, this is pretty decent, even though it's not a map - https://ofm.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/dataresearch/fiscal/county_expenditures_revenues.pdf https://ofm.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/dataresearch/f... As you can see here, King County (Seattle and nearby suburbs) sends way more to the state in revenue than it gets in spending. Most of the other counties -- which are obviously low population -- receive more in spending than revenue. In other words, they're subsidized. From what I understand, this is pretty common within states.
  - Clubber 4y ago
    Yes, it would be helpful to have a breakdown on what the spending was on. I would assume most of it is infrastructure like roads and whatnot, which people living in the expensive counties also benefit from (shipping goods, ease of travel, etc). It was funny, when Trump remarked about "shithole countries," he obviously hasn't seen rural America in a long time. As a country, we've allowed it to deteriorate quite a bit.
xyzzy21 4y ago
Honestly not the case where I am. State money only comes if for natural disasters: back when Hurricane Sandy came through, there was state money to replace bridges damaged by the rain volume. Otherwise it's handled at a county but primarily the town (which in NY is a "shire" or "borough" government level between county and city/village). There's a rotation of road resurfacing that follows a 2-5 year cycle. The key thing with roads in snow country is getting the drainage right - as long as there's no standing or under-road water to freeze, the road won't get frost-heaves which are one of the primary damage sources. So our town crews focus on drainage first and then resurfacing, and then smaller bridges. Larger bridges are generally partly funded by the county and state because of the scope but the one bridge recently replaced was over 50 years old and the new one has a similar expected life.
- TulliusCicero 4y ago
  The thing is, the kind of transportation network that in a big city will be a local road or subway, in a rural area is often a highway paid for by the federal or state government, if you're looking at equivalent use cases. I'd love to be proven wrong though, if you have opposing data.

Clubber 4y ago

Do you have any figures on this? I know during the Reagan administration the federal government heavily cut subsidization of rural areas, helping to accelerate their decline.

TulliusCicero 4y ago
It's hard to find data on this is general. I've seen a couple maps before of counties within states, and their state-level spending/revenue, but finding the same for counties when it comes to federal revenue...never seen anything like that. edit: I mean a map similar to this - https://streets.mn/2015/01/14/map-of-the-day-state-highway-taxes-vs-state-highway-spending/ https://streets.mn/2015/01/14/map-of-the-day-state-highway-t... Though it should really be a percentage-based map using population size, rather than using absolute amounts. edit2: ah, this is pretty decent, even though it's not a map - https://ofm.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/dataresearch/fiscal/county_expenditures_revenues.pdf https://ofm.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/dataresearch/f... As you can see here, King County (Seattle and nearby suburbs) sends way more to the state in revenue than it gets in spending. Most of the other counties -- which are obviously low population -- receive more in spending than revenue. In other words, they're subsidized. From what I understand, this is pretty common within states.
- Clubber 4y ago
  Yes, it would be helpful to have a breakdown on what the spending was on. I would assume most of it is infrastructure like roads and whatnot, which people living in the expensive counties also benefit from (shipping goods, ease of travel, etc). It was funny, when Trump remarked about "shithole countries," he obviously hasn't seen rural America in a long time. As a country, we've allowed it to deteriorate quite a bit.

xyzzy21 4y ago

Honestly not the case where I am. State money only comes if for natural disasters: back when Hurricane Sandy came through, there was state money to replace bridges damaged by the rain volume. Otherwise it's handled at a county but primarily the town (which in NY is a "shire" or "borough" government level between county and city/village). There's a rotation of road resurfacing that follows a 2-5 year cycle. The key thing with roads in snow country is getting the drainage right - as long as there's no standing or under-road water to freeze, the road won't get frost-heaves which are one of the primary damage sources. So our town crews focus on drainage first and then resurfacing, and then smaller bridges. Larger bridges are generally partly funded by the county and state because of the scope but the one bridge recently replaced was over 50 years old and the new one has a similar expected life.

TulliusCicero 4y ago
The thing is, the kind of transportation network that in a big city will be a local road or subway, in a rural area is often a highway paid for by the federal or state government, if you're looking at equivalent use cases. I'd love to be proven wrong though, if you have opposing data.