> we're going to get serious about climate change, will that mean $10 gas? Even with electric cars, the cost will increase. Will we continue to spend a fortune

> we're going to get serious about climate change, will that mean $10 gas? Even with electric cars, the cost will increase. Will we continue to spend a fortune on roads and other accommodations for rural life? I've heard this take before, and I find it wild. Sure, in terms of tax revenue; cities subsidize rural areas. But cities also could not exist without rural areas. Where is food grown? Where does large manufacturing happen? Chemical processing? Mining? Oil? Solar & wind farms? If you want to talk about sustainability; from an ecological perspective; cities are insanely unsustainable. Talk about tax revenue, service work, mind work; sure cities dominate. But the balance flips when we start talking about real, tangible economic output. And moreover, if we're talking about global warming, as you have; I think that matters. I don't think there's a reality where US leadership forgets how critical its rural economic base is to surviving the water and food wars. I've lived in a lot of cities and rural areas. Public infra is just bad, everywhere. This isn't a situation where "oh the big cities have so much tax revenue, their streets are amazing and the wow the schools, healthcare is perfect and" nah. Its bad everywhere. You'll stumble across random counties in the middle of nowhere with hundreds of miles of the best roads you've ever driven on. You'll drive into a city of two million people and the roads look like a war happened yesterday. Its money. Its corruption. Its historical socioeconomic forces. Its a ton of different variables; density can be one, but go to any major US city and look up the best school systems. They're rarely inside the dense city; they're in that rich, less dense suburb 45 minutes outside the city. Density is correlated; but very poorly.