5 ms·

I hear a lot of them argue about how rural people waste space and how they’re sick of subsidizing rural infrastructure and we should impose policies which furth

I hear a lot of them argue about how rural people waste space and how they’re sick of subsidizing rural infrastructure and we should impose policies which further incentivize people to migrate from rural to urban areas. The thrust of the issue seems to be directed at suburbs (if only because many of these folks are only marginally aware of the world beyond the suburbs), but rural life is still wholly incompatible with their car free utopian vision (although more than a few have amusingly proposed extending public transit to every rural community!).

imw 5y ago
Fascinating. I've spent a fair amount of time in/around pro-livability discussions, and I've never really come across what you're describing. In my experience a solid portion of the folks advocating for more human-friendly cities are urban dwellers who spend significant time in nature and/or wilderness.
ryukafalz 5y ago
> and how they’re sick of subsidizing rural infrastructure I mean, it’s fine if you want to live somewhere rural, but why should that be subsidized?
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  I’m fine with not subsidizing it but we subsidize all sorts of public goods—schools, libraries, etc. It’s not exactly unusual.
  - ryukafalz 5y ago
    Let me rephrase that: why should we subsidize it more than we subsidize the equivalent infrastructure in urban areas? It costs a lot more to provide infrastructure to rural areas than urban ones. If we expect both of these to be fully paid for by our taxes, and if we expect the tax burden to be similar, that means those of us living in cities are subsidizing those living in rural ones. (And note I'm not talking about actual agricultural industries that require that much space, I'm talking about people living in rural areas just because they like it better. Everyone depends on farms, we can subsidize those.) I'm fine with people living in rural areas if they want to, but I don't think we should expect city-dwellers to subsidize them if they do.
    - Loughla 5y ago
      >I'm not talking about actual agricultural industries that require that much space, I'm talking about people living in rural areas just because they like it better. Everyone depends on farms, we can subsidize those So what about the people who live there to provide education to the farmers' kids? What about the people who work at the local restaurants and grocery stores that serve farmers? What about the people who live there to provide trash service for the people who serve the farmers? Where does it end and why does it end at that point? Society [noun]: the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. It's not like we can lay out roads and say, "this is for farm machinery only, nobody else gets to use it." So, via subsidizing agriculture, you are going to subsidize some people who choose to live out there. I don't get how you could possibly disentangle that in any way that isn't completely unsustainable. I also don't understand why you would want to; something, something, common good.
      - ryukafalz 5y ago
        Sure, you can’t completely disentangle those things. But providing services to far-out communities takes a disproportionate amount of resources; if we pretend that it doesn’t and make it seem just as cheap as living in urban areas, we’re just encouraging more people to move out there who don’t need to. We’ve already got a ton of crumbling infrastructure and that’s in part because we’ve built too much of it to possibly maintain and it’s catching up to us. I’m not saying I have all the answers, but something has to give.
        throwaway894345 5y ago
        I'm not sure "we built too much of it" as much as we failed to anticipate or account for trends such as urbanization. Anyway, it's probably more productive and less prone to chauvinism to frame it as prioritizing high value/cost infrastructure rather than morally upright urbanites subsidizing lazy, freeloading rural people (I'm exaggerating here for effect, but that's often the tone that this framing conveys whether or not it's intended). That said, I fully support gradually decommissioning the lowest value/cost infrastructure.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  I mean, it’s fine if you want to live somewhere rural, but why should that be subsidized? I mean, it's fine if you want to live somewhere urban, but why should that be subsidized? I don't think we should necessarily subsidize more heavily for folks who want to live rural, but many want/need to. Of course we should subsidize schools, utilities, and other human rights for them just like we do for urban areas. I'm also not convinced rural areas are more expensive to subsidize. Clearly many things are more expensive in rural areas, but also many things are more expensive in cities. That's a complicated equation to put it mildly.
- kortilla 5y ago
  The same reason it’s fine to subsidize bridges, public transport, and the food that enables cities?m

imw 5y ago

Fascinating. I've spent a fair amount of time in/around pro-livability discussions, and I've never really come across what you're describing. In my experience a solid portion of the folks advocating for more human-friendly cities are urban dwellers who spend significant time in nature and/or wilderness.

ryukafalz 5y ago

> and how they’re sick of subsidizing rural infrastructure I mean, it’s fine if you want to live somewhere rural, but why should that be subsidized?

throwaway894345 5y ago
I’m fine with not subsidizing it but we subsidize all sorts of public goods—schools, libraries, etc. It’s not exactly unusual.
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  Let me rephrase that: why should we subsidize it more than we subsidize the equivalent infrastructure in urban areas? It costs a lot more to provide infrastructure to rural areas than urban ones. If we expect both of these to be fully paid for by our taxes, and if we expect the tax burden to be similar, that means those of us living in cities are subsidizing those living in rural ones. (And note I'm not talking about actual agricultural industries that require that much space, I'm talking about people living in rural areas just because they like it better. Everyone depends on farms, we can subsidize those.) I'm fine with people living in rural areas if they want to, but I don't think we should expect city-dwellers to subsidize them if they do.
  - Loughla 5y ago
    >I'm not talking about actual agricultural industries that require that much space, I'm talking about people living in rural areas just because they like it better. Everyone depends on farms, we can subsidize those So what about the people who live there to provide education to the farmers' kids? What about the people who work at the local restaurants and grocery stores that serve farmers? What about the people who live there to provide trash service for the people who serve the farmers? Where does it end and why does it end at that point? Society [noun]: the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community. It's not like we can lay out roads and say, "this is for farm machinery only, nobody else gets to use it." So, via subsidizing agriculture, you are going to subsidize some people who choose to live out there. I don't get how you could possibly disentangle that in any way that isn't completely unsustainable. I also don't understand why you would want to; something, something, common good.
    - ryukafalz 5y ago
      Sure, you can’t completely disentangle those things. But providing services to far-out communities takes a disproportionate amount of resources; if we pretend that it doesn’t and make it seem just as cheap as living in urban areas, we’re just encouraging more people to move out there who don’t need to. We’ve already got a ton of crumbling infrastructure and that’s in part because we’ve built too much of it to possibly maintain and it’s catching up to us. I’m not saying I have all the answers, but something has to give.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        I'm not sure "we built too much of it" as much as we failed to anticipate or account for trends such as urbanization. Anyway, it's probably more productive and less prone to chauvinism to frame it as prioritizing high value/cost infrastructure rather than morally upright urbanites subsidizing lazy, freeloading rural people (I'm exaggerating here for effect, but that's often the tone that this framing conveys whether or not it's intended). That said, I fully support gradually decommissioning the lowest value/cost infrastructure.
JohnBooty 5y ago
I mean, it’s fine if you want to live somewhere rural, but why should that be subsidized? I mean, it's fine if you want to live somewhere urban, but why should that be subsidized? I don't think we should necessarily subsidize more heavily for folks who want to live rural, but many want/need to. Of course we should subsidize schools, utilities, and other human rights for them just like we do for urban areas. I'm also not convinced rural areas are more expensive to subsidize. Clearly many things are more expensive in rural areas, but also many things are more expensive in cities. That's a complicated equation to put it mildly.
kortilla 5y ago
The same reason it’s fine to subsidize bridges, public transport, and the food that enables cities?m