Believe it or not, rural life isn't a new-fangled innovation; it was the default for all of human history and prehistory up until about 2007. Disease is a part

Believe it or not, rural life isn't a new-fangled innovation; it was the default for all of human history and prehistory up until about 2007. Disease is a particularly curious example because disease spreads much more readily in an urban environment. Moreover, just because you're in a rural area doesn't mean you live far from a hospital. My parents live in a rural area and they're 5 minutes from a clinic and 20 minutes to a hospital (perhaps a dozen hospital options in a 40 minute radius and multiple world-class healthcare options in a 3 hour radius). But yes, if you are seriously disabled and you have no meaningful community to help you, then you're probably going to have a hard life in a rural area. Further still, if you move everyone out of rural areas, then you are basically committing your food production to large-scale industrial farming operations as that's the only way it can be done with sufficiently few people. > And then there is the power imbalance a supplier will have over a small rural town, as it is unlikely that there is much to choose from, and no real power to influence a large company anyway. So now you're stuck with undrinkable water, bad internet, and barely any healthcare. ISP monopolies are a problem everywhere, and I don't know why a rural community with their own wells would be subject to worse water quality than an exurban community like Flint or urban communities like Jackson, Baltimore, or NYC. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-growing-drinking-water-crisis-threatens-american-cities-and-towns/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-growing-drinkin... There are also a lot of benefits to living in rural areas--fresher food, cleaner air, access to more/better nature, closer-knit community, dramatically less violent crime, etc.