Why Rural America Needs Cities

[CherryCreek]

I support the free markets. If the modern economy values cities more than rural America, then we should simply accept that.

I'm against expending resources to artificially prop up "rural America" out of sentimentality.

Perhaps additional parts of rural America will revert to their natural state, allowing the return of forests and vegetation, which will help with climate change.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

Both UK and France have capital regions with significantly higher economic development than most other regions, it's a mixed bag in both countries as to how far behind those other regions are. On the other hand those capital regions also have much higher living costs than the regions which might not be the case so much in say Germany or Italy.

The UK actually has more regions with GDP per capita above the EU average than France does but also more regions right down at the bottom of the table (if you exclude the French overseas departments).



It depends how you are measuring 'better off' of course, if you are looking at physical attractiveness of the built environment or public infrastructure rather than just GDP per capita or average wages then that's a different matter I guess.

Does this account for PPP? I believe GDP/capita of the UK and France is nearly identical around $44K when adjusted for PPP.

[Jonesy55]

That's not adjusted for PPP, they are pretty identical once you do that at the national level, and at current exchange rates they are also pretty identical as the exchange rate at the moment is very similar to the PPP rate, the pound was a bit stronger in 2016.

There's no such thing as PPP rates for individual regions though and price levels can vary a lot between regions of the same country.

[Crawford]

From what I've seen, the rural UK appears more prosperous than rural France, but I might have a highly unrepresentative experience.

I'm most familiar with NE France (near Belgium/Germany) and the southern half of England, and English villages and small towns seem much more well kept and thriving. A lot of the small towns in NE France are crumbling and look rather poor compared to adjacent towns in Germany.

That said, southern England is obviously heavily influenced by weekend/holiday goers from London and NE France is basically their Rust Belt.

Little villages like this are typical of NE France. Super quaint, but looks like nothing was built in 100 years:
https://www.google.com/maps/@49.5444...7i13312!8i6656

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

That's not adjusted for PPP, they are pretty identical once you do that at the national level, and at current exchange rates they are also pretty identical as the exchange rate at the moment is very similar to the PPP rate, the pound was a bit stronger in 2016.

There's no such thing as PPP rates for individual regions though and price levels can vary a lot between regions of the same country.

Got it, thanks. And yes, I understand these are at the national level.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

I support the free markets. If the modern economy values cities more than rural America, then we should simply accept that.

I'm against expending resources to artificially prop up "rural America" out of sentimentality.

Perhaps additional parts of rural America will revert to their natural state, allowing the return of forests and vegetation, which will help with climate change.

Lol Urbanized areas are far worse for "climate change" than rural areas are.

If you actually want to combat "climate change" the only thing that would make a major effect at this point would be eliminating a large portion of the human population and going back 100 years in living standards.

Also the widespread adoption of nuclear power but nobody seems to want to do that.

As that isnt going to happen, the viable option is just to deal with its consequences.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Crawford

From what I've seen, the rural UK appears more prosperous than rural France, but I might have a highly unrepresentative experience.

I'm most familiar with NE France (near Belgium/Germany) and the southern half of England, and English villages and small towns seem much more well kept and thriving. A lot of the small towns in NE France are crumbling and look rather poor compared to adjacent towns in Germany.

That said, southern England is obviously heavily influenced by weekend/holiday goers from London and NE France is basically their Rust Belt.

So you’ve seen the worst part of France and the most prosperous part of England.

Somewhere like the Cotswolds or Dorset would be best compared to Burgundy wine country or parts of Provence, rather than northern France.

France also has places outside of Paris which look like this:

https://goo.gl/maps/di8WDBgQKh72

French secondary and tertiary cities absolutely mop the floor with English ones.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Lol Urbanized areas are far worse for "climate change" than rural areas are.

This is not true on a per capita basis (which is the one that counts).

In fact I suspect urban residents could actually match their carbon footprint of 100 years ago. You’d need to use a bit less plastic and disposable goods, but then we’re not all burning coal for heat anymore.

Suburban life is completely impossible without an enormous carbon footprint, because one is entirely dependent upon automobiles for transportation.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by 10023

This is not true on a per capita basis (which is the one that counts).

In fact I suspect urban residents could actually match their carbon footprint of 100 years ago. You’d need to use a bit less plastic and disposable goods, but then we’re not all burning coal for heat anymore.

Suburban life is completely impossible without an enormous carbon footprint, because one is entirely dependent upon automobiles for transportation.

Suburban life is not rural life.

Suburban is Urban. Its just less dense Urban than what you consider a "city" everything being shipped into your city is trucked in using fossil fuels, your electricity is created using mostly fossil fuels, your electronics are made out of plastics, which are fossil fuels. Your goods shipped from China on ships powered by fossil fuels, and trains fuled by fossil fuels, and the steaks you eat and cheese and whine you consume use fossil fuels to fertilize, package, ship to your hungry gullet. Hell the dairy and beef cattle even fart methane and consume countless pounds of feed-corn that also requires fossil fuels to produce.

100 years ago most people still got the majority of their food from he immediate area, well maybe more like 120 years ago. But the modern world exists on fossil fuels city life (including the suburbs) are absolutely dependent on it.

I wish I found it surprising that delusional urbanophiles literally think their shit doesn't stink lol "I contribute as much to global warming as someone 100 years ago"

completely delusional

[Emprise du Lion]

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

I support the free markets. If the modern economy values cities more than rural America, then we should simply accept that.

I'm against expending resources to artificially prop up "rural America" out of sentimentality.

Perhaps additional parts of rural America will revert to their natural state, allowing the return of forests and vegetation, which will help with climate change.

I don’t have a dog in the rural vs urban (well, city/suburban anyway) fight as I frankly don’t have strong feelings about rural areas, but it’s becoming fairly obvious that as rural areas and other struggling small to midsize metropoloitan areas continue to stagnate or worse, decline, that we’re going to see a lot more political fracturing and discord going forward.

Rural and other low population states have an oversized influence in Congress in comparison to their size, and that’s not going away anytime soon.

The solution can’t be “what happens, happens,” otherwise 2016 is going to look like a cakewalk in the future.

[McBane]

Originally Posted by Crawford

But this is how it generally works in (West) Germany. My dad is from a village that's a 30-40 minute car or transit ride to three mid-sized metros, all with near-zero unemployment and tons of white collar jobs.

The village isn't posh, or depressed. It has a couple of decent independent restaurants and markets. Schools are the same as in cities. The built environment is fantastic, and goes from 300-year old homes to forest. Outside of everything shutting down early, and no diversity, you're lacking almost nothing.

In contrast, rural America looks temporary and withered, food is terrible, private sector jobs are lacking, minimal sense of place, transit is nonexistent. Commerce is chain crap near the highway exist. Homes are cheaply built and rotting away. Applebees, Dollar General and trailer parks.

I remember flying over Germany and was blown away by its efficiency from the sky. It wasn't endless sprawl. There was so much open space dotted with small villages. Israel is another country that lacks sprawl. You either live in a city or a close-knit village surrounded by open space. No random houses along the side of the road or low density sprawl. I wish America could have developed in this pattern.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by McBane

I remember flying over Germany and was blown away by its efficiency from the sky. It wasn't endless sprawl. There was so much open space dotted with small villages. Israel is another country that lacks sprawl. You either live in a city or a close-knit village surrounded by open space. No random houses along the side of the road or low density sprawl. I wish America could have developed in this pattern.

It would have, had it developed at the same time and constraints of Germany.

Israel felt like a less dense southern California to me, it didn't feel efficient at all in my opinion

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Obadno

But regaurdless Cities cannot exist without the hinterlands supporting them, some concept that rural areas will cease to exist is retarded.

I agree that cities cannot exist without hinterlands. But generally speaking, rural areas are not the "hinterlands" of cities anymore. Those are suburbs and exurbs. Rural America is in contrast non-metropolitan - not tied to any city at all.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Suburban life is not rural life.

Suburban is Urban. Its just less dense Urban than what you consider a "city" everything being shipped into your city is trucked in using fossil fuels, your electricity is created using mostly fossil fuels, your electronics are made out of plastics, which are fossil fuels. Your goods shipped from China on ships powered by fossil fuels, and trains fuled by fossil fuels, and the steaks you eat and cheese and whine you consume use fossil fuels to fertilize, package, ship to your hungry gullet. Hell the dairy and beef cattle even fart methane and consume countless pounds of feed-corn that also requires fossil fuels to produce.

100 years ago most people still got the majority of their food from he immediate area, well maybe more like 120 years ago. But the modern world exists on fossil fuels city life (including the suburbs) are absolutely dependent on it.

I wish I found it surprising that delusional urbanophiles literally think their shit doesn't stink lol "I contribute as much to global warming as someone 100 years ago"

completely delusional

But it’s not urban. And rural life involves a lot of driving too.

The 8.5 million people in NYC or London would definitely have a bigger carbon footprint if they were living in rural areas. That’s pretty obvious.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

You made up the idea that you can’t make a good living in a small town in America — Which is crawfordian non-sense.

I believe what he was saying is the quality of life in rural parts of the U.S. is much lower than in rural areas in other developed countries.

Originally Posted by CherryCreek

I'm against expending resources to artificially prop up "rural America" out of sentimentality.

The ironic thing is part of what makes rural life in Europe so much more picturesque and walkable than the U.S. is the difference in land management. Essentially Europe - unlike the U.S. - places value not only in having undeveloped wild land like parks, but conserving productive agricultural land relatively close in to cities and towns. This cuts down on the whole suburban sprawl thing, making even rural areas more a collection of discrete dense villages separated by open farmland.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I believe what he was saying is the quality of life in rural parts of the U.S. is much lower than in rural areas in other developed countries.



The ironic thing is part of what makes rural life in Europe so much more picturesque and walkable than the U.S. is the difference in land management. Essentially Europe - unlike the U.S. - places value not only in having undeveloped wild land like parks, but conserving productive agricultural land relatively close in to cities and towns. This cuts down on the whole suburban sprawl thing, making even rural areas more a collection of discrete dense villages separated by open farmland.

Also slow methodical and thousands of years of verying laws and ecinomic systems and technologies to contend with.

If europe had develpped post industrializatrion it would look very much like the USA

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by 10023

But it’s not urban. And rural life involves a lot of driving too.

The 8.5 million people in NYC or London would definitely have a bigger carbon footprint if they were living in rural areas. That’s pretty obvious.

I dont expect mr. "why do people have trucks" to even begin to fathom the reality of how cities actually opeprate without collapsing into mass death but you arent saving the planet by living in NYC, I dont even know where to begin witht your premise, I wrote a whole rant about why that isnt true.

If you want to be green the only way to do so is to live ona self-sufficient farm (ore die) . Otherwise you are just playing at conservationsim to appease your sensibilities and hip social circle.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Obadno

If europe had develpped post industrializatrion it would look very much like the USA

One huge difference is that Europe never have North American-style farms. The U.S. is comparatively empty but there isn't much "open space" for trails and other public connections, while Europe is dense but tons of land for public movement.

My family were farmers, for generations, but farmers were always in villages, originally for protection (villages usually paid larger towns for security). Agricultural land was always separate from where people lived.

And nowadays you can still wander between villages. There are no fences. There's no chance some one is gonna shoot you for setting foot on their land.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Crawford

And nowadays you can still wander between villages. There are no fences. There's no chance some one is gonna shoot you for setting foot on their land.

Outside of that cartoonish assesment of rural america (almost all gun crime and shootings happen in urban areas)

That is a very recent development for thousands of years you could very much be shot, stoned, drawn and quarterd, etc for stepping on the wrogn land.

This happens to be one of the very few anomolies of hegemonic stability in that regaurd. Probably wont last forever either.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Obadno

I wish I found it surprising that delusional urbanophiles literally think their shit doesn't stink lol "I contribute as much to global warming as someone 100 years ago"

completely delusional

To be fair not every city dweller is as delusional as 10023. So far as I can tell he basically pretends everything outside the city centers of the top 10 cities in the world doesn't even exist. I mean his statement that city dwellers have the same carbon footprint as 100 years ago is ridiculous even in NYC, but it's doubly ridiculous is every other major US city like LA where driving makes up a huge percentage of the trips and those trips are often very long (not to mention city driving is much less efficient unless you have a hybrid). Regardless, the global warming issues associated with driving will hopefully be mitigated in the not to distant future with electric cars and virtually all of the green power in the US comes from rural areas so once again even insofar as it's true that they produce more CO2 per capita they also produce basically all of the green power (albeit also most of the fossil fuels too).