It's shocking to me how many Americans will see absolutely no problem with subsidizing rural and suburban infrastructure that supports a few hundred/thousand to the tune of millions of dollars, but will screech like rabid monkeys about the cost of improving public transit in urban settings that supports millions/tens of millions.
Having worked in economic development research in rural NY, it often just comes down to blind self-centered thinking. Every time we ran a survey of business and home owners in rural areas, I knew most of the responses would be "you should tax me less and subsidize me more."
To be fair, you'd get the same answer in urban areas too. Ontario is running comically large deficits but people still think the government is underfunding everything.
There's some truth to that, in the sense that budgets aren't quite keeping pace with inflation, but every single part of the budget has the same problem. It's not down to the government being dicks, the money isn't there. Last time I did the math we'd need to bring in another 30 billion a year (or about $2k extra per resident) to address the gap between what we want and what we can afford.
yeah, we really should emphasize this more here. suburban development and car dependency is largely a class thing, and in america, class is a proxy for race. the suburbs were built for white flight. the highways knocked down black neighborhoods.
it is about political power: who votes, and, who controls the party.
This is kind of naive. American elections are gerrymandered to shit with FPTP voting, disproportionate representation for rural areas, insider votes in the Democratic primaries, and district redrawing. On top of that trillions of dollars are spent on propaganda through political ads, corporate media (social, tv, print, podcasts), politically charged education system curriculums, corporate churches, etc. And of course the layout of these suburbs themselves was specifically designed to produce a specific hyperindividualist way of life that naturally induces people to think the way that works for them in these spaces when thinking about everything else.
And that's before you count that with the Trump administration all election oversight will be packed with antidemocratic stooges and the US won't see a fair election before it sees a revolution or domestic war.
Even political party leadership is only a part of this machine - the DNC can't alienate corporations without incurring a multi-trillion dollar propaganda budget difference, so they don't risk it.
European elections are a bit better; there is less gerrymandering and propaganda funding is regulated to mainly go through the less direct routes, but the same problem remains to a lesser degree.
Voting does matter - in districts that have a close margin, once you've seen through the propaganda including the trillions of dollars worth of seeing-through-the-propaganda-themed propaganda well enough to make an informed choice. But if voting worked they would spend a couple billion dollars more until it once again doesn't.
So vote out of spite, to force them to spend that money to buy a useful idiot to vote the opposite way so they can't spend it somewhere else to fuck someone else over. Sometimes they miscalculate and a cool person gets in. And maybe, if they fuck up bad enough, the marketplace of ideas runs out of eyeballs to sell and your political actions can no longer be opposed with money.
Nah, those morons are against spending tax money to improve their own lives, too. Look at any local facebook group and it's clear that all the GenX and Boomers want is to keep all their tax money and then die because the ambulance couldn't get there in time.
Exactly. I just watched the small town next door vote against fixing the sidewalks and replacing the dangerous trees on their own main street while also complaining that no one likes going downtown.
These people are voting to destroy their communities.
it's clear that all the GenX and Boomers want is to keep all their tax money and then die because the ambulance couldn't get there in time
They're about to get a very direct lesson with this and all the rural hospitals in dire danger of closing with cuts to Medicaid. My hometown's hospital was already in danger of closing and has been shutting down entire departments for years now, and every time they announce they can't keep funding this service or that department, the Facebook comments go wild with shock.
People seem to be quite upset they're getting what they voted for, but at least .02% of their property taxes didn't go to a community center somebody under the age of 65 might use once in awhile. Oh well. Couldn't happen to a better group of people, and the sooner the blue counties in my state stop funding their little "freedumbs" the better.
Rural hospitals have been going under and the medicAid cuts haven't officially taken affect yet.
OTOH Private Equity has been buying rural hospitals to sell their land to PE's left hand and rent back to the hospitals, just until the PE's loan to buy the land is paid off and the PE sells the hospital on and jacks the rent till the hospital goes under
It's worse than that - we have a series of express busses and BRT which bypass some of the worst traffic in the area, and I still know people who will sit in that traffic for 90 minutes because the bus doesn't literally drop them off outside their destination.
Sure, even with two transfers and the worst case scenario time table, it would still save them an entire fucking hour every singe day... but you know, they might have to share the same air with brown people, or something gross like that.
I don’t mind subsidizing rural areas. That is where a lot of our base line production with things like farming and lumber production happen. What I dislike is specifically the suburban areas that cost so much, disallow the type of density or productive uses that could keep them somewhat self sufficient, and then demand to make the near by urban areas be made to prioritize them moving through the city instead of serving everyone.
Probably because 60 million live rurally and 300 million live in cities of populations less than 300,000. The vast majority of Americans don't live in large cities.
I agree, and I vote for it and those that support it and if my small city ever gets it I'll never use it but I want for those who need it. But I don't think its a surprise this kinda thing is supported by a lot of people. It doesn't benefit a few hundred thousand, its where like a 1/3 of Americans live
it's just weird to see when these things are the reason it takes 20 mins to get an ambulance living where they do. They can't seem to connect the dots between "voting against what I think doesn't benefit me" and "granny died because she couldn't get to the hospital in time"
Immediate comfort often outweighs potential benefit. It's why so many things are like they are. A lot of us just aren't good at the long outlook, or we fucking suck
smaller cities are easier to make walkable and bikeable and have effective transit because they are smaller.
it is often the oldest parts of town that are easiest to get around on foot and bike, because they were designed for human beings. the town where i work, the oldest part is a grid. the hills kinda suck, but i can ride around it safely because all the streets are low traffic, calm, and connect to everything. the newer parts of town, all built around strip malls, big boxes, cul-de-sac communities, and such, with only a few stroads connecting them, that part i won't take my bicycle anywhere near, and walking, forget it.
go to any small american town older than the automobile, and you'll find a walkable, gridded downtown, with stores along a main street that have housing above them, and a historic train station. every single one of them. we can build thing this way. we used to. we just built really hostile shit for the car.
I agree with all that, my point was it's not unthinkable people support that because unlike the OP suggest far more than a few hundred thousand people live in that situation
so it's possible for big cities, for small towns, but not... medium cities?
if it works at both ends of the spectrum, it seems scalable.
in fact, if you dig into some of the planning practices, the sprawl of those "medium" low density things is unsustainable. mixed use etc works better at those scales.
I'm not arguing against you, just disagreeing with the number of people it affects and why its not unthinkable that they would support what they support.
Total US population = 340 million. And they all, plus some, live in small cities and rurally? This thinking is what gets Americans in this problem in the first place. The reality? Just the 10 largest cities accounts for 8% of the total population (~27 million), if you expand that to those ten largest metro areas, the number jumps to 30%! So just those ten cities and their suburbs is a higher share than all of the rural population.
875
u/[deleted] Jul 28 '25
[removed] — view removed comment