As to congressman... you have a parliament... in the context of this discussion is there a relevant distinction?

As to runways, finland might be similar to Alaska in the US. They deal with that situation with sea planes and ski planes. For small communities of a few thousand people that should be enough.

As to the interstate system, I was talking to some other people that were expanding the discussion to something about cities and rural areas in general and not just finland. What is more, the point remains apt for finland.

Lets say everyone left the rural areas entirely and lived only in the cities. Would you then not need roads in the rural areas? Obviously you would need them still so you could get out there efficiently. Thus the road maintenance is a zero sum game. Which was my point about rural areas and roads. Whether people live out there or not you will need the roads. Possibly slightly less of them and possibly you won't have to maintain them as much. But you can then only bill the rural areas for that difference.

As to being afraid of dying of exposure in the wild. Very few people actually die from that. Worst case, you stay by the road and someone will help you out. You might need to pay to get your car towed but you won't die.

As to being disgusted by the need to drive to get groceries, the local restaurants you frequent drive to get groceries... or things are delivered by truck. What does it matter if you do some big shopping runs at weekly or even monthly intervals that keep you supplied? I have an aunt that uses a specialty butcher that has deals with local cattle ranches. She gets the best beef you could imagine. She also gets fresh eggs, fresh produce, and locally made cheese.

I'm sorry... but you can't compete with that food in the city unless you're paying an arm and a leg. Most people that live in the city eat cheap food. In the country cheap food can also be GREAT food. Another of my relatives lives near an apple orchard. They can get all the apples they want for basically nothing.

As to it being cheaper for the very poor... only because they're subsidized. You take away the rent control, the EBT cards, and other crap and they could not afford to live in the city. And without that, many of the economic systems that rely on their labor would collapse... and that would mean much of what keeps the modern city viable would fall apart. Those same people would probably be a lot happier in small towns where they could at least feel like they are a part of a community rather then just a number in a machine.

As to crime being lower in cities... you must be joking:
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?t...

I'm sorry, but that is 180 degrees off correct. Rural communities have the lowest crime anywhere. Suburban areas have slightly more crime and the cities have the most crime. Typically the crime rate goes up with population. Think about it... more victims and more anonymity. If someone starts doing that in a small town... very quickly everyone will simply know who you are and what you do. It doesn't work. The sort of criminal you get in small towns tends to be drifters... traveling criminals. But they're not very common.

As to why one would prefer to live in the rural area... well... you're entitled to your own opinions... but not your own facts. Your information is wrong. By all means, have any opinion about ACTUAL facts but you don't get to just make things up.

How is it good that you as a social creature are completely alienated from everyone else?

You're calling this natural but its not.

You are more social in a small town. You actually know people and they actually know you.

As to distant farms... go to your grosery store and tell me where the fruit in the produce section came from. Bet its farther then 500 miles. If you're in the north east it could be well over two thousand miles. So that's just a silly statement.

As to live music at night, you can get that anywhere. Go to a rural Italian farming village. They have music every night. Its THEIR music made by THEIR people for THEIR people. You act like music didn't exist before this absurd population crush. The ancient city of Athens 2000 years ago had only about 140 thousand people. Of that only about 40 thousand were both male and not slaves. Want to bet they had music, art, plays, etc?

You don't need a big population for any of that. You just need culture.

A modern example would be Santa Fe New Mexico. They have a population of about 70 thousand... and a full Opera company, plays, music festivals, many art galleries, a big artist community, etc etc etc.

As to cities being easier on the environment, you're only saying that as an alternative to an endless suburban sprawl. I would agree that packing people in would be better then an endless Los Angeles with single story houses going on for hundreds of miles.

However that is not what I am talking about. I am instead talking about small scattered towns with lots of empty space between. You can't tell me the small town is hurting the environment more then the mega cities. That's just silly. The concentrated waste that comes out of those cities takes massive facilities to make anything less then horrifically toxic.

As to cities subsidizing the rest of the country, that is a product of our political system not a need of rural communities. Rural communities send their representatives to washington to ask for lower taxes and less regulation. If/when they cannot get that, the representatives ask for what they CAN get instead. Over the years the rural communities have gotten these compromises instead of what they actually wanted which was to be left alone.

Logistically, there is no reason they couldn't provide most of these services themselves. If anything, the cities have made efforts to stop small towns from setting up their own ISPs. We get articles about it on slashdot all the time. read one of them.

As to racists, idiots, etc... those are found everywhere. Literally. Everywhere. You can get concentrations of them in some towns and maybe a town might be run by such people. But that's just a roll of the dice. You get similar things in big cities. I will grant the big cities tend to have very bland consistent ineffectual politicians that don't especially represent or inspire anyone. Yes, they're rarely racists but they're also much more often corrupt products of machine politics. That is, they're not racists because what they really are is opportunists in it for the money.

As to ignorance, I've lived in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. I question whether you've ever stepped outside of your bubble. And that being the likely case, I question your right to call anyone else ignorant on the issue. Your arguments were mostly stereotypes perpetuated by television that drones buy into because they don't know any better.

In the US, professional football is actually sustained by television... not stadium attendance. What is more, you have many teams in small cities or even towns that do quite well.

The Green Bay Packers for example are based in Green Bay Wisconsin... which has a population of about 100,000.

So there you go... football team... at 100,000... now explain why you need to have 15 million people in the same place?

As to bands and other entertainment venues, you can't be telling me you live in the city to go to music concerts and football games.

For one thing, you could commute for that sort of thing. Consider the motorcycle conventions. People ride them from hundreds if not thousands of miles away just to all show up in the same place and have a convention. They could do it anywhere. One of the bigger ones "Sturgis" happens in Sturgis south Dakota every year and draws about half a MILLION people every year. Guess what the population of Sturgis is normally? About six thousand.

So I call bunk on your whole notion. It makes no sense. I know a lot of people that live in New York and they never go to plays, theater, shows, concerts, or anything. They just live there. And what portion of that city's population do you think actually does any of that stuff? A small fraction of the population does a lot of it. That and tourists. But most of the people that actually live there? Not so much.

Rent control.
Project housing.
EBT cards.
etc...

I really have no patience for these cherry picked statistical games.

Yes, the cities also generate a lot of revenue but most of that revenue comes the top 10 percent of the earning population in those cities. While a large portion of the city's population is heavily subsidized one way or the other.

The difference between rich and poor is a good deal flatter outside the cities. And the rate and nature of subsidization is very different.

Most subsidization of rural communities you would point to would be things like rural airports, roads, and telephone service. However, in most of these communities they don't actually need it. They just get it because their congressman felt he had to get his district something. People in those regions generally only want one thing... low taxes and being left alone. That's pretty much the only thing they ask from their politicians. And when that isn't going to happen because the political winds have blown otherwise, their politicians instead try to get their rural constituents SOMETHING for their money.

Over time his builds up to the subsidies you're talking about. But these are consequences of our political system... not logistical needs.

Airports are not expensive to set up and maintain... especially small airfields. A dirt runway is perfectly servicable if the airport doesn't see much traffic. And a simple asphalt runway is no big deal either. You see these on Pacific islands. Nothing wrong with them and they're not expensive. You can't land big planes on them but rural communities don't need big planes.

As to roads, the interstate system was set up mostly for military reasons after WW2. It is therefore a national expense and not anything specific to rural communities. The roads not part of the interstate do not need to be subsidized. Some of the might turn into dirt roads if you did that but without exception any road with so little traffic that that was an issue would naturally not be badly effected by the change.

As to telephone lines, this is something of a self fulfilling prophesy at this point. If you offer them something they will use it. If you shut down the copper line phone system in some of the really remote areas people would just start using radio repeaters. That is assuming the FCC doesn't block the move which is fairly typical of them.

TLDR? Rural areas could adapt very easily and change very little if the subsidies got cut off. if you did the same in the cities the whole pathetic mess would collapse in on itself.

If the mediated market sets prices and sets terms then they could control who participates.

More to the point, you're making it hard for me to just have a car which limits my independence.

Yes... someone makes a critical argument about a dumb idea and they're automatically luddites. You're unworthy of an opinion.

Complexity. the "vertical" transport system only goes to given floors in a given building. The roads go everywhere. I can drive from NYC to Los Angeles... and anywhere in between.

This whole congestion issue is a product of poor urban planning. We already have to heavily subsidize and incentivize city dwelling to keep the density this high. And these transport projects are just doubling down on the concept to pack people tighter and tighter for no apparent reason.

Just go live in the suburbs or some other place. Why do you need to live in that city? How tiny of an apartment are you willing to live in just for that privilege?

I question whether that is a real thing. If you consider our history, we didn't live in anything like this density. What is more, instinctually we have no bond with practically anyone in the city. They're just faces. They mean nothing to you. You don't know who they are and they have no lasting impact on your life. Any one of those faces could die tomorrow and you wouldn't even notice.

So tell me again about this herding instinct because it frankly sounds like bullshit.

Sure, but not the cars, taxis, buses, etc.

I'll never live anywhere that won't let me have a car or where for whatever reason cars are uneconomical. I just refuse to live like that. Some people like living in cities where only mass transit is practical. I really don't see why people pack themselves in that tightly. What is the point of doing that in the 21st century. In the pre-digital pre-airplane world I could see the point. But today? Why...

It makes no sense. Spread out, people. Its a big world. Doesn't anyone want to listen to music without having to worry about whether the neighbors will object? Doesn't anyone want a dog or a garden or just some space that is theirs?

I think the big cities are anachronisms at this point. I don't see why we bother with them. With the right communications we could run the same economy with employees distributed across the country pretty much where ever they wanted to live.

This is not an attack on cities... if you really like living cheek by jowl with people then by all means... pack yourself in. It just seems there are increasing problems with the idea.

Security/crime issues, education issues, political issues, transport issues, economic issues... just lots of stuff. I'm sure it has good qualities but I don't see how the pros outweigh the cons for any but the enthusiast.

count me out... this sort of stuff just makes me want to live on a remote tropical island and spend my days fishing.

just because family members share passwords doesn't mean its insecure. I know the password to most of my parents email and accounts. But so what... I won't do anything they wouldn't approve of and know them well enough to know what they would and would not approve of... so who cares.

And as to companies... most of them are small and medium sized businesses that have overlapping responsibilities. In those cases, SOME people know some passwords. But rarely does everyone in the office know all the passwords.

Its not unreasonable.