> What rights are being trampled on here?

That's really not that hard of a question to answer, if you're willing to have some empathy and look at things from someone else's point of view. I say that as someone who has always lived in a large city.

Clearly, it's the rights of small communities, with significant material and cultural differences from large cities, to have a degree of self-determination and a real say in how they are governed.

Your choice of words shows a view that it's somehow unjust for these communities not to be dominated by distant, populous, and likely unsympathetic overlords.