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Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

The only reason cars are viable "outside large towns/cities" is because the large cities are subsidizing road construction in rural areas.

Those rural area voters, in turn, elect politicians who scream blue bloody murder about how high taxes are, and refuse to vote for funding for public transportation...something that would benefit the cities generating the wealth the rural areas.

Isn't it wild how the "fiscal conservatives" always come from states that consume far more federal spending than they contribute in federal tax revenue?

Further, we over-paved rural areas in the name of "progress" - dirt roads are much, much cheaper but people hate them because they think it's a sign of being poor.

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Large cities couldn't exist without rural areas and their food production.

A very small percentage of people living in rural areas are actually in food production.

Would you want to remove all unnecessary humans from rural areas just to get rid of cars?

Completely shut down tourism to areas of natural beauty and other recreational outdoors activities too far away from the prison-city?

Except for the elite who of course get to keep their private jets and superyachts...

I'm simply stating the fact that just because food production happens outside of cities doesn't mean that most people in rural areas live there for that particular reason. It's a very common counter-argument, that cities need the countryside for food production. Which is true. But cities don't need the vast majority of people living in rural areas for food production, because they have nothing to do with food production in the first place. So it's a bad argument.

As to the other strawman arguments, it's besides my original point, but no I don't think we should forcefully move anyone. But it's just a simple fact that rural living and suburbia are heavily subsidized by the economic engines that are cities. And, accounting for economic production, cities have a much smaller environmental impact per capita.

> Except for the elite who of course get to keep their private jets and superyachts...

Judging by your comments, you seem to be of the opinion that environmentalists mostly love rich people and want to exempt them from climate taxes while allowing them to continue enjoying luxuries that produce as much carbon as dozens of middle class lifestyles.

I have to say that in my experience with environmentalists, nothing could be further from the truth. They are, largely, middle class to poor (in U.S. terms) themselves, and overwhelmingly blame consumption by the rich and corporate practices encouraged by externalized costs under our present economic system.

That's not to say that there aren't some activists and scientists who fly to conferences. But they tend to be more aware of this conflict than you might think. Some scientists, for example, refuse to fly. And there is some credibility to the idea that the work they are doing is vital, whereas luxury vacations clearly are not.

I live in a rural area. Most of what they grow here is soybeans, corn and tobacco. You cant' eat any of it. It's a common misconception that rural areas are food producing. The U.S. imports something like 40% of it's produce.

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