Comment by padobson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by padobson | Hacker News Reader

The Northeastern megalopolis, stretching from Boston to Washington, contains more than 50 million people and represents 20 percent of America’s gross domestic product. Greater Los Angeles accounts for more than 10 percent of G.D.P. These city-states matter far more than most American states — and connectivity to these urban clusters determines Americans’ long-term economic viability far more than which state they reside in.

This reshuffling has profound economic consequences. America is increasingly divided not between red states and blue states, but between connected hubs and disconnected backwaters.

If you're wondering why 8 million Americans[1] have voted for Donald Trump in this election cycle, look no further than this snippet. The elitist garbage is so thick and so deep I had to put on waders - the ones I normally reserve for venturing through my backwater community. Using faceless macro-economics to justify ripping power away from suburban and rural communities is the exactly the type of liberalism that pissed off every person Trump is appealing to right now.

The very idea that a nation state should be organized not according to the political will of its citizens, but according to the most efficient allocation of capital, is contrary to the very idea of the democratic republic America is built upon.

Furthermore, I echo the opinions of others in this thread who have suggested that the individual rights of citizens are better protected when power is decentralized to the states, and after the states, to county and municipal governments, hopefully leaving the bulk of the authority in the hands of the citizens themselves.

Power to the people.

[1]http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/repub...

In what way is that snippet even partially incorrect? In what way is it elitist?

Are you arguing that most states do matter more than the DC-Boston corridor? That region as a state would be the 3rd most populous, and 1st in GDP.

Are you arguing that the country isn't divided between connected metropolises and disconnected backwaters? Maybe you take offense at the phrase "backwater", but regardless, the rural areas of this country are disconnected in many ways: they have extremely few transportation options, low import/export capacity, slow and sparse internet and cell coverage.

The article isn't arguing that power be ripped from rural areas, but that in order to let the very important urban areas, where most of the population and economic activity is, thrive, they shouldn't be so hindered by state boundaries and politics.

Urban areas that cover multiple states have more in common internally, than states do between their internal urban and rural areas. This shouldn't be a controversial idea.

And in what way do states represent the political will of the citizens? Did any of us actually vote to determine the current state configurations? No, those were mostly done either by pre-independence forces, like England, or by the Federal government. Today's citizens certainly didn't have a say. Power to the people indeed.

I thought OP's comment was in agreement with the snippet he posted.

But, currently, it's just the opposite! Power is by definition "ripped away" from residents of urban areas (or any dense areas) due to the fixed population-invariant representation of each state in the U.S. Senate (and partly, electoral college).

(E.g., North Dakota has the same representation in the Senate as California, despite an order of magnitude more Americans living in California than North Dakota. That is to say, a Californian has maybe 2% of the influence via the U.S. Senate as a North Dakotan.)

Is this really fair to the large and growing proportion of Americans who live in denser areas? Some of them, like those in D.C., aren't even represented at all!

> Using faceless macro-economics to justify ripping power away from suburban and rural communities is the exactly the type of liberalism that pissed off every person Trump is appealing to right now.

But the House of Representatives balances that out...

Not sure if you're joking so I assume you're not. The House of Representatives doesn't balance that out.

The House gives _equal_ (approximately[1]) per-person representation to residents of high and low density states, while the Senate gives much more per-person representation to residents of low density states. To balance that out, you'd need a House that gave more per-person representation to residents of higher density states.

[1]: Actually, the error on this is as much as 50% due to the huge size of congressional districts -- there are a small number of states with as few as half a million residents per congressional district or as many as one million per. But this is not consistently biased in one direction or another towards or against denser or larger states)

> I echo the opinions of others in this thread who have suggested that the individual rights of citizens are better protected when power is decentralized to the states,

I'm sure alabama and the like would do a great job protecting rights if given free reign.

>the individual rights of citizens are better protected when power is decentralized to the states

I'm guessing you're not black.

Favoring dense, highly productive, urban areas shouldn't be a surprise considering the author is Singaporean...

This. Seems many advocating increasing control of society forget the USA was created precisely because of a deep & pervasive hatred of being bossed around by strangers far away holding very different sociopolitical views. Don't underestimate the simmering & growing opposition to such encroaching centralized control.

>Power to the people.

The majority of Americans live in cities. Why shouldn't they have the balance of power?

Only 26% of Americans live in "urban" areas versus suburban and rural areas. Considering 53% of Americans live in suburbs, we should allow the suburbs to have the balance of power?

If so, I predict more highways, more car centric growth, less investment in public transit or bicycles paths.

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