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Comment by bsder | Hacker News Reader

> The problem is that rural areas ("flyover states") have been left to rot

The problem is that rural areas don't pay their way. Rural areas only exist at the charity of the cities funding them.

If you want rural areas to thrive, you need to figure out how to make them economically viable. That means you need local production to be more cost effective than global production.

A good start would be having universal healthcare so hospitals in rural areas would stop closing. Another good start would be to start increasing taxes on imports and subsidizing some exports in order to balance the fact that the US has hollowed out labor by sending it overseas.

Alas, the same people who fight against universal healthcare and import excise taxes are also those who live in rural areas.

And here we are. And so it will continue.

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This is a chicken and egg problem. Reduce public services in rural areas, get population outflow, reduce public services even more.

You can stop the vicious circle by increasing the services back to make it attractive and at the same time densify rural cities to make them less costly to cater to.

> at the same time densify rural cities

This does not work. People live in rural areas because they don't want density. That is the whole point. (Alternatively, it might be because they are too poor to move. However, densifying/gentrifying an area does not fix that--it just boots people to a different poor rural area.)

You are trying to make rural areas viable by making them a city. You might as well just improve the situation in an already existing city.

People live in rural areas for a multitude or reasons. Not all rural towns are like in the US, some have streets, some are dense.

In Europe, a lot of the small towns are pretty dense, due to the historical need to preserve agricultural land and have a community to rely on[0]. In ex-soviet countries, you will often see in the countryside condominiums, as it was then seen as much more efficient and better community-wise.

So yes, if you densify rural towns to reduce sprawl, it becomes much easier to provide good services like doctors, groceries and schools.

[0] Here is one that comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordes-sur-Ciel

> rural cities

This is an oxymoron.

Rural towns if you want.

> increasing taxes on imports and subsidizing some exports

One of those things that sounds great until other countries apply it symmetrically and tax US exports.

> One of those things that sounds great until other countries apply it symmetrically and tax US exports.

This is fine. Really.

There is nothing wrong with every country being able to support themselves with their local economy.

I'm not saying to jack things up to 500%, but a general 5%-10% to make shipping cheap crap around the world have a bit more friction would be a good thing.

The goal is to make it economically viable to produce things closer to where they are consumed. And to only produce those things non-locally that have a genuine reason for being produced non-locally.

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