[chuckdries]

Right now it's the opposite

> People who want to get away from the ~big cities~ small towns and live a different kind of life with different priorities (and different legislative interests), shouldn't be totally shut out, should they? Even though I live in a ~giant urban area~ rural area, I wouldn't want to feel pressured to due so due to lack of political stake if I move elsewhere.

who's to say one direction is more important than the other? At least if we ditch the electoral college, individual voices always have the same volume

[jonathankoren]

To reinforce this idea, my city has 3x the population of Wyoming.

I grew up rural, but I long ago moved to an urban life. Politicians — and to be honest rural folk themselves — often try to enforce the idea that rural life is somehow more genuine. You’ll hear this as “Real America”, or how city folks don’t understand how “the Real World works”, or are some how “out of touch”. Which is fundamentally a completely bizarre idea when the majority of Americans (and I believe the world in general now) live an urban life. While there are unique and legitimate concerns that may need to be addressed for rural life, they are not mainstream concerns. Similarly, allowing rural politics and social mores to dominate national politics is as absurd as saying the Sentinelese[0] should dominate world culture because they’re more in touch with the land or something.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese

[input_sh]

> when the majority of Americans (and I believe the world in general now) live an urban life.

I think you're underestimating the figures. 80.7% of Americans lived in urban areas according to the 2010 census. Estimates for the entire world are over 50% for over a decade now (since 2007, to be more accurate). It increases slowly but steadily, so we were at about 55.27% in 2018. It's going to be about 68% by 2050 and about 85% by 2100.

[jdminhbg]

The Census's definition of "urban area" doesn't quite match what most people think of, I don't think. It's any area of over 50k people. If you reverse sort the list provided on Wikipedia[0], you'll find a lot of places that aren't top of mind when people think about "urban life:" Grand Island, NE; Hazleton, PA; Albany, OR.

Edit: I'm not disputing the larger point. I just think the number is probably a little lower than that if you adjusted for being "truly" urban.

[input_sh]

Yeah, I was thinking about adding that there's some talk about what constitutes as "urban area", but thought it wasn't relevant enough for the context of my comment.

[MadWombat]

"It's going to be about 68% by 2050 and about 85% by 2100"

If the trend doesn't change for the next 80 years. Which is a big if.