[NotSammyHagar]

My understanding of a common rural view is that 'city people' restrict them unnecessarily with a lot of environmental restrictions (which may be partly true). But they don't believe they are subsidized.

In Washington state they have a report from the legislature that has spending in each county compared to tax revenues. This is very sensitive because of course Seattle money goes out to the whole state. There's a second version of that report that tries to compute the economic benefit of the rural areas, separately from the actual tax revenues, I'm sure this was created to lessen the sting.

I want to keep our economy and the people in it living. But we need to have a shared reality.

[jeffbee]

An interesting manifestation of this belief is the California separatist movement "State of Jefferson". These are people who believe that the economy of far northern California would be far stronger if they were simply allowed to clearcut every forest in the state.

One county, Lake County, had the good manners to cancel a planned vote of secession in late 2015 after the rest of the state paid to put out an enormous wildfire there.