[slymon99]

Exactly what wealth are cities draining from rural America?

Is it possible there's a simpler explanation? That the economy of the twenty-first century is dominated by information and technology, and that these demands are better matched to the agglomeration affects of true urban density, where the best and brightest can learn from each other?

[4death4]

> Exactly what wealth are cities draining from rural America?

Obviously it's not the cities themselves draining the wealth, but rather a spiral of excess capital accumulation. It just so happens that many of the people perpetuating this cycle live in cities. Generally, increasing one's capital is done by taking money that was being funneled one place, and funneling it to yourself instead. For example, CVS can open a pharmacy and undercut local competition. Once the local pharmacies close, cash flows that were once destined for local pharmacies go to CVS instead. Local pharmacies would have kept the profits locally, but CVS siphons them from the community into the pockets of shareholders, most of whom happen to live in cities. These city-dwelling shareholders can they pay others to perpetuate this cycle.

> Is it possible there's a simpler explanation? That the economy of the twenty-first century is dominated by information and technology.

Is it, though? Consumer spending is about 70% of GDP. What is your personal spending on tech vs. non-tech items? Personally, I spend vastly more money on non-tech items compared to tech items. The margins are obviously much lower, so they don't have splashy stock tickers.

[JumpCrisscross]

Density increases exchange of ideas and promoted specialisation, which increases productivity. This has been true throughout history and may as well be the zeroth law of economics.

[4death4]

The actual 0th law of economics is the law of decreasing marginal utility. You can't expect specialization and productivity to increase indefinitely as density increases. Clearly, we're at an inflection point. How can people specialize and be productive if they can't even afford a place to live?

[JumpCrisscross]

The actual zeroth law would be a corollary of the second law of thermodynamics: scarcity.

> Clearly, we're at an inflection point

This has been claimed repeatedly throughout history. Without knowledge of the future, it is impossible to know whether we are at an inflection local or global. With resepct to any American city, we know we are far from the inflection point because we have counterexamples abroad.

[4death4]

> With resepct to any American city, we know we are far from the inflection point because we have counterexamples abroad.

Such as? There are very few places in the world that match the productivity of the U.S. I don't think Luxembourg counts as a counterexample, for instance (population 640K). Singapore, maybe, but its population is under 5.5 million.

[paulmd]

The simple explanation is that many of these communities are the proverbial railroad towns that the train no longer stops at. Their key industries have dried up, and the infrastructure costs are unsustainable for the remaining population and economic activity.

The US overbuilt in rural areas during the late 1800s and early 1900s as the railroads pushed west, others had a major industry that has dried up, and a lot of these areas just aren’t sustainable anymore. But America doesn’t have a system for handling de-ruralization gracefully, you still have to deliver power and phone regardless of whether someone wants to live in the middle of Wyoming. We rarely ever rip up a road, etc. Infrastructure is a one-way ratchet.

On top of that most of americas infrastructure is aging in general and we have a general crisis of insufficient revenue to maintain let alone fully replace it. Everything is built on the assumption that it will catch traction and grow, and when it shrinks then there’s no money to maintain or replace it. This is a general crisis across our whole infrastructure - even apart from de-ruralization we’d have overbuilt infrastructure in most places relative to sustainable revenue.

[nobodyandproud]

I cannot find this reference now—I want to say ancient, possibly Roman—but cities have a brain-drain effect and lead specialization; whereas rural individuals have to do many things in order survive.