[payne92]

> It costs a lot of money to deliver power to rural customers

Utilities (generally) have a universal service obligation.

If someone can cherry-pick just the denser areas with lower distribution costs, of course they could "undercut" the utility with the requirement to serve everyone.

(I'm not saying that PG&E couldn't be better managed. I'm saying that there's a much, much deeper policy issue at stake here.)

[aqueueaqueue]

They made the point that this is the plan. Encourage people to live in cities.

[UncleEntity]

The more people that leave the rural areas for the cities makes it less profitable to serve the existing rural folks.

I grew up in the Bay Area, lived in 'rural' Humboldt and Placer counties, and can say I would never move back to the bay no matter how much the technocrats would desire it.

Pretty happy with my ~30k town nowhere near California TBH...

[novok]

And you should be charged the actual cost of maintaining the costs of that small town too.

[tired-turtle]

That’s fine that you want to stay put, but GP is suggesting (I think) that others shouldn’t have to subsidize your choice to live in a rural area where power service is (currently) more expensive.

[llamaimperative]

Land Value Tax solves this

[aqueueaqueue]

How so?

[llamaimperative]

It incentivizes greater development of already-developed land (meaning less infrastructure serving more people) rather than acquisition and low-yield development of new (more rural) land.