The problem is, if cities don’t pay for that, who will? Just abandoning electricity for rural areas isn’t _really_ an option, but it would likely be uneconomic without the effective subsidy from urban areas.
Story of America. There's a reason only this continent has excessive sprawl.
Ideally, rural areas pay up. Good forcing functions for change. Maybe people move closer together (similar to European villages) or they become energy-independent (solar panels).
If that's politically untenable, then I'd like to see the cost reflected as a city2rural subsidy. Cities get enough hate in the US. I'd like explicit recognition of their generosity.
The area I live in has utilities that service the small town population centers and a utility that services most of the outlying rural area. The rural operator is expensive, but not unaffordable.
Density including the towns is about 3.2 people per square km.
Who paid for the infra, and how old is it? If it was inherited from a prior larger utility, this is the sort of thing you can get away with, for a while, until it needs serious maintenance. But ultimately spreading the true lifetime cost of electrical infrastructure over that sort of population density without subsidy is going to lead to absurdly high prices.
Ideally, rural areas pay up. Good forcing functions for change. Maybe people move closer together (similar to European villages) or they become energy-independent (solar panels).
If that's politically untenable, then I'd like to see the cost reflected as a city2rural subsidy. Cities get enough hate in the US. I'd like explicit recognition of their generosity.