Any examples of urban folk voting to screw over rural folk?

[k9bfriender]

@thorny_locust

No. I said one thing, which you are misinterpreting in various ways.

No, you said one thing that I disagreed with. You have tried to defend it in various ways, but I have not interpreted it at all.

You said that we people in the city would be left with crappy food if the megacorps pushed out all the small farmers. You then pointed to the crappy food that we people in the city are currently eating, when the vast majority of our food is provided currently by small farmers.

@thorny_locust

I will grant one thing: ‘family farms’ is an extremely vague term. Walmart is a family business, after all. I tried to shorten posts by using your terminology, but that was probably a mistake.

Yeah, because there really isn’t such a thing anymore. There is no family that owns and farms a 40 acre plot. All farms are corporations of some sort, some smaller, some bigger, but pretty much anything that isn’t a hobby farm or exclusively artisanal has an inventory of hundreds or thousands of acres and dozens of employees at the least.

@thorny_locust

To the contrary. The farms I’m thinking of are generally the ones that are using sustainable practices, or trying to according to our best knowledge at a given time – practices that sustain the health of the soil and the diversity and health of crop species and other species in the farm environment (humans included), over the long term.

I’m talking economically sustainable. Meaning that they can produce enough at a low enough cost to feed the masses.

@thorny_locust

Maybe that’s the only place you personally can find a tomato with flavor (and the better nutrition that often goes along with it.) There are plenty of people, including rural people, who select for quality produce at farmers’ markets, at the farms themselves, through CSA’s, etc. The price premium is generally much less than at Whole Foods when it exists at all, and systems are often available to provide discounts to those who need them.

Right, and I have a farmer’s market in my hometown. It is open a few months a year, on Saturdays, from 10-2. I can also go to different farms, and buy directly from them. But I don’t have time for that, if it’s not in the supermarket, then I’m not likely to get it. Same with most people that live in less rural parts.

So, as I said, the people living in the city won’t notice a difference at all.

@thorny_locust

Your repeating this broad brushed canard isn’t evidence for it. Sure, some rural people think that way. And some city people think rural people are all deadbeats living on welfare. But there are large numbers of people in both categories who know better; and also large numbers who don’t spend any significant chunk of their time thinking about anyone who doesn’t live like they do.

I am basing it on how politicians market themselves. I see plenty of right wing politicians telling the rural folk that they are the real america. I don’t see left wing politicians telling urban folks the same.

@thorny_locust

In New York State, some benefits are paid for by county taxes, and do take a significant chunk of those. Other states may do it differently.

And where does the county get those taxes from?

@msmith537

What they tend to not want is more through traffic or a glut of “city folk” buying country homes so they can commute into the city.

But those roads also bring them goods and services. They allow them to take their crops to market. they are largely paid for by those city folk.

The fact that they are isolationist, and don’t want city folk passing through or living there is just them being prejudiced against those city folk.

@Iggy

The annexation was not of homes. The city drew the boundaries to engulf businesses and exclude residents. This resulted in the city robbing the sales tax base of the county while limiting to the maximum extent any services the city would need to provide.

I’m curious as to what state that was in. I know that in Ohio, you cannot just annex businesses, you can only annex residences. If there are businesses around those areas, then they come along for the ride, but you can’t just pick them up without the consent of the homes in the area.

Also, in Ohio, sales taxes are paid to the state, who then distributes them to the county, who then distributes them to localities. Is it done differently there?

@Iggy

The most immediate effect on services was the volunteer fire department that served the area having its county funding cut due to lower tax revenues for the county.

Was the area paying enough in taxes to pay for the VFD before those businesses went? I know that where I sit right now, I get fire and police protection paid for by the county, and the vast majority of the revenue that the county gets is from the incorporated areas that also pay to provide their own fire and police protection.

[Iggy]

It was in Tennessee. Without a state income tax the sales tax is a major revenue source. The state gets its cut no matter what.

We always had to do additional fundraising for the VFD, but county funding was an important part of the budget too. It went down after the businesses were annexed due to county revenue shortfalls.

[Acerbic]

@Ulfreida

I don’t know where Trump is finding all these angry rural voters who want to stick it to the libruls. But he is certainly finding them.

If you drive through rural Arkansas you will see quite a few Trump signs and banners throughout the state.

[eschereal]

@Acerbic

If you drive through rural Arkansas you will see quite a few Trump signs and banners

Curiously, fivethirtyeight show a difference of two percentage points in Arkansas. In '16, the last polls were showing a sixteen point difference, with the election yielding a twenty-six point difference. So, no, Biden will not come close there, but he will probably do better than Ms Clinton did.

[Ulfreida]

People who voted for trump and will again, are a larger group than those who vote for him out of hatred for city residents.

[Little_Nemo]

@Whack-a-Mole

Use something like the shortest splitline algorithm and be done with it. You may get some areas which lean heavily one way or another but it should all balance out.

Doesn’t that system only work when you have a state whose congressional representation is a power of two?

Take Connecticut as an example, which is entitled to five members in the House of Representatives. You draw a line to split the state in half with near equal populations in both halves. Then you draw a line through each of those halves, dividing them into near equal populations.

But that only gives you four districts and you’re supposed to have five. If you divide any of the four districts in half, you’re going to have two districts which each only have about half of the population of the remaining three districts.

[Whack-a-Mole]

I honestly do not know the answer but I am willing to bet this is something that’s been considered for the algorithm and a solution was found. Otherwise it would be useless.

[Little_Nemo]

I checked all the way back to the algorithm.

Here’s the example they used:

Example: Want N=7 districts.
Split at top level: 7 = 4+3.
Split at 2nd level: 7 = (2+2) + (1+2).
Split at 3rd level: 7 = ((1+1) + (1+1)) + ((1) + (1+1)).
result: 7 districts, all exactly equipopulous.

No, it isn’t. You’ve got seven districts but they will not be equipopulous. One of them will have twice the population of the other six.

There are systems to randomly divide a region into a given number of subregions with equal population; but this system is not one of them.

[thorny_locust]

@k9bfriender

No, you said one thing that I disagreed with. You have tried to defend it in various ways, but I have not interpreted it at all.

Make up your mind, please. As you agree that I said one thing, how could I be moving the goal posts?

And you did misinterpret it; although that may have been because you’re basing much of what you’re saying on incorrect information.

@k9bfriender

the vast majority of our food is provided currently by small farmers.

USDA disagrees with you. USDA releases 2017 Census of Agriculture data | AGDAILY

The 76,865 farms in the top two categories (sales of $1 million or more) are fewer than 4 percent of U.S. farms; they sold more than two thirds of all agricultural production.

Many of them are family-owned, yes. That doesn’t make them small farms.

@k9bfriender

There is no family that owns and farms a 40 acre plot.

Sure there is. I know some of them; and I know lots of people who own and farm places of around 100 acres, some of which is woodlot.

@k9bfriender

I’m talking economically sustainable.

If they’re not long-term environmentally sustainable, it’s not going to help that for a short period of time they were economically sustainable.

@k9bfriender

But I don’t have time for that, if it’s not in the supermarket, then I’m not likely to get it. [ . . . ] So, as I said, the people living in the city won’t notice a difference at all.

Because you won’t miss it doesn’t mean that nobody will.

@k9bfriender

I am basing it on how politicians market themselves.

You’re basing your assumptions about what rural people in general are thinking on what’s in politicians’ ads?

Most people I’ve run into think most politicians are asses. They may vote for them anyway because they’ve been convinced that their opponents are bigger asses.

@k9bfriender

And where does the county get those taxes from?

County property taxes and county sales tax; which is a separate thing from state sales tax.

[LSLGuy]

@Little_Nemo

I checked all the way back to the algorithm.

Here’s the example they used:

Example: Want N=7 districts.
Split at top level: 7 = 4+3.
Split at 2nd level: 7 = (2+2) + (1+2).
Split at 3rd level: 7 = ((1+1) + (1+1)) + ((1) + (1+1)).
result: 7 districts, all exactly equipopulous.

No, it isn’t. You’ve got seven districts but they will not be equipopulous. One of them will have twice the population of the other six.

There are systems to randomly divide a region into a given number of subregions with equal population; but this system is not one of them.

I believe you’ve misinterpreted the algorithm. Continuing with the example of 7 districts. …

I’m going to describe the results, rather than the exact process. It’s mathematically equal, but recursive algorithms can be hard to sort out. The magic is in the CEILING(n/2) & FLOOR(n/2) stages.

First you determine what 1/7th of the total state population is. Then you split the state into two portions (not two halves) where one portion contains 3/7ths of the total population and the other contains 4/7ths of the total population.

For the 4/7ths portion, since that’s even, it can be split twice, first into two sub-portions containing 2/7ths of the total state population each, then those are in turn split leaving 4 sub-sub-portions each holding 1/7th of the total state population. So that first-level portion has now been fully divided up.

As to the other portion of the first split, it holds 3/7ths of the total state population. That is split into two unequal sub-portions, one containing 1/7th of the total state population, and the other containing 2/7ths of the total state population. The first sub-portion is done. The second sub-portion is split into two sub-sub-portions each holding 1/7th of the population.

When you’re done there are 7 sub-sub-portions, each with equal population.

The rest of the details are in how you draw shortest the line across the population’s geographic distribution field to obtain the achieve the desired headcount on each side of the line.

[k9bfriender]

@thorny_locust

Make up your mind, please. As you agree that I said one thing, how could I be moving the goal posts?

And you did misinterpret it; although that may have been because you’re basing much of what you’re saying on incorrect information.

You said one thing. And then you tried different failed ways to defend it.

You said that if we didn’t have small farms, then we’d have crappy food. You then said that the food that we do have is crappy.

Now you are saying that we already have “a lot of food” from large corporations. (Which is debunked later in this post.)

If I have incorrect information, it came from you. And the information is somewhat subjective, the quality of produce available in grocery stores.

I find it acceptable. You claim that you do not.

@thorny_locust

USDA disagrees with you. https://www.agdaily.com/insights/usda-releases-2017-census-of-agriculture-data/

The 76,865 farms in the top two categories (sales of $1 million or more) are fewer than 4 percent of U.S. farms; they sold more than two thirds of all agricultural production.

Many of them are family-owned, yes. That doesn’t make them small farms.

I wish there was a breakdown of the top two categories, the 1 million and the 5 million, and it really ought to have a higher as well. $1million is not that much. I was on track to beat that myself until Covid hit. Probably hit it next year.

I was talking about family farms, then you seemed to not like that terminology, so I started talking about smaller farms, and now you don’t like that either.

But yeah, farms are growing. What used to take all the time of a family using livestock now takes a fraction of the time of a single person with a combine harvester.

39359_err152.pdf

Technology also plays an important role in driving increases in farm size, by allowing a single farmer to operate
and manage more acres. Labor-saving innovations—from bigger and faster capital equipment to information
technology, chemical herbicides, seed genetics, and changing tillage techniques—have substantially reduced the
total amount of labor used in agriculture and facilitated the shift to larger crop farms.

Unless you consider megacorps to be family farms, then the USDA doesn’t agree with your assessment.

Do you consider a difference between a family owned farm and a megacorp?

While the above conditions may have facilitated the shifts toward larger farms, family farms continue to dominate
crop agriculture. In 2011, 96 percent of U.S. crop farms were family farms, and they accounted for 87 percent of
the value of crop production.

I consider 87% to be a vast majority. Is your quibble there that you think it should be at least 90%?

@thorny_locust

Sure there is. I know some of them; and I know lots of people who own and farm places of around 100 acres, some of which is woodlot.

So you know some people that farm as a hobby.

The midpoint acreage for U.S. cropland nearly doubled between 1982 and 2007, from 589
acres to 1,105.

@thorny_locust

If they’re not long-term environmentally sustainable, it’s not going to help that for a short period of time they were economically sustainable.

Who says that a larger farm, with fewer stresses on having to produce on every acre to pay the bills, with fewer resources overall, less technology and labor is going to be less environmentally sustainable than a small farm that is doing everything it can to try to get by?

Economically sustainable does not mean environmentally unsustainable, and often the inverse is true.

@thorny_locust

Because you won’t miss it doesn’t mean that nobody will.

@from your cite

In 2017, U.S. farms and ranches produced $388.5 billion in agricultural products,

• In 2017, 130,056 farms sold directly to consumers, with sales of $2.8 billion.

So, about .7% will miss it.

Honestly, I think that you have entirely lost the point and are just grasping to try to score a point here. The argument that I was making is that, if we stopped subsidizing rural areas, then there would be virtually no difference in food production or availability.

In all of your arguments trying to show the contrary, all that you have shown is that if we stop subsidizing rural areas, there would be virtually no difference in food production or availability.

@thorny_locust

You’re basing your assumptions about what rural people in general are thinking on what’s in politicians’ ads?

Most people I’ve run into think most politicians are asses. They may vote for them anyway because they’ve been convinced that their opponents are bigger asses.

So, they are voting for the people that are telling them that they are the “Real Americans”, and not voting for the people that don’t tell them that.

But it’s not because they don’t think of themselves as the “real Americans.” Not at all. These politicians are just getting this from a complete vacuum, there is no resonance whatsoever there.

Got it.

@thorny_locust

County property taxes and county sales tax; which is a separate thing from state sales tax.

A city sales tax can be imposed as well. In Ohio, all get paid to the state and then disbursed. I don’t know how it works in other states, but it seems it would be annoying to have to pay your sales taxes to different entities.

Anyway, the claim here is that the city is somehow stealing the sales taxes from the county by having some areas choose to be a part of the city rather than rely exclusively on county services. That’s not really been supported.

[razordance]

Of course, if we ever really WANT to screw over the rural folk, all we need to do is put some teeth in the bestiality and incest laws.

[k9bfriender]

See, now that is the type of stereotyping that is actually not very helpful.

@thorny_locust’s examples of stereotyping in this thread were pretty weak. But that, that’s pretty low and is exactly the sort of thing that they were talking about in general.

[amarinth]

Joining the conversation late, I think it happens more inadvertently than deliberately. Rural screwing over urban feels more deliberate.

In my state almost 30% of the population is in a single county and two more counties have slightly over 10% each. The other half the population is spread between the other 36 counties. Every so often, one of the cities or the more populous counties tries to pass a city or county law that will have absolutely no effect on those other 36 counties. To be fair - some of these are not good ideas, but still the only people who need to live with them are the people in that city/county. But they’re almost always followed up by initiatives invalidating those laws on a statewide level. And commercials for those initiatives always include “Don’t let Seattle (or Tacoma or King County or Pierce County) __________!” And then they pass overwhelmingly everywhere but the place that originally wanted the rule. It’s hard not to feel like that’s being intentionally screwed over.

[Ruken]

@Folacin

I’m curious as to where this was. In my locality, there are county levied taxes (sales and property), and any city taxes are additive to that. So if an unincorporated area is grabbed by a city, the county doesn’t lose any taxes. Not surprised that it works differently in different places, but just curious as to where that was.

Most places I’ve lived work the way you describe (the city/town/boro/township is part of the county – in some places you can’t even find any unincorporated county land.) I know Virginia does not. E.g. the city of Charlottesville, while completely surrounded by Albemarle county, is not part of the county. But I don’t know how many states are like this.

[Ann_Hedonia]

FWIW

I know several people that own small family farms. But none of those people is a full time farmer.

One of them leases her farmland to a larger corporation, who then gives her a large cut (60%) I think - of the proceeds of the crops raised in her land.

The others own and operate their small farms, but none of them are full time farmers. They all have other jobs, usually in outside sales. My financial advisor owns a farm. I’ve worked with a couple of product sales reps that own farms. These jobs give them the flexibility they need at planting/ harvesting time.

The feasibility of this model depends, in large part, on what crop you are farming. Some crops need less attention than others.

[Railer13]

@Ann_Hedonia

One of them leases her farmland to a larger corporation, who then gives her a large cut (60%) I think - of the proceeds of the crops raised in her land.

Here in Kansas, this model of renting farmland used to be quite common. But the landowner would generally get 1/3 of the profits. 60% seems quite high.

This method has all but disappeared in favor of cash rent, or cash plus a percentage of the profits, if the crop yield is above a certain level.

[Ann_Hedonia]

I was probably wrong about the percentage or the details, it was a long time ago.

Her farm was in Kansas, so you know better than I do.

[Railer13]

The other point I would add is that no landowner that I know who rents his/her land rents it to a large corporation. Renters are almost always other farmers who own land in the same area.

[DesertDog]

@Ruken

Most places I’ve lived work the way you describe (the city/town/boro/township is part of the county – in some places you can’t even find any unincorporated county land.) I know Virginia does not. E.g. the city of Charlottesville, while completely surrounded by Albemarle county, is not part of the county. But I don’t know how many states are like this.

So far as I know, Virginia is unique in this regard. Look at a county map of the state and you’ll see a bunch of separated out spots called independent cities.

In the opposite direction there are cities that have entirely subsumed their counties. Two I am aware of are San Francisco way back in 1856 and Carson City (Ormsby county) in 1969.