Interestingly enough, we don’t give acreage votes, we give people votes. It’s frankly an insult to suggest that we should give empty space more voting power than human beings.
Acreage has had the clear advantage in voting power for most of the country’s history. But demographics are changing the dynamics as economies and populations increasingly cluster in urban areas. Acreage doesn’t appear to like these shifting dynamics very much at all. Too bad.
Maybe more and more of us will agree in the near future that we’re past time to take a fresh look at the whole concept of states and fair representation of our citizens.
I’m not sure your point here.
If the reason that the rural voters override a city initiative that only affects the city, and they do so out of spite, rather than out of any actual benefit they get from opposing it, then that is an example of rural folk voting to screw over urban folk.
Democracy or not, that is exactly what it is.
Are you saying that if a city has the votes to do things that harm the rural areas to their own benefit, then doing so is just democracy, and not them “screwing them over?”
Your cites are a pretty good example of froggy excrement here.
Ore diggers two were:
The first is talking about how the state is having difficulty making up for the shortfall of rural areas property taxes due to coronovirus. The measure in question, enacted nearly 40 years ago, lowered the property taxes of all residents, moving most of the tax burden onto businesses, which, since rural areas did not have many of, the businesses in the cities had to make up for the rural area’s lack of tax base in order to provide them with services they were not paying for themselves.
This is coming to a head now, only because the businesses in the cities are hurting due to coronovirus shutdowns, and are no longer able to subsidize the services in rural areas that they are not paying for themselves.
Repealing this measure would increase the taxes of rural areas as well as those in urban areas, and would still require the state to make up for their inability to fund their own services.
I see no breakdown of who is for or against repealing the amendment, rural vs urban, but it is apparently popular among most Coloradians. Given historical trends, of rural areas tending to be more conservative and for lower taxes, and urban areas tending to be more progressive and not fighting against higher taxes, I would guess that the urban areas are tending to poll more towards repeal than rural areas.
A tiny bit of digging shows me that one of the spearheads for keeping the amendment is Michael Fields, formerly of Americans for Prosperity is heading up the Conservative group, Colorado Rising Action, to oppose the repeal of this amendment.
In effect, it is the rural people voting to screw themselves.
So, pretty bad example.
The second example is of things that happened over a century ago, that are now being looked at to rectify, at the expense of the city and to the benefit of the rural areas. Once again, pretty terrible example.
Then your post is just pointing out why cities have better services than rural areas, in that the city is paying for them, along with those services in the rural areas that they are unable to pay for themselves. You have to add to that some anecdotes of people at a reservoir with anti-dam bumper stickers, along with your personal feelings about their motives and desires.
So, you can keep your amphibian excrement to yourself here, as it seems you’ve stepped in it pretty badly.
Besides, according yo your logic, if they have the votes to harm the rural areas, that’s just democracy, not screwing them over, right?
Do tell how the rural areas are taking of welfare?
The states get federal funding of which the rural voters are a part. Cities provide their own infrastructure along with subsidy from the state and federal. Counties provide funds for the entire county. School districts provide for the district (which also collects it’s own portion of taxes)
Don’t most rural areas large enough to require their own school usually incorporate anyway? They do in any part of Texas I have ever lived.
The example of roadways was brought up. All of the entities I listed have their own funding for roads. State and federal monies usually get disbursed by the State (which also happens to control all new road work) Unless it is privately funded of course.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/welfare-recipients-by-state
And, as already posted here:
Yes, a part. A small part that doesn’t pay the share that they get to provide their services.
You mean, along with providing a surplus to the state and federal to subsidize the rural areas.
Along with subsidies from state and federal, that are largely paid for by the cities that pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits, those counties also rely on the urban areas in them to subsidies the rural areas in them.
Along with significant subsidies from the state, payed for by the urban areas.
Not in most places, certainly not Ohio. And even where they do, they are still getting subsidies from the state and federal government, paid for by the urban areas.
The state is usually provides a significant amount of that funding. Paid for by the taxes levied on urban areas.
Exactly, and those funds are distributed to subsidize rural areas that cannot pay for their own services.
In a lot of countries, large conurbations–with or without some or most or all of their suburbs–are effectively like their own “states” (or some other separate political entity).
A few examples:
- Delhi in India;
- Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin in Germany;
- Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, Birmingham, Leeds, and London in England
I’ve seen people arguing that making the District of Columbia state is silly because it’s just a city. But that’s demonstrably a workable proposition.
Those were a lot of statements, but not much substance. I am looking for proof.
Let me be clear, I am not arguing against your point but I want to be convinced.
Welfare isn’t just welfare recipients, I kind of figured you guys were arguing that rural areas took from the city funds?
We were talking about “folk” not about acreage nor empty space. When one talks about “folk” you must also consider their contribution to the upkeep of the operation of the country. Most of those employed as blue collar workers do not have acreage. Your post is off topic.
Nor does the Minnesota forests like the non-native red wiggler earthworms. Stop trying to change the narrative from urban and rural real people with real issues. Acreage. has nothing to do with the social dynamic
That will only happen when the cows come home to live with the urban folk and only when the urban folk come down to feed the chickens and weed the row crops and work in the assembly plants!
Then Illinois is not 95% rural.
This whole thread reminds me of the contrast between the Eloi ( a happy people, who speak a simple language and are mainly interested in playfulness. They often play with flowers and other amusing items. Physically, they are shorter than humans, have blond hair, smooth skin, and are weaker than modern humans. They only eat fruit.) and Morlocks (particularly low-class underground machine operators that are more technologically advanced than the Eloi, maintaining more remnants of human technology).
The society that H.G. Wells created was one that worked. the current animosity and distrust between the urban folk and the rural folk does NOT work. Until such time that each understands the dependency of one to the other it will continue to be the destruction of society in the US.
Proof of what, that rural areas take welfare?
I just provided that, not sure what else you want.
It’s not up to me to convince you, only to present the information. You are welcome to make up your own mind as to whether or not that “convinces” you.
They don’t take directly from city funds, no one has said that.
However, what they do do, is to take money from state, federal, and county funds, which are paid for largely by those who live in cities.
Let’s use this for an example, as it has already been cited.
In that story, it mentions that
Okay, that’s that county. I can’t find a breakdown of the entire economic activity, but lets say that, tourism is $30 million, and the rest comes to another 50, a very generous estimate.
Within a quarter mile radius of where I am sitting, at least that much is generated in economic activity, and this is a relatively lightly populated suburban area. I personally generate nearly a percent of my very generous estimate of that entire county’s economic activity.
You know how much a road costs? You are looking at at least a few million per mile. If a county like Inyo wants to have roads, they will not be able to afford them on their own, they will have to ask the state to help pay for them, which will come from the taxpayers who live in cities.
So, you are right that it is not just welfare that the urban areas subsidize for rural areas. As we have pointed out in this thread, it is the roads, the schools, the medical services, the fire and police protection and general infrastructure that rural areas cannot afford on their own that is paid for by taxpayers and businesses located in the city.
rural - of or relating to the country, country people or life, or agriculture.
~95% of Illinois is rural based on census places
How many of Chicago’s 2 million residents are rural out of Illinois’ 12 million people?
I’m not sure in your example who is who here.
But in H.G. Wells’s story, the Eloi were essentially cattle. They were cared for and tended for by the Murlocks, who would come up from the depths to snatch them away and eat them.
I don’t know if I would say that that was a society that worked.
95% of what ? - there’s a huge difference between 95% of the population lives in rural areas and 95% of the land ( acreage) is in rural areas.
We don’t give the vote to “census places” either.
If only “census places” got votes, and not people.
The average Illinois resident lives the Chicago Metropolitan Area (pop. approximately 9.5 million out of Illinois’s 12.5 million), mostly in the suburbs. And their voting record reflects that.
The society worked because it survived by recognizing their interdependence. The Morlocks produced the necessities from their machines and in return the Eloi provided the food to sustain them and neither demanded more than the other could provide and each supported the other as needed to sustain the relationship.
The analogy is not unlike the urban folk and rural folk relationship. The US society is on the eve of destruction because of the hatred of the two camps for one another. Both urban folk and rural folk are part of a once working whole and ways must be found to close the abyss that now separates them.
Roads aren’t necessarily a good measuring stick, IMO. The roads are likely to be there anyway, as a means of travel to and from other large cities and intrastate travel.
I can imagine lots of states where a lot of economic activity is generated by or in the rural areas.
I guess I am looking for cites to show that most rural areas use taxation from cities to fund rural areas
Cites in Texas would help me.
The Murlocks don’t (won’t?, as it is set well into the future, I hate time travel tenses) really need the Eloise, they could just as well be raising cows and pigs on the surface, if the Eloise decided that they were not happy with the arrangement and chose to revolt against Murlocks.
Same with urban and rural. We don’t really need the people in the rural areas, we just need the land on which to grow food and dispose of trash. Neither of which actually requires that we sustain the simple rural lifestyle where they play with flowers and other amusing items.
So, if the rural people are not happy with the arrangement, and choose to revolt against it, then they can be replaced with far more efficient and economical means of supporting the needs of the urban areas.