The biggest programmer farms in Spain are in locations which were perceived as “the sticks” and losing people just 20 years ago; one reason they’re in such places is that banks and IT firms realized how many of their programmers were from the sticks and that it would be ridiculously cheaper to get Villanueva de la Serena cabled than to keep everybody in Madrid. One reason Costa Rica has as many Customer Centers as they do (not that many in total terms, but a surprising amount for their tiny population) is the infrastructure.
Many companies (from big box stores to infrastructure companies) will only look at population in a given township before deciding whether to build there or not; they don’t look at total population in an area bigger than “township” or do a cost-per-capita study. You have a town that’s got 40K people, 100km away from the nearest cable point, that town will get cabled. You have a dozen towns along those same 100km, totalling 60k people, there will be no cable.
For all practical purposes, amending will almost never happen. Right now, there are 2 primary factions in the USA, and they vehemently disagree with one another on a large number of issues. In many cases, the desires of each faction are literally polar opposites with no common ground. Even the basic reality - not what we should do about our problems, but what is even actually happening in the real world that we should respond to - is now up for debate with this whole “fake news” problem.
One faction, the Democrats, outnumbers the other faction, the Republicans, slightly, but the Republicans are spread over areas that get more representation by the way the system works and thus they currently have most of the power.
So reaching the consensus to amend the constitution, which requires 2/3 of both legislative houses and 3/4 of the states to agree. Or, in today’s climate, when pigs fly.
Yes, if one side doesn’t mind denying Facts, and still has followers out of tribal affinity/ authoritarian obedeince, then your System is pretty fucked up and can’t really react to any real-world Problems.
However, given that the term “gerrymandering” was coined 1812 (but the practice was used before Gerrymandering in the United States - Wikipedia) there was time enough to think cool-headed about changing to a neutral System.
But instead, the old “we do it where it benefits us, you do it where it benefits you, so we will both Keep this System” (as with other broken mechanisms like winner-takes-it-all two Party only System; Filibusters; etc.) logic was apparently good enough.
Plus the bordering-on-mythic veneration of the founding fathers and the original commandments, regardless of how much Technology, Society and knowledge have advanced since then, doesn’t lead to a culture that Looks for a better or fairer method than the old one.
I wonder how it even got this far. Why does America have vast wealth and advanced technology and hospitals and roads and schools? Why doesn’t it look like Somalia or like it did in 1850 or a radioactive wasteland? The system seems so broken - how can you expect to make progress if you deny basic reality as fake news? If you decide that the fantastically wealthy need to be encouraged to be even more wealthy? If you decide it’s a good idea to just let anyone pollute other people’s land or water if those people bribe you enough?
In light of these things, the progress that *was *made seems incredible.
You had some good presidents in between the bad ones (Roosevelt’s new Deal, JFK…)
and
From the 80s, things have spiraled down again with wealth for the rich skyrocketing, anybody else getting poorer (before, everybody got a bit richer), and sometime later came Fox News and the idea of “Facts don’t matter, the only Thing important is how I feel about it” was taken out of context (a small narrow application in specific circumstances) and applied to everything, because it fueled resentment, and feeding resentment and fear helped both conservatives talk Show Hosts make Money, and the People preying with Newsletters on the fundie Groups make Money.
Then combining that resentment, Paranoia, hate, and fear for politics made for good victories. And since many conservatives are older, it’s easy for them to adopt the “After me the Flood” attitude. Who cares what happens to Florida in 20 years, if I can make Money now and will be dead then?
Here, What's wrong with libertarianism one Essay (Several more on the site) about the development of US economy up to, and since, the 1980s. (Without Fox News).