
The American Frontier Continues to Shape Us (2018) - samclemens
http://www.bu.edu/articles/2018/the-american-frontier-shapes-us-today-bu-researchers-say/
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leggomylibro
I ran into this sort of heavily individualistic attitude a lot when I was
traveling around places in remote nature-y states like Utah, New Mexico,
Arkansas, etc.

And I can empathize. Many people feel aggrieved that they work much harder for
much less than people who live in coastal cities, and under much worse
conditions. Honestly, I think that perspective is pretty accurate.

But there's also a refusal to see that people in those areas make enormous
demands on the government to subsidize their preferred lifestyle in such
remote areas. Roads, telecoms, and food/water/gas services cost money and make
major impacts on the environment, but the same people complaining about big
government will often use their next breath to grouse about bumpy roads and
brag about how they abuse BLM lands as if they were their own private
property. Sometimes it feels like you're trying to explain the tragedy of the
commons to a locust.

Still, most people have a lot of respect and admiration for the land that they
live and rely on. I was once talking to someone about the USFS' forest road
system, and they said something like: "I know, isn't it terrific? I can just
drive or bike out to where the trees and fish and deer are. But could you
imagine if they tried to do that today? The environmentalists would shut 'em
down and the conservatives would say it's too expensive!"

We really need fewer absolutists in our governance; there are plenty of things
that most people agree on, but which are vetoed by the extreme wings of our
two exclusive political parties.

Also, there really is something special about the remote wilderness, and
whatever that something is, the American West exemplifies it. Some people seem
to viscerally _need_ wild spaces; they're part of what make us human, and they
remind everyone that you are more of a guest than a landlord on Earth.

~~~
kolanos
> But there's also a refusal to see that people in those areas make enormous
> demands on the government to subsidize their preferred lifestyle in such
> remote areas. Roads, telecoms, and food/water/gas services cost money and
> make major impacts on the environment....

Where do you think the food, water and gas come from in the first place? And
how do you think they get to the cities? We can stop subsidizing that, I
guess, but food, water and gas in cities is going to cost a hell of a lot
more.

~~~
leggomylibro
It seems like it's usually a cost per length/area problem. Cities are small,
and they have a lot of people who pay taxes, so the marginal cost to pave a
road between any two places and make regular deliveries along it is small.
Frontier areas are _enormous_ , and roads barely last a few decades before
they need replacing. Moving goods and services to any one house or hamlet also
adds a significant marginal cost to existing routes. I once saw an ambulance
pull out of a small clinic and turn its lights on in New Mexico. I followed it
along a highway at 75mph for over an hour (its lights flashing the entire
time) before it took an exit to reach the emergency. The coverage in these
areas is just abysmal, but I would guess that it's still pretty expensive per
capita.

>Where do you think the food, water and gas come from in the first place? And
how do you think they get to the cities? We can stop subsidizing that, I
guess, but food, water and gas in cities is going to cost a hell of a lot
more.

From my anecdotal experience, I don't think that most farmers would be in
favor of ending domestic ag subsidies.

But I think you're on to something in saying that the negative externalities
of cities aren't priced into our markets either. All of the pollution, noise,
stress, congestion...those things should be subsidized for people who live in
cities, but they aren't, and the resulting increase in the cost-of-living in
cities relative to rural areas probably drives up prices for the specialized
manufactured goods and services that everyone depends on.

~~~
PaulDavisThe1st
> All of the pollution, noise, stress, congestion...those things should be
> subsidized for people who live in cities, but they aren't....

On a per-capita basis, people who live in cities generate less externalities
than rural dwellers. So I'm not quite clear on your point.

~~~
kolanos
> On a per-capita basis, people who live in cities generate less externalities
> than rural dwellers. So I'm not quite clear on your point.

Of course there's more externalities, 3% of the population feeds the other
97%. Cities consume all the food, water and gas that those "wasteful" rural
folk produce for them. Interesting that we don't account for that and just
attribute the externalities to them, as if that's the whole story.

Cities are certainly more efficient per capita, but they're not self-
sustaining. If we demolished all those wasteful roads between cities and rural
parts of the country, the cities would starve.

~~~
akiselev
I was under the impression that most of what we consider rural populations are
left overs from transportation arteries and extraction industries that popped
all over the country during the industrial revolution. I thought the actual
number of farmers is vanishingly small and I doubt it takes an entire 3% of
the country to support a mostly automated industry.

It's not a topic I've seen well quantified.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
The parent to you was trying to say we are somehow taking advantage of them.
Before covad-19 at least, we could just buy food from some other place. We
don't need a lot of the rural land. The same thing goes the other way, the
people living in small town could get medical care from some international
company, but it would cost way more than their subsidized us federal govt
healthcare because in my hometown more than half the people are retired.

In washington state we have the same arguments. If you really want to make
people in rural areas made, point out that we are subsidizing them. i'm not
against building infrastructure that we all need. But lets be honest about it.
A significant amount of tax revenue from Seattle goes out to pay for things in
low population counties. It does against the dishonest ideaology that they are
the real producers of things and we somehow take what they make. We need each
other, but we city folk like me subsidize your local docs so they don't leave,
subsidize your schools, and we pay for roads that are used to then get to
timber to harvest.

