I’m sorry but, at least the experience of California, which is the state I‘m most familiar with, directly contradicts the claims here about benefit. Or, rather, it may indeed be the case that per-capita investment in infrastructure and programs for rural areas is greater than that for urban and suburban areas but, at the bottom line it is nowhere NEAR enough. In California, rural residents, with the sole exception of a small cohort of wealthy ranchers and farmers who benefit from subsidies and are poisoning the environment and hogging ￼up water for profit, live very close to the edge. There are vast parts of the state where the only serviceable way to get a seriously injured or ill person to real medical care is by helicopter. Roads are terrible and in spite of the fact that they’re living in “the bread-basket of the nation” they’re also, unquestionably, living in a food desert. The state is peppered with ghost towns, ghostly towns, untreated toxic waste sites and towns where a solid majority of the population are addicted to opioids and no one is there to help. I’ve seen a lot of this first hand mostly because I like to explore the out-of-the-way portions of the state by bicycle - an activity I heartily recommend. I meet and talk to a lot of people and they are, for the most part, kind, generous to a fault and deeply hospitable to strangers (even strangers wearing spandex) but I can definitely see their point. They got a raw deal and they’re not happy with it.

I’m sorry but, at least the experience of California, which is the state I‘m most familiar with, directly contradicts the claims here about benefit. Or, rather, it may indeed be the case that per-capita investment in infrastructure and programs for rural areas is greater than that for urban and suburban areas but, at the bottom line it is nowhere NEAR enough. In California, rural residents, with the sole exception of a small cohort of wealthy ranchers and farmers who benefit from subsidies and are poisoning the environment and hogging ￼up water for profit, live very close to the edge. There are vast parts of the state where the only serviceable way to get a seriously injured or ill person to real medical care is by helicopter. Roads are terrible and in spite of the fact that they’re living in “the bread-basket of the nation” they’re also, unquestionably, living in a food desert. The state is peppered with ghost towns, ghostly towns, untreated toxic waste sites and towns where a solid majority of the population are addicted to opioids and no one is there to help. I’ve seen a lot of this first hand mostly because I like to explore the out-of-the-way portions of the state by bicycle - an activity I heartily recommend. I meet and talk to a lot of people and they are, for the most part, kind, generous to a fault and deeply hospitable to strangers (even strangers wearing spandex) but I can definitely see their point. They got a raw deal and they’re not happy with it.

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