Thanks again for the perspective! These are good things to note and provide a lot of context. I still wonder what qualifies as “family owned” and whether it’s really just farming that brings 60 million to rural life.
The median household income in rural America looks to be only a bit lower than urban. Otoh, the rural poverty rate was 16.4 percent in 2017, compared with 12.9 percent for urban areas.
Jason Crawford mentions farms worked with trains and horses before trucks. The scenario I mentioned with trains would still use (intermodal?) trucks for the last mile and just replace rural highways. I could believe farming transport demands are too strange for this, but I could also see standardization insignificantly increasing costs. And do people in town often travel to the farms or mostly just to other towns or cities?
Pollution isn’t just a local issue, and I agree rural areas have no obvious pollution—but a carbon tax (for global warming) would make fuel more expensive, increasing the already significant costs of rural gas transportation.
I imagine the biggest subsidy of rural areas is the highways, which are 3⁄4 of the paved lane-miles in the US. The maintenance of these highways appear to amount to ~$3600 per capita annually, with a subsidy of ~$1200. I’d believe that utilities aren’t subsidized more than their urban counterparts.
If as this implies there really isn’t much subsidy, I stand corrected! Thank you, cars. And of course, any other technology (electric, PRT) would still function like the automobile. And AC / climate control is necessary in many states.
Now I wonder how rural areas look in other countries wrt population share, infrastructure, economy, and farm finances.
Thanks again for the perspective! These are good things to note and provide a lot of context. I still wonder what qualifies as “family owned” and whether it’s really just farming that brings 60 million to rural life.
The median household income in rural America looks to be only a bit lower than urban. Otoh, the rural poverty rate was 16.4 percent in 2017, compared with 12.9 percent for urban areas.
Jason Crawford mentions farms worked with trains and horses before trucks. The scenario I mentioned with trains would still use (intermodal?) trucks for the last mile and just replace rural highways. I could believe farming transport demands are too strange for this, but I could also see standardization insignificantly increasing costs. And do people in town often travel to the farms or mostly just to other towns or cities?
Pollution isn’t just a local issue, and I agree rural areas have no obvious pollution—but a carbon tax (for global warming) would make fuel more expensive, increasing the already significant costs of rural gas transportation.
I imagine the biggest subsidy of rural areas is the highways, which are 3⁄4 of the paved lane-miles in the US. The maintenance of these highways appear to amount to ~$3600 per capita annually, with a subsidy of ~$1200. I’d believe that utilities aren’t subsidized more than their urban counterparts.
If as this implies there really isn’t much subsidy, I stand corrected! Thank you, cars. And of course, any other technology (electric, PRT) would still function like the automobile. And AC / climate control is necessary in many states.
Now I wonder how rural areas look in other countries wrt population share, infrastructure, economy, and farm finances.