Is it feasible to separate rural and urban America?

[Broader Confederate States]

We’re on the same page. I’m all for breaking up America. Washington doesn’t represent me.

How does it not represent you?

do you wanna start with 93.5% of federal elections depending solely on money and not policy, the fact that statistically citizens have no sway in policy while corporations (especially defense contractors -- aka, war profiteers) have a disproportionate amount, or the parties each being big-tent right wing authoritarian parties using fascist tactics with just a trim of diversity?

[San Lumen]

How does it not represent you?

Also Balkanizing America would probably make the situation worse.

Not to mention it’s completely unfeasible and impractical.

[Proctopeo]

Wow, I wonder who really, really, REALLY dislikes Suburbs.

I don't know, I mean, I've been driving Subur ... wait, you mean ... never mind.

I do get tired of these "Should we break up the United States?" threads. Maybe we should concentrate on finding a way to work together as a country, which we have done before, rather than trying to find ways to keep people we don't like away from us.

Well yeah, but untangling the kudzu that is our hyperpartisanship issue would be incredibly difficult. Pondering how to redraw the borders so as to allow both groups to more readily have their interests met is much easier.

I don't know, I mean, I've been driving Subur ... wait, you mean ... never mind.

I do get tired of these "Should we break up the United States?" threads. Maybe we should concentrate on finding a way to work together as a country, which we have done before, rather than trying to find ways to keep people we don't like away from us.

I don't think one can unite a group of xenophobic racists with the people subject to the bigotry. It's like there's frankly multiple Americas that are not the same country but contained within the borders all based on if one is white or BIPOC and if person is Democrat or Republican.

fyi, this type of thinking is a large factor as to why things are the way that they are

[New haven america]

No, rural areas wouldn't last more than a couple of weeks without the money cities pay them to continue existing.

For example, there's this movement in Illinois trying to get Chicago to split off from the rest of the state, but if that were to happen, Illinois would go from the 5th most economically powerful state in The Union, to the 30th if we're being generous or 45th or so if we're going worst case scenario.

Or that state of Jefferson idea North California and East Oregon are floating around, it would be the 50th state in GDP, education, etc... Hell, if East Oregon and Washington joined Idaho like they currently want to, that would tank Idaho's GDP.

So no, for their best interest they need to stay connect to rural areas or they're not gonna survive.

[Rusozak]

Separating rural areas from urban areas is like separating an aircraft from its engines. They're two different but codependent parts of civilization that have to learn to work together. Otherwise you just have the purge in cities as people scramble for resources and the rural country going full Mad Max.

[Major-Tom]

With what, like a restraining order?

[Broader Confederate States]

With what, like a restraining order?

better a restraining order than with live munitions

[Washington Resistance Army]

Wow, I wonder who really, really, REALLY dislikes Suburbs.

I don't know, I mean, I've been driving Subur ... wait, you mean ... never mind.

I do get tired of these "Should we break up the United States?" threads. Maybe we should concentrate on finding a way to work together as a country, which we have done before, rather than trying to find ways to keep people we don't like away from us.

I imagine Biden would be willing to pay you big bucks if you could find a way to make the GOP come back to reality and start working together.

[Australian rePublic]

It's worth discussing

[The Union of British North America]

I think it is more feasible to get everyone working together, and not just calls for unity and bipartisanship, but for a tangible project that goes with a spirit of reconciliation. How feasible can we do interstate regional development that connects urban and rural areas to postive-sum, shared growth? Have local/regional focus on development projects that has multiple states similar in geography and economic outlook coupled with an initiative with national/federal encouragement, like public projects, private-public partnerships, and the regional Fed banks providing credit to development projects. Not like getting a major corporation to your area with fiscally devastating tax breaks and subsidies but federally-sponsored credit for productive projects.

[Prydania]

Cities need rural areas and rural areas need cities.

[Kowani]

i live in one
it's hell
(also i have many sociological and political objections to suburbia as polity and cultural unit but those come later)

Could you kindly explain as to why you hate Suburbs?

okay yeah so basically
ecologically, they are poison, from the massive destruction of natural spaces needed to build such unnecessarily sprawling developments. From car-centric road planning to housing design to lawns and parking, the suburb is an ecological catastrophe (that is not to say that say, urban smog or rural monoculture are not ecologically devastating but suburbia is unique in that is seems to be inherent to everything it does
the foremost problem is one of sprawl, where massive amounts of resources (real and financial) are wasted to support much smaller numbers of people than is necessary
but this is just the beginning of suburban horror
as an economic policy, suburbs are a macro-chain and a micro-parasite
it's impressive, almost, how we managed to make an economic model of housing that requires keeping millions unhoused and housing prices astronomical for everyone else in order to "work" (and it doesn't really but more on that later)
so you may have heard something about san francisco being one of the most expensive cities to live in for people
well here is your primary cause

suburbs (as currently construed), are biased towards creating artificial scarcity, because the people in charge of them (when left to their own devices) are incentivized to do so-because they personally profit (immensely so) when housing prices are high
pre-existing homeowners, seeking to preserve property values, or views, or “neighborhood character”, or whatever the rationale of the week is, have implemented a wide range of restrictions codifying anti-housing provisions into law, the big ones being exclusionary zoning, parking minimums, minimum lot size restrictions, discretionary review of multi-family housing, etc
now as a moral action i think this is horrendous-a system where the participants are all pushed towards making everyone else worse off (and unlike most other systems where this charge is laid, there's no real way to claim that suburbia has helped either cities or rural areas)
the end result of local zoning control and the home equity scheme has been to lock in a class of people whose primary economic function is to trap as many people as possible in poverty-and make this a large portion of how they vote
And they are an extremely powerful bloc

now there is one thing i have to address here-suburban poverty, because it's huge
the trap is, the thing that keeps wealthy suburbanites wealthy-low density, lack of transit that isn't a car, are the same ones that keep poor suburbs poor
no density means businesses don't come in to reinvigorate a community because the customer base is spread too thin, and the lack of funds means that raising local taxes to address those problems is a nonstarter
and because there's no demand to move into a poor community with no services and little growth, the homes of the people who are living there don't appreciate in value (which is what happens with the exclusionary suburbs)
this is what i mean by "suburbs don't really work" anyway-the promise of wealth and security has largely been closed off to anyone who did not get to build generational wealth in the early years (many of whom are people who were priced out of cities as the downstream affects of affluent suburbanites took their toll)

now i could write a lot more about the social impact of suburbs (atomization), or their political role ( the fucking rearguard of structural racism) but this is long enough already and it is not up to my usual standards to begin with

[San Lumen]

Cities need rural areas and rural areas need cities.

Yes and some people seem incapable of understanding this.

[Proctopeo]

Cities need rural areas and rural areas need cities.

Yes and some people seem incapable of understanding this.

Let me be frank here, but judging by your typical rhetoric, you don't understand it either.

[San Lumen]

Yes and some people seem incapable of understanding this.

Let me be frank here, but judging by your typical rhetoric, you don't understand it either.

On what basis do you make this statement?

[The Blaatschapen]

How does it not represent you?

Also Balkanizing America would probably make the situation worse.

And doesn't go far enough.

We should hre-ize it.

[Heloin]

Also Balkanizing America would probably make the situation worse.

And doesn't go far enough.

We should hre-ize it.

Wait for a average height Frenchmen to dissolve it then half a century later it turns into Germany?

[Kanadorika]

If it were up to me, urban America would simply be deleted.

I beg your pardon? What are you implying?

Urban America is hell compared to urban centers in other nations.

But at the same time rural America is equally as hell. I think it's just America in general that's hell.

[Picairn]

Or hell, take a page out of Europe's book and turn the US into a confederation.

We already had the Articles of Confederation and even the Founding Fathers didn't want to go back.

What would happen to the suburbs?

finally, a perfect opportunity to abolish the suburbs once and for all

Just nuke the suburbs lmao

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Or hell, take a page out of Europe's book and turn the US into a confederation.

We already had the Articles of Confederation and even the Founding Fathers didn't want to go back.

finally, a perfect opportunity to abolish the suburbs once and for all

Just nuke the suburbs lmao

Or create a "polluter-pay" economic system that will force suburbanites to pay for the consequences of their decisions in a relatively less coercive manner...

[San Lumen]

We already had the Articles of Confederation and even the Founding Fathers didn't want to go back.


Just nuke the suburbs lmao

Or create a "polluter-pay" economic system that will force suburbanites to pay for the consequences of their decisions in a relatively less coercive manner...

What consequences are you referring to?

[GuessTheAltAccount]

Or create a "polluter-pay" economic system that will force suburbanites to pay for the consequences of their decisions in a relatively less coercive manner...

What consequences are you referring to?

The environmental and resource strain problems described by Kowani.

[San Lumen]

What consequences are you referring to?

The environmental and resource strain problems described by Kowani.

I don’t think that’s feasible. You can do it for companies but not property owners.

[Luziyca]

Definitely not. As much as I love me some good bordergore, this severing of infrastructure links would not be necessarily beneficial to either side.

[Odreria]

Putting cities scattered across thousands of miles into one country and putting the space between them into another country is a fantastic idea