>Imagine living in a Town with less than 2.5k people living in rural midwest...

And:

>Elected officials care and respond to votes and the smaller the area of control, the easier it is to get your voice heard...

I think either you haven't lived in such a town, or small towns in Wisconsin, where I'm from, are atypical in this regard. Not sure which, since I've never personally lived in any small town outside of Wisconsin.

In my experience, bronco21016 is right to be suspicious of local government. But again, YMMV. Different places may have different dynamics.

Parent said it's easier for your voice to be heard, and you responded with they either haven't lived in a small town or yours are different. So are you saying, implied from what you chose to quote, your experience is that it is not easier for your voice to be heard? My experience is the exact opposite.

Your comment doesn't offer a rebuttal other than "you haven't lived in such a town". I'd be interested in hearing more.

I generally agree with you about government being not inherently trustworthy just because a town is small. However, I think small town governments are generally less bad than larger town/city governments just because of the reduced number of people represented per elected official.

I've lived in small and smallish towns in four states and pay attention to local politics because I was raised to do that.

Local culture is the dominant term in the equation by a mile. How effective and efficient government is a reflection of how effective and efficient people (some of whom make up the government) expect it to be. A "highly competent" government from New Jersey would have people talking about tar and feathers in Maine.

Within a given state it seems like government effectiveness is inversely correlated with population and wealth. The more money you have the easier it is to justify pissing some of it away on boondoggle projects. The more people you have the less accountability there is.

Another thing I've noticed is that in the smaller government states the middle class poor don't hate the state government as much because it doesn't affect them as much or as often.

A more broad question. Why is it that corrupt officials continue to get re-elected? Especially in a small town (speaking as someone who has never lived in a small town), it seems like the residents would be better informed of a representative's corruption.

It’s rarely corruption as such. In a genuinely small town, you have town officials maybe making $30K per year and decisions like the one discussed here being voted on by the 10% who care enough to show up at a town meeting. Most probably hadn’t heard what was going on if there’s no town newspaper.

I don’t mean to sound bleak. I live in a small town. In general public works does a fine job. I’m not sure I’d trust them to make the right decision on and rollout broadband.

Sounds like your small town is socially dysfunctional. If you think your neighbors are apathetic, why aren't you out doorknocking to get them to show up to these things, or bringing it up at the church potluck/what have you? I don't see how these things are different in cities except when people are wiling to do this civic engagement work.

The statistics I quoted referred to the OP article. I care about relatively few town issues and have attended meetings or signed a petition when there’s been something of interest. I don’t go to church potlucks or other town events in general nor do I care to for the most part.

Maybe you're arguing something else, but I was responding to the general sentiment on this thread that small towns are somehow more susceptible to corruption than other places. It reads to me like you were trying to provide causation for that. Important local decisions being made by a vote with pitiful turnout happens in towns and cities of all sizes, and if anything I would argue the greater bureaucratic complexity of a large city and the better salaries make them more susceptible to 'corruption', not less. (Though I'm also suspicious of anyone complaining about 'corruption' without clarifying what they mean, which seems to be happening a lot on HN lately.)

I don’t think small towns are corrupt in the traditional big city sense with any frequency. There isn’t enough money involved. Competence is more of a mixed bag I expect.

Many small towns definitely do listen to their residents. Not all, unfortunately.

Also, the city doesn’t do the whole deal necessarily — they can do things like lay the fiber, then lease it to various providers to figure out transit from the local plant across the internet.

This would be more like the dial-up days, where the line to connect to the network is fairly independent from who provides the service.

Competition is broadly inconsistent with natural monopolies.