Due to agricultural monocultures and climate limitations, most rural areas are not self-sustaining either. A given rural locale may contribute certain products to cities, but it is also a net recipient of other products from elsewhere – and the logistics of getting all those products to the given rural locale may well have been managed within cities.

So? That doesn't make them any less necessary. If anything, it just reinforces how necessary they are, since different rural areas need to specialize in different raw materials and foodstuffs.

My comment wasn't a reply to why we should do away with cities, it was a reply to why rural areas should "be subsidized" (I'm assuming road construction here, and maybe social welfare for impoverished).

People in Urban and suburban areas are perfectly aware their food come from mostly rural areas.

Almost everything else in your home; your car; the technology they depend on; the road, telecom, hospital, etc infrastructure and the technology they depend on come almost entirely from cities and suburbs.

HN? The device you use to access it? Almost all the tech news on it? The network infrastructure you use to lower its comment quality? The language its written? The computers it runs on? Not from rural areas.

That is half true; all the raw materials for all if those things come from outside the cities.

Again, I'm not saying cities aren't important, only replying to a comment asking for justification for rural living.