What about those of us who live in suburban towns that are doing just fine for well over a century and not getting any subsidies from this mythical 'inner core'? From where did you pull that $20K number?

How are you sure your suburb is not getting subsidies from the inner core?

Because the county and city government budgets are public. We get no direct money from the nearest urban core and the only method of transfer would be through the state. We get very little of our yearly revenue through the state general fund, and we pay enough income(and other) tax to completely offset it.

We're self-sustaining primarily through property taxes and have been that way for more than a century.

You're not wrong, but your comments fall on deaf ears.

From the tone of other commenters here, I sense a malicious undercurrent intent on extinguishing rural ways of life - any excuse will suffice.

Then I don't see why you're worrying for government subsidies to be removed from your neighborhoods. I'm sure that paying for the water, road and electricity infrastructure is accounted in your numbers and you won't need anyone else paying for them.

> without subsidies from the inner core

Like how the residents of New York City are able to get the food and water it needs all produced within the five boroughs? Or is that a different kind of "subsidy" from the hinterlands.

A subsidy means you pay less for something than you would on the open market. Cities not only pay the market price for all those products the majority of their taxes go out to the hinterlands on top of that.

Cities pay market price for food coming from the hinterlands but at the same time they pay a subsidy to the same hinterlands that grow that same food? Doesn't sound like market price anymore.

It's nonsensical to say that just because the tax receipts of a suburb doesn't pay in full its roads and bridges, its existence is necessarily subsidized by the rest. Does a city pay in full for its share of the US Navy whose protection of global commerce it depends on to survive? Are cities subsidized by the blood of those in the armed forces, who primarily come from the hinterlands?

The majority of US taxes come from cities. It's the hinterlands that are free riding on the US armed forces.

> It's the hinterlands that are free riding on the US armed forces.

Yet.

"In every region of the country, recruitment rates were higher in rural and exurban counties than in urban counties. Only urban counties in the South had recruitment rates above the national average. Cities in the Northeast, Midwest and West all had rates well below the national average." [1]

[1] https://dailyyonder.com/largest-share-army-recruits-come-rur...

We can always hire cheaper foreign mercenaries. It's not like the current US army is actually needed for defending the US.

It’s absolute numbers that matter, not rates.

Are the hinterlands selling food to cities below cost? Probably not. It's not a subsidy.

Then who's selling roads and bridges and other services to suburbs below cost?

The US government.

Food is produced by rural areas, not by suburbs. Suburbs produce nothing that cities can't produce.

Suburbs produce places for rural residents to get services.

Or were you planning on creating isolated servants in rural area who only work all day and never go anywhere?

In my experience, rural folks go to small towns and small cities for services, not to suburbs. There are no services provided in suburban sprawl except for housing for the residents.