There's nothing stopping your hypothetical company from getting FAA permission for a trial, even in an urban area. Yes, it requires one of those "lawyers", and requires you to have more of a plan than just "eh fuck it, light it up," but those are features, not bugs. But nobody's going to be prevented from doing even urban-scale testing if they are actually taking it seriously and involving the communities they wish to experiment within.

There's a reason these rules look so much like radio regulations: because screwing it up hurts everyone, so it behooves us not to screw up. Doing dangerous things requires buy-in from more than just your shareholders. And stop with the "oh, woe is us" stuff. It's shitty rhetoric and it doesn't work.