Dear Pool and Malice, Don't Export Urban Problems

By Jen Hill

Last week for the third time I heard a liberty minded/conservative talk pundit babble on about the value of urban sprawl in preventing liberalism and I was again extremely annoyed by their singular track thinking. Men that I normally admire such as Michael Malice and Tim Pool, and a few that I don’t, but who find themselves in a similar space like Charlie Kirk, have all declared that encouraging more of the population to leave the urban centers and expand out into the country would create more liberty loving people. They seem to believe that these lefty pinko commies would absorb some real world, blue collar values and increasingly see government as the problem. However, I believe they are wrong on the political front and completely ignoring the dangers to our food supply associated with urban sprawl.

Urban sprawl inevitably destroys otherwise useful farmland. When city folk envision themselves moving to the country it typically involves a 10-acre lot where they might put up a small garden once or twice until they realize gardening is expensive and hard. Maybe they’ll really get in touch with their inner hipster by purchasing a pair of pygmy goats, but the land they build their country dreams on will first have to be taken out of production. Fields that once grew row crops, hay and cows are broken up and dispersed into housing units. We’ve already seen this in suburbs all over the nation. Some of the most fertile land, especially in the western states, now grows nothing other than shiny green lawns that look pretty but are a giant drain on limited water resources. Our nation is currently experiencing a level of food insecurity unseen by most generations alive today. Beginning in 2020 many of us witnessed bare shelves for the first time. Amplified by the effects of inflation many people have begun to wonder about where their food comes from and how to protect that source for the first time. Apparently, Malice and Pool are not among them. Destroying even more farmland so that urbanites can get better acquainted with nature will only lead to more food insecurity.  

The theory is also wrong politically. If we intentionally spread out blue cities, we’d lose what few red sanctuaries we have left. I know the idea is that these ultra-liberals would be swayed through their new lifestyle to see the light, but there is zero evidence that this is what would happen. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. States like Colorado and Texas that were once safely red have turned purple or blue as waves of Californians and New Yorkers flood across their borders.

It’s lovely that some of these pundits have opted to abandon their urban dwellings and relocate their businesses to less populated areas, but they really should consider all of the consequences before encouraging their woke counterparts to follow suit.