It’s really simple. Adam Smith. Population concentrations diversify and increase productivity. The wealthiest areas and nations generally have a high population concentration.
Remember Smith and his pin makers? You aren’t going to locate pin makers in Alaska. Also, Alaska is a net consumer of taxpayer dollars from the lower 48, and is a bad example. They could not sustain their current standard of living without assistance from elsewhere.
Another example is the Dutch. They have very high population density, but have embraced economic classic liberalism and liberal democracy. If population density created poverty and despotism, we would expect the opposite.
You are right that population density creates more poverty, in the sense that there is more inequality. The rich get far richer than the poor. The question then becomes relative poverty. The numbers show clearly the opposite effect. They show that while the ‘poor’ as a percentage of the population grows, the amount of money necessary to be considered poor goes up. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Look, I know this is counterintuitive, but this is the honest truth. Economics requires population density in order to prosper. Economics induces severe market forces on rural areas to encourage people to move to the cities.
We have been surrounded by the greatest urbanisation that the world has seen, and you are arguing that this is contrary to market forces?
I understand your argument, but it is simply, flat out wrong. If the quality of life were truly higher in rural areas, than more people would move out there. Why don’t they? I am a country boy myself, but unfortunately I need to work in order to eat and to live and to raise a family, and I cannot do so where I am from. I have suffered un and underemployment for the last two years in order to attempt to make it work.