[Sparticus]

You’re definitely on to something with the population density. I’ve long been of the opinion that too great a population density leads to a mild form mass psychosis. Most folks who live in the city just can’t see it, though.

[boop]

I remember my roommate who said (in the '80s) that eventually the big cities would become one entity.

He called it Bos-Was. Meaning an almost singular bloc from Boston to DC.

Turns out he was right.

[pepsionice]

I would add one unusual factor. If you move into an urban community....most folks typically aren’t into newspapers anymore, but you do turn on the morning and evening local news. In the majority of cases, I’ve come to notice from the urban prospective (I always lived in the rural parts of America and overseas until three years ago)...that the local network guys are carrying a more slanted view of the news. After a decade of watching it...you probably would become more capable to believing a liberal view than a Conservative view.

[Reeses]

The internet lessens the economic advantages of cities. It's now very possible to work for a big company while sitting lakefront in the quiet mountains, or even in a mud hut on the other side of the planet. The internet may take down the 1800s invention of the big city. On the other hand the internet greatly lessens privacy, with the younger generation posting to the world forever what they ate last night, watched on TV, and their every half-baked thought. Is the net effect of the internet a bigger world or a smaller one?

Canada and Australia are leftist, but their overall population density is very low. That's because they mostly live in cities. If their governments want to create more happiness for their citizens, they should use the internet and other technologies to get their people to spread out. Humans were never meant to live like insects. From a national security perspective, cities are nuclear sitting ducks.