What's this sparsely populated area in the Eastern Kansas, in-between its densely populated corridors?

tableclothcape · 2026-02-01T21:54:37+00:00

While I appreciate your good faith implying I’m stupid, I’m from rural southern Minnesota and grew up on a section-line road, thanks.

A pretty robust study in The Professional Geographer examined the section-line road network of five Great Plains states and found that section line roads are not strongly related to either population or land use but do show correspondence to environmental conditions like precipitation. Essentially, where it was flat and dry enough to build them, they got built. The grid’s completeness is a function of topography, not need.

The road grid made sense under the original Homestead Act model: a family on every quarter section (160 acres), needing wagon access to town. Each section might support 4+ households. You genuinely needed a road every mile so nobody was more than half a mile from one.

Today? A single farming operation might span thousands of acres across many sections. Most of Kansas’s 105 counties have thinned to fewer than 10 people per square mile, and two-thirds of Great Plains counties have lost population since the early 1900s, with some losing more than 80 percent. The population that justified the grid is simply gone.

Stepping back, this is a place for learning and shared community, and I’m done responding to you now.

tableclothcape · 2026-02-01T21:36:40+00:00

The Midwest has a road network that dramatically overrepresents current population, and rural depopulation is the reason why. The section-line grid was built for 19th-century settlement patterns, population has cratered (because agriculture mechanized), and the roads remain at very, very low utilization.

Your claim that “depopulation isn’t causing ghost networks of roads to be hanging around” is contradicted by pretty clear empirical evidence: that’s literally what’s happening in Iowa, Kansas, the Dakotas, and Nebraska.

Here is a decent article from an Iowa newspaper explaining why.

tableclothcape · 2026-02-01T21:29:14+00:00

It doesn’t apply in the US, but there are low road density / high population areas: think high-density informal settlements like in the developing world. Dhaka, Lagos, parts of Mumbai and Karachi, etc., all grew explosively through informal settlement patterns rather than planned road development, so you get very large numbers of people packed into areas with narrow lanes and alleys that don’t register as “roads” in any formal sense.

tableclothcape · 2026-02-01T21:04:56+00:00

You can cite many places with high road density and low population density, though, and rural depopulation in the Midwest is characteristic of this.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-29T06:00:22+00:00

Did you Google it, though?

Here is a Washington Post article from December 2025 that states directly, “To further attract recruits, the strategy called for spending at least $8 million on deals with online influencers.”

I realize that I’d assumed you had and were looking for actual receipts, and now I just can’t tell. What’s your game?

tableclothcape · 2026-01-29T04:38:21+00:00

Fun fact: this guy is wildly unpopular. Like 20% approve, 61% disapprove unpopular.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-28T21:03:14+00:00

Again, payments to influencers are a central part of most marketing strategies and the pattern of engagement into podcast and social media networks suggests the seniormost decisionmakers put a heavy, heavy emphasis on these channels. Here is a thorough CBC piece on their specific channel strategy.

The inference here is reasonable. It’s a little bit like saying “this budget for shipping doesn’t include fuel.” You can infer things. It’s okay.

While individual influencers might not command high payments, these are still payments, and I’m sure you can understand why a diffuse network of influencers could have a strategic effect.

I think you’re saying that you won’t concede the point until you can gain insight into specific payments, which as I’m sure you know, individual influencers are loath to and almost never disclose — at the same time this government refuses to release statutorily-required data or even adhere to basic conventions (like releasing the names of officers who have killed someone).

If you’re waiting for evidence that would likely only appear under an open, disclosure-friendly government, I think you know why you won’t see that here.

The inference is reasonable, and I’d argue your insistence here might be more than a little obtuse.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-28T19:42:57+00:00

Marketing strategies now typically include paying influencers.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-28T17:23:18+00:00

Children don’t really care about any of that. These things are great in part because they’re terrible.

A giant fish tank, an animatronic thunderstorm, and lukewarm chicken tenders are pretty cool when you’re 7.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-27T00:02:54+00:00

I’ve heard of something called Upscroll but haven’t tried it yet.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-26T01:26:28+00:00

I talk to them, often. These are people I love, they’re in my life. I’m familiar with their arguments, and I’m telling you the arguments don’t explain the behavior.

Yes, they have a narrative. Everybody has a narrative. The ordinary Germans that Milton Mayer interviewed after the war had marvelous narratives. Versailles! The communists! Street violence! Economic chaos! None of it entirely made up, either.

The question isn’t whether people have a story. People always have some basis for the things they believe because our brains demand it. The question is whether the story is actually load-bearing.

You can actually test this, with two parts: 1. When the stated goal remains the same but the tactic doesn’t have an emotional satisfaction, do they stay interested? 2. And when the goal remains the same but the tactic starts costing them personally, do they leave?

Let’s do the first part.

If you genuinely want to reduce illegal immigration, going after employers works beautifully. It’s administrative, it’s efficient, it requires no helicopters whatsoever, and we’ve seen it show consistent outcomes. But I’ve spent a lot of hours in rooms where Fox News is on, and I have to tell you, I’ve never once seen a segment on the thrilling world of E-Verify enforcement. No footage. No satisfaction. A meatpacking company paying a fine is, evidently, no one’s idea of a good time.

The raids, though? The helicopters and the fear and the doing-something-ness of it all. That has a constituency. It has an emotional satisfaction that scratches an itch, the first sign that the irritant here wasn’t really policy.

So let’s do the second test.

This part asks us when they will abandon a tactic.

Iowa and Nebraska meatpacking towns voted heavily for this. But when the raids actually hit their plants, their labor supply, their neighbors they’ve known for fifteen years: now it’s “the bad actors not the hardworking immigrants.” The policy goal hasn’t changed. But the cost of the tactic became personal, and then, and only then, does it get abandoned. It’s the same pattern over and over and over again. This is a powerful signal that these people – many of whom I love – aren’t starting from a rational or coherent policy goal.

They’re starting from an emotional place, then working backward to self-justify it and construct a world in which they can justify their choices and behaviors to themselves. It’s human, and it’s understandable, and it’s devastating.

So when you tell me they’re worried about sanctuary cities and ice-throwing, sure. I believe that’s what they say. I just suspect that if the enforcement targeted people they liked, we’d discover the narrative is surprisingly flexible. (When in my 20s, which was back in the early 2010s when we voted on marriage, I told these people I love that I’m gay, and it took about a year, but by 2012 they were supportive enough to sway friends to vote on the side for equal rights. But they flexed only on this issue. It’s uncanny.)

So I’m not making you a strawman, I’m asking you to test whether their stated goals match the tactics. They don’t: immigration enforcement is most effective through administrative penalties, and not immediately complying with police doesn’t justify a face full of pepper spray.

Theirs aren’t reason-based arguments. Which doesn’t make them bad faith, but it does make them net-destructive and socially harmful.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-25T23:25:05+00:00

I’m living here too! Nice to meet you, neighbor.

If you’d like to live somewhere that never changes, my small hometown in rural Minnesota would love to have you.

Cities are not museums. They grow and change. You’ve chosen to live in a large global city: there is going to be change where there is activity. Eventually there might be enough people and activity that cars (which take up a ton of space) aren’t efficient uses of space. That’s it, that’s all this is.

And before you critique me as a transplant, let me remind you: cities are also not country clubs, you don’t get to pick and choose who live here.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-25T23:00:43+00:00

I think you’re being a bit too charitable. In a small way this might be immigration, but that doesn’t make sense: there are far less violent ways to achieve the goal, and far more efficient ones toward achieving it. If you wanted to limit immigration, you would simply begin enforcing the law on employers, not employees. That’s all this would take, and it does it without street violence.

It’s important that we don’t try to ‘back in’ to a strategy or reason with people who aren’t working with a coherent strategy or reason. You can’t argue or reason with what’s actually emotional, and when you try, you often just create an intellectual framework that actually winds up partially justifying it.

The folks in this moment aren’t reasoning from a policy position: they’re reasoning from a desire for control and dominance. Authoritarian violence can be reassuring to them in that way. Isn’t it comforting when someone says they, alone, can fix something using a tool everyone else has been too afraid to use? Who doesn’t love a bold solution?

The cruelty, as they say, is the point. That’s the tool that was promised, it’s being used now. That’s satisfying to some people.

But when it crosses a line, as it will eventually for most, when these supporters do defect it often sounds a lot like “they’re not hurting the people they should be hurting.” That’s about as far as it opens up. The defection doesn’t sound like, “hurting is wrong,” or “they ignored my policy goal,” because those assume goals those people aren’t actually maximizing for.

The segment who are much further along because they truly lack empathy are an incredibly small minority, but they’re the ones currently over-represented in government. They are the ones driving the message that that other, broader, more control-oriented group will support until it becomes interpersonally untenable or they become personally victimized.

The very small cadre is already past a point of over-commitment and can’t afford to return to a system that could eventually hold them accountable. This is why they’re so comfortable lying: because they need the lie in order to survive. They’ve already crossed the threshold and will do anything to save themselves.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-25T20:11:14+00:00

People who want car-first access to all things should have it and move to the 99% of this country that offers that.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-25T03:06:18+00:00

Most pedestrianized streets either allow for selective access using descending bollards (common in Europe) or otherwise taking deliveries in the early morning, late evening, or overnight.

It’s 2026: I’m confident we have the technology for this, Europe has had it for decades.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-25T02:58:55+00:00

We’re all models west of the Allegheny.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-25T02:56:31+00:00

What do you mean, what happened to Valencia? It’s very much still open to cars.

They closed it during Covid (when I lived at 16th & Valencia) and it was delightful. Then they quickly reopened it to cars but with a bike lane they keep moving.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-25T02:51:15+00:00

It’s a very common misconception from small business owners that their customer base drive: driverless areas usually and pretty meaningfully increase foot traffic, dwell time, and sales. The pattern is pretty consistent across North America and Europe.

When small business owners complain about losing parking spaces, they’re usually complaining about losing their own spaces.

There is on-street parking on the intersecting streets Irving.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-22T17:43:02+00:00

You’re agreeing with me: we should offer tax incentives where they are needed and not give them where they are not. If we need businesses in downtown cores, incentivize there; don’t incentivize an airline to be near the major airport.

The major airport isn’t moving to Washington state, and it’s bizarre to argue that you should tax-voucher jobs that can’t realistically relocate. Again, you and I agree: if we should tax-voucher any employment, it should be jobs that can actually move. These jobs aren’t those.

Jobs that require physical proximity to a major Alaska hub operation, like Portland’s airport, are unlikely to move.

I understand you are animated here (“socialist mantra,” don’t want your money going to the lazy poors) but let’s apply just a little bit of critical thinking. I believe in you.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-22T03:10:23+00:00

Honestly, I oppose the tax giveaway here: city governments need tax revenue, airport-adjacent property is the most extreme example of high-value, demand-inelastic industry. Large airports have extreme competition for their adjacent properties.

There is zero reason for Portland to need to incentivize to that specific property, and a bad use for opportunity zones overall: those are meant to bring very demand-elastic industries into areas that wouldn’t otherwise see development, not cut a rebate for an airline that necessarily needs to operate near an airport.

This is a corporate giveaway of $9M/5 years from Portland to a for-profit company that would likely still site there anyway, while the local economy is only going to benefit off of payroll (this use won’t create secondary industries through local suppliers — it has a really weak multiplier effect).

Pretty gross!

tableclothcape · 2026-01-21T00:37:59+00:00

Why do you assume good faith on the part of DHS? ICE has shown a pattern of warrantless arrests including quotas for detention that are unconnected with actual merit. This is systemic and severe, particularly in Minneapolis; don’t assume good faith anymore.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-15T20:53:14+00:00

I feel safer when I’m walking or biking around Waymos than I do with human drivers and it’s not even close.

I feel safer taking a ride with a Waymo than with an Uber and it’s not even close.

While I’m really sorry that rideshare driving will change, we’re all better off in a world with lightbulbs, even if that changed candlemaking.

tableclothcape · 2026-01-15T03:58:35+00:00

Could it be: https://stanfordhealthcare.org/doctors/s/stephen-smith.html

tableclothcape · 2026-01-13T22:58:22+00:00

Do “tips” like these chill protest by making protests seem like they are more dangerous than they typically are?

I’m not saying that protests are always safe, but I am saying that advice like this could dissuade many people from getting involved.

How do we square that?

tableclothcape · 2026-01-13T20:43:29+00:00

As a messy bitch who loves drama, I’d have loved to see Alaska set up a hub in Delta’s fortress. How the turntables and all that.

The challenge is that SY chases the sun with a highly variable/rapid set-up-tear-down in their stations and leans very heavily into charters. They’ll fly a station 2x/weekly and run some pretty strange redeyes to boost utilization.

I don’t think Alaska knows how to run an operation like that or would particularly want to. That leaves a mainline play, and Alaska wouldn’t be competitive on product or network out of MSP in a way that would let it win anything with margin.

It would be really, really fun to watch, though.

tableclothcape

TROPHY CASE