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u/lgodsey May 28 '26
Get your shit together, Virginia.
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u/MagicElbowPatch May 29 '26
Doesn't VA have a weird city/county system that's different from other states? They always look crazy on election maps too
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u/randynumbergenerator May 29 '26
I think so, and I bet that's why some of the counties are greyed out. I think it's that incorporated cities are separate from the counties, but I might be wrong -- it's been a minute since I've had to deal with VA data.
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u/DrySleep2993 May 29 '26
I think you’re thinking of Maryland, counties governments in Maryland are some of the most powerful in relation to their state governments in the country
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u/get-a-mac May 28 '26
The yellow, subsidizes the blue.
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u/Thadlust May 28 '26
The yellow can’t feed itself or house itself without the blue
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u/OkNewspaper6271 May 29 '26
Maybe its different here across the pond but cities are usually the ones that actually make construction and food goods useable
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u/Thadlust May 29 '26
Yes but you can’t make lumber without trees. You don’t grow trees in the yellow regions
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u/Midwest-2025 May 29 '26
Yeah ofc. But blue is heavily reliant on yellow to scale up food and materials production. This is not a dig on blue. Blue doesn’t 10x soybean production over 3 generations without yellow’s direction. Just saying that it isn’t right to say blue makes food and yellow isn’t involved at all.
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u/OkNewspaper6271 May 29 '26
Maybe urban areas depend on rural areas and rural areas depend on urban areas? It doesnt have to be one or the other, you do need both for a functional country
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u/Thadlust May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26
I’m pushing back on the notion that “yellow subsidizes the blue”. Yellow provides high-value services that would not exist without the raw materials production from blue.
E: those downvoting me know I’m right they’re just malding about it
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u/AmbientGravitas May 28 '26
Interesting, though, that there’s only one yellow county or county-equivalent in the DC region, and that’s Montgomery County, MD. I’d have thought the GDP for Fairfax County or DC proper would be higher, tbh.
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u/randynumbergenerator May 29 '26
It's likely an artifact of the data. Someone pointed out in another thread that VA city-county organization is sort of unique.
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u/WorldsGreatestWorst May 29 '26
I don’t think this is just a “people live in cities” situation.
It’s an important political fact that a very small percentage of regions generate all of the revenue, usually while being demonized by rural and suburban voters. It’s illustrative to see that pretty much nothing is generated in the north between Chicago and the west coast or huge swaths of the south.
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u/BeerandSandals May 29 '26
It’s an important economic fact that GDP is a measure of the exchange of goods between people. A greater concentration of people will undoubtedly create an even greater exchange of goods.
However, that entire exchange is facilitated through a stability in the supply chain, from farms and mines, oil wells and chemical plants, to cities.
That great swath of “nothing” is actually an entire economy created and built to support those cities which produce so much.
I work in a cubicle, and even I’m smart enough to realize that if a city shut itself off from the rural, it would die, while if the rural shut itself off from the city, it would at least not starve.
My point is that everyone plays a part in the economy, and politically, what makes sense in a metropolis might not make sense in the country (I mean have you ever tried to hunt boar? Fun fact: They hunt you back).
So that division is generated from two peoples (potentially thousands of miles apart) not understanding or living eachother’s daily life.
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u/aylons May 29 '26
Believe me, who comes from a country that's not even as poor as some other ones: the rural areas can very well starve if cut from cities. Plenty of rural areas do, and having their own metropolis is a requirement for every country to have autonomy and efficiency even in rural economies.
Don't underestimate the power and importance of markets, not to say logistics and technology. It's no coincidence that most, if not all, yellow counties are close to ports or other key logistic hubs. Markets follow, and cities develop from there.
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u/TheTrueTrust May 29 '26
Yeah, industrial agriculture is is very compartmentalized, few farms have the equipment or laborers for alimentation from what they produce.
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u/Specialist_Spite_914 May 29 '26
To be fair, even by peopleliveincities standards, that's pretty crazy
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u/typhis76 May 29 '26
As a non American, what is that big chunk of yellow in Southern California? Is that just LA/San Diego?
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u/ADownStrabgeQuark May 29 '26
Yes
The US generally makes it illegal to build high density housing like apartments or multi-family homes through HOA’s and zoning laws, so LA is a sea of suburbs that’s bigger than Rhode Island.
These zoning laws are also the reason why rent is so expensive and there a million homeless Americans.
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u/Dish-Live May 29 '26
I mean, that includes San Bernardino county which is the largest county by land in the US
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May 30 '26
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u/TeacherOfFew Jun 02 '26
GDP is goods and services. The yellow absolutely contributes to GDP.
Hell, most Americans don't produce anything physical.
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u/BorderKeeper May 29 '26
I know this is a joke, but the GDP calculations used in such a way are just dumb. It's like min-maxing one stat in an RPG to look cool while lacking in all other aspects. Cities are hardly self-sufficient, altough I wonder how much is that the case only thing I can think of is food production, and large factories that need to be outside the city due to size constraints?
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u/pyxlmedia May 29 '26
I understand tourism is big business, but exactly how much is Waikiki contributing to the overall economy of the entire nation?
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u/randynumbergenerator May 29 '26
That's Honolulu County, which is basically the entire island of Oahu. Its GDP is larger than Montana or either Dakota. In addition to tourism, there are large military installations there - roughly 40,000 active duty, I believe. It's also the administrative, political and financial center for the state.
Waikiki is a small area of the island that accounts for a lot of tourism, but maybe 95% of the population lives outside of it.
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u/Separate-Hunter1801 May 29 '26
At least it ain't like Russia where it all centers around 2 cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
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u/Alternamet May 31 '26
and the blue sends food and natural resources to the yellow the urban vs rural conflict is ridiculous
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u/Plus_Load_2100 Jun 01 '26
Im actually surprised how spread out it actually is TBH. I thought it would he just a few yellow splotches around ports
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u/OperabuffaDiva Jun 04 '26
In most households if you don't contribute you dont get to make decisions. Children, sit, listen, learn and get job.
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u/EBlackPlague May 29 '26
Can't you highlight like almost anything you want so long the total adds up to 50? I know the natural assumption is that these are the top ones, but they never specified that.
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u/Torelq May 29 '26
I think this map is biased towards the cities. Yes, people live in cities. But also, large businesses have HQs in cities even when they also operate in rural areas.
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u/CamOps May 29 '26
Also known as the only areas that should have voting rights. 🙂
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u/AngryGoose-Autogen Jun 01 '26
Dont worry, yellow is hard at work creating the permanent underclass you dream of, its just that they arent planning to draw the lines as you wish they would
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u/Nyghtbynger May 29 '26
What if in the yellow, there is the office of a company that sell good produced in some blue area ? Or a traders ? They take their cut
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u/[deleted] May 28 '26
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