CNN has a interesting article up today stressing that Republican governors have to have Blue urban areas buy into their opening up plans in order for the economy rebound,
In other words they may hold office based on rural areas (and voter disenfranchisement) but it is the urban areas that drive their states economies.
"[F]or instance, the "Urban Lab" at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin noted that what it called "the Texas Triangle -- the great region bounded by San Antonio/Austin in the southwest, Houston in the southeast, and Dallas/Fort Worth in the north" accounted for the vast majority of the state's economic output, attracted 98% of its venture capital and generated much higher wages than the state's rural areas."
"It is a tale of two Texases," the group wrote, "one, an urban powerhouse with a rising knowledge economy that craves more educated talent; and the other, smaller towns and open ranges whose legacy agriculture, manufacturing, and oil extraction businesses are contracting."
Snip
"Economic experts across these states agree that they can't regain cruising speed without a revival in these dynamic metro areas. For Texas, there will be no recovery "without those places restarting and getting out in front of this," says Steven Pedigo, director of the LBJ School's Urban Lab. "We have this frontier mentality but at the end of the day we are an urban state. The growth triangle is what has kept the state moving and growing."
The article compares various states for the percentage of the economy driven by the Blue urban areas and with few exceptions it is the large cities. It is worth a look at the article to see where your state ranks.
While it is true that the largest outbreaks have been in large cities those same cities have been able to get their better educated citizens to buy into the solutions also.
Governor Abbott may be courting the dt followers by going to court to stop the enforcement of ordinances requiring masks BUT we control our own destiny because he can not stop us from using them. As a side note John Heilman said last night that the Texas Republican party was discussing banning masks at their political convention this summer. Stay tuned to how well that works out with the level of old white guys that will be attending.
I hope Texas cities hold Abbott accountable and force him to use our rainy day fund to support public school safety measures and maybe some time of fund to prevent home foreclosures and evictions.
CNN article