In July, I met Washington state representative Shelly Short at the Washington Policy Center's annual conference on the environment.  Short has an unenviable position, for a Republican.  She's the ranking minority member on the House Ecology and Parks Committee.  (It is unenviable, because the position makes her a natural target for religious groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace.)

I had a chance to talk to Representative Short briefly, and so I asked her if she understood what I meant by this term: urban imperialist.  She thought a few seconds, and said that she did.  That she recognized the term is not surprising because her district has a good claim to be the most rural district in Washington state.  That she recognized it so quickly probably tells us something about how smart she is.

(For those who haven't Short's background, a brief definition:  By urban imperialist, I mean someone who treats rural areas as conquered provinces, as places to be managed and exploited — regardless of the desires of the inhabitants.  Many urban and suburban Democrats are urban imperialists, as are many journalists.  In this area one of the most prominent urban imperialists was former King County executive Ron Sims, who now has a position in the Obama administration.  One of the loudest is Seattle PI columnist Joel Connelly.)

Some in urban areas with very long memories may see the rise of urban imperialists as an example of turnabout being fair play.  A century ago, most of our legislatures were dominated by rural interests, who often treated urban minorities unfairly.  A half century ago, when the United States had become a predominately urban and suburban nation, rural areas often had unfair amounts of power in our legislatures, because of gerrymandering and population shifts, shifts that were not reflected in new district lines.

Now, in almost every state, that era has passed and urban and suburban areas control the state's government.  And there has been a change in the experiences most Americans have, too.   Fifty years ago, most Americans still had some connection to rural areas; they might live in a city or suburb, but they had relatives who were farmers, miners, loggers, or otherwise earned their living away from cities.  Now, many, perhaps most, Americans have no such connections, have not even an indirect understanding of how people live — and make a living — in rural areas.   (An amusing example:  Several years ago, the Seattle Times sent an urban reporter on a tour of rural areas.  The reporter seemed genuinely surprised at how well he was treated, everywhere he went.  The way he was treated would not have surprised anyone familiar with those areas.)

Because voters in urban and suburban areas often know little about rural areas, the politicians representing them can propose policies that damage rural areas, without much fear of objections from their voters.  They can, for example, propose immense wind farms, without understanding the damage they do to rural areas.  They can — and often do — propose gas tax increases, without realizing what a disproportionate burden that puts on rural areas.  (Last year, there was a sensitive article in the New York Times about the problems caused in rural areas by high gas prices.  As far as I can tell, almost no one paid any attention to it, at the Times, or elsewhere.)

Sometimes the unfair treatment of rural areas is inescapable.  For example:  There would be no damage to the health of the people in Miles City, Montana, if their cars and trucks had no pollution controls at all.  But there would be damage to the people of Chicago if their vehicles had no controls.  Since we have one national car market, and since Chicago is somewhat larger than Miles City, the people of Miles City must pay for those pollution controls, even though they don't need them.

But usually it isn't.  Regulations, especially land use regulations, can be written so that they take into consideration population densities.  Or not written at all; often the rural areas just need to be left alone.

But many of our urban imperialists are unwilling to leave them alone, preferring to see rural areas converted into parks, and even the exclusionary parks we call "Wilderness Areas".  Urban politicians, who would be outraged if rural legislators proposed destroying urban interstates — to improve the environment — will happily propose demolishing dams in rural areas, regardless of the damage that does to transportation and power generation in those areas.

This is shortsighted, as well as unfair.  Almost all our food comes from rural areas.   When urban imperialists make it more difficult for our farmers, food prices rise.  When they make it more difficult for our loggers, home prices rise.  When they make it more difficult for our miners, the prices of energy and machines rise.

All of this is obvious to anyone who thinks about this for even a few minutes.  But it is not obvious to some of our urban special interest groups, especially "Green" religious groups.  Those belonging to those groups often feel for the trees, or the polar bears, or the salmon, or whatever — but don't feel for the people who live and, even worse, make a living in rural areas.  And they are almost never interested in understanding those who live in rural areas, preferring, if they think about them at all, to see them as cartoon villains, rather than people who (mostly) are good stewards of the lands they live on.

I don't expect our urban imperialists to change their ways any time soon, but I do hope that at least a few of their voters will criticize them when they treat rural areas as conquered provinces, and I hope that at least of few of their voters will tell them just how unfairly they are behaving.

Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.