I know we’re kind of leaning toward a discussion about “inner city” cultures, but the same dynamics that have kept that population oppressed work for rural areas as well.
I think the dynamics you refer to are indeed not limited to "inner city" cultures. One of the latest things I have seen many times is people lamenting "food deserts". I believe what we actually see is that there are areas we might call "resource deserts" and these areas are not limited to the inner cities.
In order for an area to support a population there must be sufficient resources of various kinds. Basic resources include water, sanitation facilities and arable land, in other words land and water sufficient for an agrarian society. The poor areas in much of the world lack those resources in quantities sufficient for the population. We can’t produce more land and when we provide more water we usually ultimately damage the land and make it even less productive. Reducing the population to a sustainable level, like we do for other species, would seem to make sense but people generally reject that suggestion.
In developed countries technology has replaced the need for basic resources with the need for jobs. Unless we are going to keep people as pets, like we did in the “projects” of the mid 1900’s, the need for jobs will persist. Beginning with the industrial revolution, every time technology has increased “productivity” the workers have suffered job losses. We can encourage development of jobs in areas that need them, but unless we can justify the expense, that is, get a return on the investment, we are back to keeping people as pets, albeit working pets.
Migration is a natural response to changing resource conditions. We may be able to induce migration to areas where workers are needed, if such areas exist. If such areas do not exist, and we cannot create them and get a return on the development expense, we are again left with the unpopular option of reducing the population.
One other option I can envision is for us to consider technological development the property of the nation. If we do that through taxation, many will say we are penalizing development of labor saving devices and procedures. Many seem to applaud the idea of imposing limits and penalties on one’s carbon footprint. I can imagine the uproar if we were try to impose limits and penalties on one’s labor saving footprint. Shall we tax a worker who uses a power saw more than one who uses a hand saw? Should a store clerk who uses a computer to ring up your bill pay more tax than one who uses a pad and pencil and does the math in her head? Or shall we give a worker a higher pay rate for producing less by hand than another worker who produces more using technology?
If we simply give people a “guaranteed annual income,” as has been suggested, we are back to keeping people as pets. Scrooge’s opinion that there is a “surplus population” may not be that far from the truth. The Bible says that the poor will be with us always. I expect that will be true, but we have the capacity for limiting the number of poor.
The Earth is a finite resource; there is a limit on how many people it is capable of supporting. That number may be a hundred or a thousand times the current population but I expect we are fast approaching the number that is sustainable. If we don’t take measures to control ourselves nature will likely do it for us. I think we can come up with measures which be be much less painful than the famines, pandemics and wars of the past; what we lack is the political will.