

Using bethel as an example for an article is a bit disingenuous. It’s not a place that people should really be living any way other than off the land. It’s like saying the groceries on the space station or at everest base camp are expensive.
It’s like 500 km from any roads and thousands from anywhere capable of agriculture as the rest of the world knows it.
It’s also mainly Yupik, and politically, idk how they vote, but they aren’t exactly politically relevant compared to the basically 3 cities with more than 10,000 people in Alaska.


Those are all places that were relatively sparsely populated until the widespread use of air conditioning, which coincided with the takeover of city planning by auto company interests. Also things like the interstate highway system.