Ok I’m from the Berkshires and I have to say we don’t really contribute that much. Most of us are just poor and stuck in retail, personal care, or fast food, and the few rich people are mostly involved in the arts.

I do think we need more help than we get, but that’s simply because the area isn’t as developed or interconnected with the rest of the state, and a lot of us are stuck here due to being poor rather than by choice. Accomplishing that will require more resources per capita than elsewhere in the state. But it’s not like we’re the only ones who should be getting more resources per capita—low-income people in eastern MA also need more help than the average person for similar reasons.

We do have at least one disadvantage relative to the urban poor in that our representatives have to lobby for communities that are way farther apart, meaning even if rural and urban representatives are securing the same funding for their districts, the higher cost of trying to develop a larger area diminishes the rural representative’s returns relative to the urban representative. It’s a problem inherent to our representatives belonging to winner-takes-all single-member districts.

But we aren’t better than the rest of the state. We just need more help.