But if a rural is easier to manage and yields more gold than a city, then that just makes the rural the aspirational one, does it not?
If that yield were actually due to talent, management skill, and ambition on the part of the rural lord, and incompetence of the city lord, then I could agree. But it's not. It's due entirely to the meta factors of region stats, over which the lord has no control.
(Note that there are always exceptions. I'm not counting the ridiculously poor "cities" like Gaston and Chrysantalys.)
