The real issue of concern is the destruction of system nexuses merely by the detonations. Cities are often choke points for much infrastructure which crosses the land. In many cases this is why they were formed initially and later technological innovations merely followed the same logical paths.

Forget the non-issue of the EMP event, rather the use of a strategic weapon to make these nexuses into big holes surrounded by lots of permanently broken stuff.

It will not be as simple as merely going around them and making new lines of everything, truly everything including roads. And, they are also most usually the homes of the support services for all of the "lines" and everything else which transits them which will also be destroyed in a strategic attack.

Everyone living in the great expanses is at the whim of the nexuses as much as the less dense areas could theoretically starve a city or some such other nexus. The problem is that both need each other and do not respect this.

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This is about to be a lesson on selling to the market you have instead of worrying about your cost basis. No one and I mean no one cares about what you paid for something except you.