Both towns offered amenities like electricity, pumped water at every home and better access to transportation, markets, schools and hospitals.
The best have mains water, electricity, pumped drainage, telephone landlines, satellite television, Wi-Fi and even parking spaces.
"I admire immensely the old moonshiners who did this without electricity, pumps and all the rest, humping sacks of corn and sugar up the hills," Mr. Fireman said.
At present, the electricity pumped along most of these lines is, like most of the rest of the grid, in a form known as alternating current.
Photograph: Tim Dowling 11.04am BST Tim Dowling: I did, naturally enough, peek at the Wattson from time to time over the course of the control week, and noticed that it fluctuated wildly: one moment it would say £270, and I would be quietly pleased with myself; the next it would say £3740, and I would imagine the walls catching fire from all the electricity pumping through them.
In this case, the datacentre can also become a provider of electricity, pumping unused electricity into the electricity grid and subsequently receiving a payment.
But diesel or electricity pumps are operated by individual farmers and they provided service to their neighboring farmers at custom hire basis.
Inputs, such as electricity (to pump water) and fertiliser, as well as procurement prices, are subsidised.
Farmers in the Central Valley have said their crops will wither and animals die without the electricity to pump water.
Volunteers check 112 newly-installed solar panels, which provide electricity to pump water from a nearby well.
