There's more infrastructure under urban roads. Crews come in to fix some utility, shred a section of a lane, patch it poorly with dissimilar materials, and leave.
Though given his definition of quality I expect he is actually ignoring all the real rural roads and only talking about major roads which while they get less traffic than urban roads are maintained to similar standards.
Like the other replies have indicated, I'm not so sure this is the case? I live in very rural northwest Iowa, and while there are certainly plenty of gravel roads around here, I'm only driving on them if I'm intentionally trying to go "off the beaten path." You'll take a gravel road if you live on a farm, or you're trying to get to somewhere secluded such as a lake, campground or maybe a county park; but (imo) it's rare for the average person to drive down a gravel road just going from Point A to Point B on their daily commute.
(Actual answer: I know a bunch of people who live in houses in the middle of seemingly-nowhere in rural Ohio, and almost none of them farm anything at all. They just seem to like the space and the quiet and the desolate isolation.
The only farmer who I know is my parents' neighbor, who has a house few miles away from their place.)
Depending on how you count the above you can say that most people in rural areas are not living on farms. Even if you don't count small towns residents, there are a lot of people who are not farmers living out there.
To give some specifics: I only remember driving down an actual gravel road (like, for public use) a single time. In 18 years. Even my friends who lived >30min from the nearest "city" (~10k population) had paved roads all the way.
But that is just my own experience. Areas with a different climate or geography might be a totally different story. My hometown area is relatively flat, lots of farmland, and rarely gets severe winter weather.
> Most of the roads are still unpaved, but you spend most of your driving time on the paved roads.
Yeah I definitely agree with that. I imagine if you were to look at my county's roads from a satellite, it'd be something like the (grid-shaped) veins of a leaf — the thick, prominent veins are the paved roads, providing the structure, while the thinner, branching veins are the gravel roads that run between them.
Not saying it's common. I don't have to drive over one of those but I have had to when there was construction on our regular route. It's right off the main road leading into town from the highway.
(Some adjustments may have to be made, but that's only another also-irrelevant expense.)
Not in California; we have an entire bureau, the Coastal Commission, that exists to prevent that very thing.