You're correct in suggesting that I have never lived in a rural area. My appreciation for America lies in her diversity. I don't want to live somewhere where I can't visit a taco truck, or go to an Indian market, or eat some amazing hand-pulled noodles. You can call that a bias, I guess, but I think the numbers speak for themselves. Talent flows out of less populated areas into populated areas. Populated areas are more desirable and thus cost more.
My post has less to do with my feelings on rural areas, rather, I seek to explain the dichotomy presented in OP and why it is so stark compared to elsewhere. I can do without the pearl-clutching, thank you very much.
This line of thought takes such an incredibly narrow (not to mention heavily commoditized) view of diversity. Rural areas have diversity of attitudes/cultures/temperaments (contrast: isolated Mormon communities versus rural Minnesota versus people on the Ozark plateau), diversity of landscapes (needs no examples), diversity of industry (ranching, forestry, and agricultural can all be found in Southern Idaho alone), diverse histories (e.g., even the two Carolinas have two pretty different colonial patterns of settlement and institution-building), diversity of cuisines (hot dish versus soul food), and even an obvious racial and ethnic diversity that your monetized examples try to illustrate.
I highlighted your post because it traced out the exact type of condescension of supposedly open-minded urbanites that I described as promoting antagonism in my post right above yours. Your post reads like a sneering Hillbilly Elegy-style pathology of rural people as poor, unambitious, and self-loathing rubes with absolutely no larger perspective on why such places may be "low opportunity" or why "talent flows out of less populated areas". Sorry if pointing out that your attitude provides the (stereotypical) fuel for Trumpist grievances is "pearl clutching".
For all of this talk of the advantage of rural areas being places to avoid other people, the brief time I've spent living and working in rural areas had much more resembling community than the majority of urban places I have lived. People are friendlier to strangers, neighbors know and frequently check in on each other, people leave their doors unlocked, more (although still shockingly few) public institutions and meeting spaces are still active. There is far less entitlement. People have a sense of place and belonging that is often rooted in tradition. The pace of life is slower and more comfortable. Families are stronger and there is much less emphasis on individual "fulfillment". I'll put it like this: for a place that by your telling is probably very rich in social fabric, if you stepped onto a train at the DC Metro station I grew up near, every single passenger would avoid eye contact with you as you looked desperately for the most isolated seat to stare at your phone on.
Obviously they're not areas without problems - rampant poverty, drug addiction, depopulation, less economic and intellectual dynamism, increasing political polarization and crumbling civic institutions like the rest of the country. These are not places I want to live in right now, although I have several rural transplant friends who itch to leave Denver constantly. Some but not all of these things are due to forces that are not only beyond these people's control but at times due to decisions made by people in DC, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or London. People should give these people credit and treat them with dignity, or at the very least not be surprised when this level of rank condescension is not received well.
I would prefer people to not be fake friendly while simultaneously believing that people with no health insurance should die or Covid is fake. If you believe in those values, just f**king be honest about it. Don’t give me a “bless your heart”, at least have the courage to flip me off.
Maybe some people value that type of facade, and I can respect that, but for me, I will never comprehend the mentality of such places.
I suggest you live in a rural area, or at least get to know a person from a rural area, before making such judgements. This post too reads like something from someone whose entire concept of rural life and rural people is formed by mass media written by (and for) people in Los Angeles. I can't imagine wanting to live somewhere were people flip you off (or the milder version I have experienced in every city I've ever lived n - honk car horns for the most meaningless of offenses) Most laughable is the idea that urbanites/suburbanites are somehow more honest than rural people - that is, if you can even get these people to speak to or acknowledge you in the first place.
