Why is the urban-rural "gap" in shared cultural understanding so much bigger in the US?

[SevenEleven]

I normally like SevenEleven's contributions to the Talk Elections blog a lot but his posts in this thread evidence a pretty stark empathy gap. I can only speak for myself, but I hate living in communities with more than ~30,000 people and it has nothing to do with wanting to avoid people or not caring about having things to do. Living in the Boston area actually exacerbated my sense of loneliness and alienation, for all sorts of reasons.

I would like to hear more about this. So far ive heard a lot of "you're wrong" with no one offering any other viewpoints. My post was primarily looking at the numbers and migration patterns, but assuming you are referring to my "list" of reasons to prefer rural to urban. Why is less than 30k better? I'm genuinely interested in learning.

For one thing, I'm somebody who responds very strongly in deeply emotional ways to my physical environment, meaning that the greater natural beauty of the countryside is a genuine saving grace for me rather than just a case of polishing the turd. Trees are important to me; being able to see the stars at night is important to me. I also find navigating public transit hectic and unsettling in a way that interacts very poorly with my autism (ideologically I obviously support a massive expansion of public transit (leftist, normal), but that's not the same thing as enjoying using it myself). And I'm lucky enough to live in Western Massachusetts where even the small towns still have fairly eclectic local food options and progressive or at least moderate politics, so my experience of rural life isn't going to be nearly as alarming as that of someone from the very beating heart of MAGA Country.

So if I'm given a choice between living in Boston where all the creature comforts I could want are at my fingertips but I'm constantly stressed out from the Green Line or depressed because the night sky is greyish-orange, or living in Franklin County where I might have pretty crummy local Chinese food options but have a view of five or six different hardwood species from my home office window and can still find cool restaurants to go to if I look for them, I'm going to choose small-town life each time.

I guess I was wondering what made you suggest a lack of empathy on my part. To be fair, what you are describing seems to fit the mold of "avoiding people" that I mentioned, which is fine if that's what makes you comfortable. I myself am a huge fan of natural beauty, but for example Los Angeles has Griffith Park, Topanga Park, and some fairly remote beaches out near Malibu. DC has Rock Creek Park, which pairs well with it's lower skyline. So you can enjoy the natural beauty in an urban setting but what you don't get is the solace of vast emptiness. You'll probably see other hikers further out on the trail, or you can look out upon Downtown LA. Am I correct in my understanding that you value the "emptiness"?

An empathy gap isn't a lack of empathy in the sense in which it's become fashionable to accuse people with politics you don't like of having a lack of empathy. It just means a gap in an otherwise understanding person's ability to empathize with a particular situation or attitude. Sorry for the confusion; I didn't mean it to sound as insulting as it probably came across.

"Vast emptiness" is a weird way to describe the countryside I'm familiar with. Here's the current view from the home office window I mentioned:

(The grass isn't usually that yellowish; we've had an extremely dry summer.)

This might be an east/west distinction; even rural parts of Northeastern states are more densely populated than most Western (and some Southern) states. In terms of population density alone (as opposed to land use and culture), when I describe a preference for rural life, it's basically a preference for what would be considered outer-suburban life out west. It's definitely easier to avoid people if I want to than it is in Boston or LA, but it's not really the solace of wild places I'm looking for either.

Fair enough. It seems what one may consider "rural" is about as varied as the use of the term "working class" around here. What I meant by vast emptiness, which was probably poor word choice on my part, was the fact that you could probably walk an hour in the woods and not run into any of other people. Of course, that's just an assumption. I frequently go hiking in the mountains and canyons around LA and there's a lot of natural beauty there, but at the same time, you're going to see or even run into multiple groups of people. I've actually met some awesome people this way, but again, it's probably not in the realm of what you're looking for.

Another aspect of my bias can be acknowledged by considering the type of rural person you might meet who moved to a large city. LA, in particular, attracts a certain "crowd". Nonetheless, I do think that to a certain extent such acknowledgement reinforces the self-selection argument I was trying to make.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Fair enough. It seems what one may consider "rural" is about as varied as the use of the term "working class" around here. What I meant by vast emptiness, which was probably poor word choice on my part, was the fact that you could probably walk an hour in the woods and not run into any of other people. Of course, that's just an assumption. I frequently go hiking in the mountains and canyons around LA and there's a lot of natural beauty there, but at the same time, you're going to see or even run into multiple groups of people. I've actually met some awesome people this way, but again, it's probably not in the realm of what you're looking for.

Another aspect of my bias can be acknowledged by considering the type of rural person you might meet who moved to a large city. LA, in particular, attracts a certain "crowd". Nonetheless, I do think that to a certain extent such acknowledgement reinforces the self-selection argument I was trying to make.

Given that you live in what from my perspective is a gigantic city, I wonder if you would call "rural" a city of around 95,000 people which includes many sparsely populated hills and beyond which most is "empty" countryside, especially to the north. This describes where I live.
See also the photograph in my signature.

[SevenEleven]

Fair enough. It seems what one may consider "rural" is about as varied as the use of the term "working class" around here. What I meant by vast emptiness, which was probably poor word choice on my part, was the fact that you could probably walk an hour in the woods and not run into any of other people. Of course, that's just an assumption. I frequently go hiking in the mountains and canyons around LA and there's a lot of natural beauty there, but at the same time, you're going to see or even run into multiple groups of people. I've actually met some awesome people this way, but again, it's probably not in the realm of what you're looking for.

Another aspect of my bias can be acknowledged by considering the type of rural person you might meet who moved to a large city. LA, in particular, attracts a certain "crowd". Nonetheless, I do think that to a certain extent such acknowledgement reinforces the self-selection argument I was trying to make.

Given that you live in what from my perspective is a gigantic city, I wonder if you would call "rural" a city of around 95,000 people which includes many sparsely populated hills and beyond which most is "empty" countryside, especially to the north. This describes where I live.
See also the photograph in my signature.

It depends, I suppose. 95k is quite a chunk of people and to be within 30-60 minutes from a similar size city I'm not sure that's really "rural". To me, rural is middle of nowhere, far from any kind of urban setting. Otherwise it's more suburban or exurban.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Fair enough. It seems what one may consider "rural" is about as varied as the use of the term "working class" around here. What I meant by vast emptiness, which was probably poor word choice on my part, was the fact that you could probably walk an hour in the woods and not run into any of other people. Of course, that's just an assumption. I frequently go hiking in the mountains and canyons around LA and there's a lot of natural beauty there, but at the same time, you're going to see or even run into multiple groups of people. I've actually met some awesome people this way, but again, it's probably not in the realm of what you're looking for.

Another aspect of my bias can be acknowledged by considering the type of rural person you might meet who moved to a large city. LA, in particular, attracts a certain "crowd". Nonetheless, I do think that to a certain extent such acknowledgement reinforces the self-selection argument I was trying to make.

Given that you live in what from my perspective is a gigantic city, I wonder if you would call "rural" a city of around 95,000 people which includes many sparsely populated hills and beyond which most is "empty" countryside, especially to the north. This describes where I live.
See also the photograph in my signature.

It depends, I suppose. 95k is quite a chunk of people and to be within 30-60 minutes from a similar size city I'm not sure that's really "rural". To me, rural is middle of nowhere, far from any kind of urban setting. Otherwise it's more suburban or exurban.

Interesting. I can agree with this, actually. Just wanted to hear this for curiosity as from your previous posts you seemed to have a broader conception of "rural".

[LabourJersey]

I'll just add the fact that rural parts of the US tend to be more religious than the urban parts. And much of the religious nature of rural areas is dominated by evangelical Protestants, which creates a divide in values and beliefs that European countries don't have.

[Agonized-Statism]

If only there was a place you could live where you could both avoid people and enjoy modern amenities. I've lived in big cities, suburbs, and small towns, and there's been one constant: my neighbors are awful and the people are sinister.

That said, I think you're all exaggerating a divide that isn't really there outside of maybe political identity. The Internet has blurred any distinct urban and rural culture, as much as that triggers the mountain man LARPers and wine-drinking Brian Griffin types.

[Hydera]

I'll just add the fact that rural parts of the US tend to be more religious than the urban parts. And much of the religious nature of rural areas is dominated by evangelical Protestants, which creates a divide in values and beliefs that European countries don't have.

The reason why america is more religious has to do with europe sending their religious cults, groups, fanatics to America. Presbyterianism declined in America amongst areas where the scots irish once brought it to the south because they werent even religious and pro-slavery enough hence the movement of scots irish descendants becoming southern baptists(who themselves split over supporting slavery over other baptists).

[LabourJersey]

If only there was a place you could live where you could both avoid people and enjoy modern amenities. I've lived in big cities, suburbs, and small towns, and there's been one constant: my neighbors are awful and the people are sinister.

That said, I think you're all exaggerating a divide that isn't really there outside of maybe political identity. The Internet has blurred any distinct urban and rural culture, as much as that triggers the mountain man LARPers and wine-drinking Brian Griffin types.

I'm gonna have to strongly disagree with you there. The Internet is actually a great example of the rural-urban divide.

Rural areas don't have good broadband! That matters a lot in terms of allowing people to get online easily and within too many problems. Bad broadband and internet access discouraged businesses and people from moving to sparesely populated areas. That's a big deal!

[Agonized-Statism]

If only there was a place you could live where you could both avoid people and enjoy modern amenities. I've lived in big cities, suburbs, and small towns, and there's been one constant: my neighbors are awful and the people are sinister.

That said, I think you're all exaggerating a divide that isn't really there outside of maybe political identity. The Internet has blurred any distinct urban and rural culture, as much as that triggers the mountain man LARPers and wine-drinking Brian Griffin types.

I'm gonna have to strongly disagree with you there. The Internet is actually a great example of the rural-urban divide.

Rural areas don't have good broadband! That matters a lot in terms of allowing people to get online easily and within too many problems. Bad broadband and internet access discouraged businesses and people from moving to sparesely populated areas. That's a big deal!

And that's cool and all, but rurals still have Internet and they still have exposure to urban culture. I don't think the quality of that Internet is as big a factor as you're making it out to be, especially in the days when it's wireless and mobile and available to more people than ever before. Name a kid who hasn't brought up a meme you don't understand- you'll find that in New Jersey AND Wyoming.

[Averroës Nix]

The gap dividing large metros from small towns and rural areas tends to be significant everywhere, and politics represent only a small slice of significant differences that encompass both attitudes and way of life.

This is particularly true if you look beyond Western Europe and Japan, and even more true when you acknowledge that not every part of the United States shares the rural-urban continuum that defines certain parts of the American South. To talk about the rural United States is to talk about areas that vary substantially in their present ethnic and religious makeups, settlement histories, proximity to urban centers, and sources of wealth.

Many of the claims made about rural America in this thread are flat-out untrue: OP's portrait of religiosity owes more to the neuroses of Southern suburbia than it does to the countryside, and while rural households are more likely to own a gun, the fetishization of "modern sporting rifles" that inspires dumb young guys to walk into Starbucks carrying AR-15s is hardly a product of small town America.

[Averroës Nix]

I sense a lot more condescension in this response to my post than I see in my post. OP asked a question about why the culltural gap in the US is so much wider than what is seen in other developed nations. Noting the history of American geographic and social mobility and easily observable population trends within our borders, I made an argument centered on self-selection. Strange to me that no one actually wants to engage with the OT and instead talk about how I'm "sneering". I don't think it's wrong to be able to admit that America's rural areas are typically not bastions of opportunity.

Urban self-selection isn't distinctive to the United States, though, and most of what OP says about rural areas is wrong or a caricature.

The self-selection trend can also be read in the opposite direction: Rural areas and small towns do a fantastic job of raising brilliant kids with lots of potential and somehow do this for generations even as those with urban aspirations sort themselves out. They consistently produce a surplus of capable, ambitious young people.

It's true that the schools and professional families living in these areas tend to reinforce the narrative that success is measured by the distance you put between yourself and your hometown. But the issue isn't so much that the hometown is a bad place to live as that it doesn't offer sufficient opportunities for everyone.

If your parent has a successful business, or if you have strong enough local ties that you have a good chance of landing a decent job (most likely in local government, after a stint in college, or in the trades), staying is very much an option. People who do that aren't regarded as failures; they become pillars of the community.

[sguberman]

I think its quite amazing how insane the Urban-Rural divide is. For example, Denver gave Clinton over 70% of the vote yet there were counties within an hour of Denver that gave Trump over 70% of the vote. This can also be seen in Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Chicago, and several others.

[King of Kensington]

https://twitter.com/DanielKayHertz/status/1305247810829389824/photo/2

[DC Al Fine]

The gap dividing large metros from small towns and rural areas tends to be significant everywhere, and politics represent only a small slice of significant differences that encompass both attitudes and way of life.

This is particularly true if you look beyond Western Europe and Japan, and even more true when you acknowledge that not every part of the United States shares the rural-urban continuum that defines certain parts of the American South. To talk about the rural United States is to talk about areas that vary substantially in their present ethnic and religious makeups, settlement histories, proximity to urban centers, and sources of wealth.

Many of the claims made about rural America in this thread are flat-out untrue: OP's portrait of religiosity owes more to the neuroses of Southern suburbia than it does to the countryside, and while rural households are more likely to own a gun, the fetishization of "modern sporting rifles" that inspires dumb young guys to walk into Starbucks carrying AR-15s is hardly a product of small town America.

Yes. Our very own RealisticIdealist has found that church attendance is generally a suburban affair

Image Link

[Hydera]

https://twitter.com/DanielKayHertz/status/1305247810829389824/photo/2

Trump won the driftless zone but Places with less than 10% evangelical protestant were closer than areas with more than 10% self identified evangelicals.

Also places with a more scandinavian ancestry component which explains why Grant county is more republican leaning than the rest of that corner in wisconsin.

[mianfei]

There are many good points here:

• Far less need for public services in rural areas because with few people they can be self-provided
• Often no visible inequality at all, and no emphasis on individual fulfilment eliminates the individualism and egalitarianism that dominates urban areas throughout the world
• Rural areas in America are much more sparsely populated than those in Europe or Asia and this leads to a highly self-protective and socially conservative identity – especially as most are entirely devoid of nonwhite populations (and devoid of nonwhites by design)
• People in rural areas of America have been largely self-selecting, and as James Löwen shows (Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism) they have been so at least since the immigration wave of the 1890s. I term this a “white cloister” because it has the effect of sealing rural America from the outside world, especially since media changes in the late 1970s

One thing I will add is that the political and cultural gap between urban and rural America has grown rapidly since 2000. I suspect this actually reflects the generation coming of age in the era before this divergence. As music critic Richie Unterberger told me around fifteen years ago, in the late 1970s commercial radio in the United States rigidly standardised and narrowed its music playlists. I would imagine commercial radio and (more importantly) television did the same with the opinions they broadcast. This meant that rural areas, which lacked alternative broadcast options, were exposed to the narrowest range of the most conservative entertainment, social and political cultures. Urban areas, in contrast, where college radio became important in the 1980s and where concerts by bands much more cutting-edge than those played on college radio were invariably held, saw their children exposed to radically new cultural views that were rare in the 1970s.

The result, especially from 2000 onwards, has been a complete divergence politically between rural and urban areas of the United States. In Europe and Asia – where the hostility towards aid to nonwhites that so severely limits public services in the United States is absent and distances much less – much more liberally funded public broadcasting means rural areas have the same access to cutting-edge culture and entertainment that urban areas do. Thus there has been either less, or less consistent, political divergence, especially given the demographic gap between urban and rural  America due to the “Great Retreat” (Löwen, Sundown Towns) of blacks from almost all the rural North, West and nonplantation South between about 1890 and 1970.

Also, as “parochial boy” very wisely says, the two-party system no doubt hides diversity in both urban and rural areas, although I would say in today’s US more in urban areas given the deliberate homogeneity of most rural areas in America.

[H. Ross Peron]

There are many good points here:

• Far less need for public services in rural areas because with few people they can be self-provided
• Often no visible inequality at all, and no emphasis on individual fulfilment eliminates the individualism and egalitarianism that dominates urban areas throughout the world
• Rural areas in America are much more sparsely populated than those in Europe or Asia and this leads to a highly self-protective and socially conservative identity – especially as most are entirely devoid of nonwhite populations (and devoid of nonwhites by design)
• People in rural areas of America have been largely self-selecting, and as James Löwen shows (Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism) they have been so at least since the immigration wave of the 1890s. I term this a “white cloister” because it has the effect of sealing rural America from the outside world, especially since media changes in the late 1970s

One thing I will add is that the political and cultural gap between urban and rural America has grown rapidly since 2000. I suspect this actually reflects the generation coming of age in the era before this divergence. As music critic Richie Unterberger told me around fifteen years ago, in the late 1970s commercial radio in the United States rigidly standardised and narrowed its music playlists. I would imagine commercial radio and (more importantly) television did the same with the opinions they broadcast. This meant that rural areas, which lacked alternative broadcast options, were exposed to the narrowest range of the most conservative entertainment, social and political cultures. Urban areas, in contrast, where college radio became important in the 1980s and where concerts by bands much more cutting-edge than those played on college radio were invariably held, saw their children exposed to radically new cultural views that were rare in the 1970s.

The result, especially from 2000 onwards, has been a complete divergence politically between rural and urban areas of the United States. In Europe and Asia – where the hostility towards aid to nonwhites that so severely limits public services in the United States is absent and distances much less – much more liberally funded public broadcasting means rural areas have the same access to cutting-edge culture and entertainment that urban areas do. Thus there has been either less, or less consistent, political divergence, especially given the demographic gap between urban and rural  America due to the “Great Retreat” (Löwen, Sundown Towns) of blacks from almost all the rural North, West and nonplantation South between about 1890 and 1970.

Also, as “parochial boy” very wisely says, the two-party system no doubt hides diversity in both urban and rural areas, although I would say in today’s US more in urban areas given the deliberate homogeneity of most rural areas in America.

While I appreciate and agree with much of your analysis, I'm more sceptical of your thesis regarding music driving social liberalization in urban areas as opposed to changing music trends being an effect of social liberalization. I think it underestimates the explosion in cable television from the Eighties onwards which offered new options and exaggerates the ignorance of alternative music forms in the countryside. I think by 2000 or so, most younger people in rural areas, except perhaps certain fundamentalists whose families deliberately isolated their children from the wider culture were familiar with rap music and so forth. Certainly in the last 20 years, genres like rap have become more or less mainstream. Despite being familar with rap music, younger rural white Millennials and Zoomers are still quite conservative. I'm also curious how this theory would account for the political evolution of inner suburbs (which have trended left) and exurbs (which have remained conservative). I'm sceptical that say the BBC or the NHK were somehow more willing air alternative music reforms compared to American broadcasters as well and that again this has anything really to do with causing political divergence. I think economic factors, racial resentment, and certain Culture War issues have far more to do with it.