Rural/urban divide?

[Angst]

I'm well aware that rural poverty is more widespread and deeper than urban poverty tends to be, that the culture varies from place to place, and is sometimes more violent than the headlines. I like your point and am reiterating it. I'm agreeing with you, why are you wanting me to drop it?

i guess i misread "the gangs are real and change depending on where you are". i expected you to continue your point from earlier in the thread where you said urban people thought rural areas were dangerous and vice versa ^^

 

[Farm Boy]

Ah, ok!

 

[amadeus]

The effect of the divide in this country isn't just manifested in politics, although the rural single-member constituencies have a disproportionate advantage in the Diet, but also that the decline in population and the increase in young people moving to Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka, has accelerated the age imbalance and thus some cultural things, but I don’t think the divide is as pronounced as it is in the Western world.

I’d say the biggest splits are due to the age thing rather than where people live. I don’t see that having any resolution any time soon, and I suspect the malaise will continue for at least another decade if not longer.

 

[Samson]

It's the primary political, cultural, economic, divide in the United States.

Is this really true? There are poor and rich urban areas and poor and rich rural areas. I thought it would be easy to see these two plotted against each other, but I failed. If I could be bothered I would make the dotplot, but for the minute we can do it by eye, and they are not that similar, except the top right corner but that is because history:

 

[Traitorfish]

Honestly, the practical necessity of keeping the thread title brief(I created it). I do admit it’s pretty brute-force, simplistic framing and doesn’t really provide the sophistication and nuance you really need to describe the split. It’s only accurate in the most general sense. It doesn’t have an impressive descriptive power, I just dunno a way to communicate the idea to people more effectively. People here in the US don’t really do analysis of long term macro social trends, we do analysis of this or that issue of the day.

If it helps, I'm not meaning to get too hung on the precise semantics of "urban" and "rural", which I appreciate are meant partly as short-hands for two different versions of America, and that they aren't meant to denote exclusively big cities on the one hand and tiny farming towns on the other. What I'm trying to get at is that I think the internal diversity of each "version" of America is too great for us to really believe that they represent two natural political sub-divisions of the country, and that the categories of "urban" and "rural" function to gloss over these differences by appealing to a common-sensical notion of how human geography is organised. I think there are at least several and probably dozens of versions of America, few if any of which have any natural affinity with the others, but that they are forced to affiliate themselves to one of two notional sections for political reasons, rather than this being an empirical description of any American society.

I suppose what I'm implicitly contrasting this to is a situation in which the United States had a multiparty system, which would probably highlight a lot of regional differences which are eclipsed by the Blue Team/Red Team dichotomy of the current party-system. You would probably see a contrast between a technocratic party on the coasts and a collectivist party in the Midwest, or an Evangelical party in the South and an agrarian party in the West, that would cut against a lot of the assumed commonalities and divisions we take for granted in the model of an urban/rural divide.

 

[Cutlass]

Is this really true? There are poor and rich urban areas and poor and rich rural areas. I thought it would be easy to see these two plotted against each other, but I failed. If I could be bothered I would make the dotplot, but for the minute we can do it by eye, and they are not that similar, except the top right corner but that is because history:

Now this is a little blurry, in that some of those Western counties are really large, and have tiny populations. But if you overlay this with a US population density map, then you get a very high correlation between voting blue, and less rural, voting red, and more rural.

 

[Samson]

Now this is a little blurry, in that some of those Western counties are really large, and have tiny populations. But if you overlay this with a US population density map, then you get a very high correlation between voting blue, and less rural, voting red, and more rural.

The fact that the urban/rural divide is more in political alignment than economic situation is kind of the point. The fact that the poor rural areas of Oklahoma vote the same way as the rich suburbs of Minneapolis (?) demonstrates that this is not principally a question of economics, and probably not a question of self interest.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

If you compare that to 1992 you don't see as stark a contrast. More blue in flyover country back then.



Now this is a little blurry, in that some of those Western counties are really large, and have tiny populations. But if you overlay this with a US population density map, then you get a very high correlation between voting blue, and less rural, voting red, and more rural.

 

[Farm Boy]

The fact that the urban/rural divide is more in political alignment than economic situation is kind of the point. The fact that the poor rural areas of Oklahoma vote the same way as the rich suburbs of Minneapolis (?) demonstrates that this is not principally a question of economics, and probably not a question of self interest.

And wealth increases with population density, for the most part, in those tiny little dots with tons of the people. Despite the overarching theme on income and party. No, it's not just one thing. You can't actually divide the country on a neat bipolar axis. Well, ok, you can. It just isn't useful.

 

[Rg339]

Is this really true? There are poor and rich urban areas and poor and rich rural areas. I thought it would be easy to see these two plotted against each other, but I failed. If I could be bothered I would make the dotplot, but for the minute we can do it by eye, and they are not that similar, except the top right corner but that is because history:

I’d agree with the general point that wealth disparity is not the primary cause of the divide(value preferences probably are), but where you fail to see overlap, I see consistently that urban areas have higher wealth per household. Particularly so for major cities with major markets. Those cities and suburbs pretty consistently have the highest avg wealth concentration in their respective state.

If it helps, I'm not meaning to get too hung on the precise semantics of "urban" and "rural", which I appreciate are meant partly as short-hands for two different versions of America, and that they aren't meant to denote exclusively big cities on the one hand and tiny farming towns on the other. What I'm trying to get at is that I think the internal diversity of each "version" of America is too great for us to really believe that they represent two natural political sub-divisions of the country, and that the categories of "urban" and "rural" function to gloss over these differences by appealing to a common-sensical notion of how human geography is organised. I think there are at least several and probably dozens of versions of America, few if any of which have any natural affinity with the others, but that they are forced to affiliate themselves to one of two notional sections for political reasons, rather than this being an empirical description of any American society.

I suppose what I'm implicitly contrasting this to is a situation in which the United States had a multiparty system, which would probably highlight a lot of regional differences which are eclipsed by the Blue Team/Red Team dichotomy of the current party-system. You would probably see a contrast between a technocratic party on the coasts and a collectivist party in the Midwest, or an Evangelical party in the South and an agrarian party in the West, that would cut against a lot of the assumed commonalities and divisions we take for granted in the model of an urban/rural divide.

If the US had a multiparty system, you probably would see parties spring up catering to different regional/socioeconomic preferences, yeah. Governing coalitions would form based on similarities in value preferences, probably.

I do think what we’re seeing in the US are groups aligning not on economic preferences, but groups roughly and imprecisely coming to agreement on cultural preferences and preferred values(though as previously mentioned, economics does play a large role in creating those cultural gaps). It’s hard to put forward precise evidence that illustrates that, because of the difficulty in measuring regional responses to emergent new norms. Difficult to quantify a persons emotional response to an idea: polling can take you close but even that has its flaws and limitations.

edit: I’ve always looked with interest every time I see this new phrase “big yikes” trotted out. Generally, it indicates a split in preferred values between the speaker of the phrase and the listener. The speaker is generally nauseated by something the listener has said that was typically acceptable in past eras. The listener is nauseated that whatever they said is now considered socially anathema, and usually alarmed as well, because there may quickly be an attempt to make them into a social leper.

In the most general sense, the listener is generally more plugged in to small towns, the country, where multiple types of diversity are less frequent. The speaker of the phrase is generally more plugged into larger centers of population, or a younger person(who has likely been taught in college how to navigate new norms frequently encountered in the corporate world)

 

[Cutlass]

The fact that the urban/rural divide is more in political alignment than economic situation is kind of the point. The fact that the poor rural areas of Oklahoma vote the same way as the rich suburbs of Minneapolis (?) demonstrates that this is not principally a question of economics, and probably not a question of self interest.

Some of the wealthiest counties on that map are red, or neutral.

What is going on is that most of the political divide in the US is the urban-rural. But that many of the richest are also the most conservative. In their case, it's straight self interest. The rich want to rule, and that means conservative politics. While the rural poor mostly want the world to stay exactly the way they think it was when their parents were children.

 

[Farm Boy]

They generally would like to stop being poor, so I'm not sure how to even plausibly take that?

 

[Cutlass]

They generally would like to stop being poor, so I'm not sure how to even plausibly take that?

Stop voting conservative. The first principle of conservative economic policy is always to redistribute wealth from people who work to people who own. Rural Americans as a whole vote in very high majorities to take money from themselves and their children and send it to the 10% of wealthiest Americans. And that 10% for the most part lives in cities, and those cities for the most part are on the coasts.

The real question you need answered is why Midwestern farmers feel that Wall St financiers need their money more than their own children do?

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Stop voting conservative. The first principle of conservative economic policy is always to redistribute wealth from people who work to people who own. Rural Americans as a whole vote in very high majorities to take money from themselves and their children and send it to the 10% of wealthiest Americans. And that 10% for the most part lives in cities, and those cities for the most part are on the coasts.

The real question you need answered is why Midwestern farmers feel that Wall St financiers need their money more than their own children do?

Really? You want people to vote for Biden and Pelosi? Talk about voting against your own economic interests.

As far as Wall Street financiers, they prefer Democrats:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/wall-street-spends-74-million-to-support-joe-biden.html

Pretty sure they wouldn't have been so keen on Bernie, but the DNC rigged the primary.

CBS just did a piece on the medical debt crisis:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/health-care-debt-40-percent-us-adults/

The Democrats' answer is force people to buy Big Insurance's crappy product and they'll do the right thing. They had a reception earlier this year to celebrate the current failed system. Brandon has pledged to veto Medicare For All if it ever reaches his desk. Not that it will as long as Pelosi is Speaker.

Obama 2008 was the high water mark for Democrats and that was when he promised hope and change. If he'd delivered instead of pulling a bait and switch, we'd be having a very different thread. There never would have been a lane for Trump. Trump himself once admitted, when he didn't know a live mic was nearby, that he wouldn't have beaten Bernie.

 

[Farm Boy]

Stop voting conservative. The first principle of conservative economic policy is always to redistribute wealth from people who work to people who own. Rural Americans as a whole vote in very high majorities to take money from themselves and their children and send it to the 10% of wealthiest Americans. And that 10% for the most part lives in cities, and those cities for the most part are on the coasts.

The real question you need answered is why Midwestern farmers feel that Wall St financiers need their money more than their own children do?

Nope, that was downstream. I wanted to head back upstream.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Nope, that was downstream. I wanted to head back upstream.

The ultimate upstream is farmer vs merchant. You can find that tension hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think it can probably be shorthanded as consumer/producer?

 

[Cutlass]

Really? You want people to vote for Biden and Pelosi? Talk about voting against your own economic interests.

As far as Wall Street financiers, they prefer Democrats:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/wall-street-spends-74-million-to-support-joe-biden.html

Pretty sure they wouldn't have been so keen on Bernie, but the DNC rigged the primary.

CBS just did a piece on the medical debt crisis:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/health-care-debt-40-percent-us-adults/

The Democrats' answer is force people to buy Big Insurance's crappy product and they'll do the right thing. They had a reception earlier this year to celebrate the current failed system. Brandon has pledged to veto Medicare For All if it ever reaches his desk. Not that it will as long as Pelosi is Speaker.

Obama 2008 was the high water mark for Democrats and that was when he promised hope and change. If he'd delivered instead of pulling a bait and switch, we'd be having a very different thread. There never would have been a lane for Trump. Trump himself once admitted, when he didn't know a live mic was nearby, that he wouldn't have beaten Bernie.

So you think people's economic interest is to have less money, rather than more money?

 

[Cutlass]

Nope, that was downstream. I wanted to head back upstream.

That statement does not mean anything to me.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

So you think people's economic interest is to have less money, rather than more money?

How exactly do I have more money as a result of higher taxes, higher insurance premiums and deductibles, and trillions of dollars being gifted to Wall Street?