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The Clear Benefits of Urban Living
This ought to be a good one.
While there are most certainly individual exceptions, all of the demographic, electoral, and polling data suggests that the vast majority of people living outside of the orbits of major urban centers in the United States share certain characteristics and tend to act politically in a semi-unified manner:
Rural culture is thus, in aggregate, dangerous to America. Discuss.
While there are most certainly individual exceptions, all of the demographic, electoral, and polling data suggests that the vast majority of people living outside of the orbits of major urban centers in the United States share certain characteristics and tend to act politically in a semi-unified manner:
- They vote Republican.
- They are very socially conservative.
- They are anti-gay.
- They are pro-war.
- They are xenophobic and/or racist.
Rural culture is thus, in aggregate, dangerous to America. Discuss.
Comments
Living in a city with many people of different types and skin colours and world views means that other behavior is acceptable and even required for smooth living and the continual survival of your city. Rural living doesn't engender myopic and dangerous worldviews, urban living engenders progressive and enlightened world views.
The people in the cul-de-sac had LOADS of space. My cousin was just insane. Since then, he's built himself a house on a piece of land where he, in his words, "can't see the lights from any other human habitation". Nice.
BTW, he fits all five of Rym's enumerated characteristics.
It's tough--damn tough--to be an Obama supporter in an area where you feel like you're surrounded by fat, indignant, ignorant corn-fed hicks. There's usually a combination of at least two to three if not all five of Rym's points visible or audible from most people I see in that area on a daily basis.
I don't disagree with the statement, but a hallmark of this forum is rigorous sourcing. I saw Rym and Scott ask several times yesterday for sources, and I think they need to provide them also when making broad statements about the content of polls. If you cite data, link to it.
I'll help them out, because my curiosity forced me to go looking for independent verification of the remark. Pew Research has an excellent breakdown of partisan stances on issues (with two spelling errors in the questions, which annoyed me). Here is the PDF -- simply scroll down to the appropriate area and feast your eyes on the numbers. It compares Republican (in red) responses with Democratic (in blue) responses and cross-references for a bipartisan total.
Pew, by the way, is pretty much the best.
This behaviour, while completely irrational to people who have experienced a more liberal education, is understandable when you've been plowing the same fields for the past forty years, on land that your great grandfather clear-cut by hand. These people have known no different, and until a more effective educational system is implemented in rural areas, it's the way it's going to stay.
The San Bernadino Punk Riot. In the US.
The 2005 Toledo Riot in Ohio. Neo-nazis vs. blacks.
2003 Benton Harbor Riots in Michigan.
2001 Cincinnati Riots.
*Edit: Jason beat me to it.
Advancing society has become the reality of our world. People teaming up, getting along, working together, and depending on each other, has become the way the world works, and there is no going back. Through technology and economics, all human societies around the world have become interdependent and interconnected. The world view promoted by the anti-social rural folk is one that can only cause harm to the society as it is. The world view promoted by the city folk is one that promotes and advances the society as it is.
Much like many of the confederate flag wavers amongst their ranks, these rural folk are acting as if they've won a battle that they have lost long ago. The policies they are promoting are designed for a world where people live in small disconnected communities. It's already too late for that to happen. Human society went a different way, and it can't be undone. Urban people are promoting policies that advance human society as it is.
Do you want to bring people together or rip people apart? Do you want to advance the existing society, or dismantle everything we have built because you don't like how it turned out?
This will all be solved when we have robot farmers. We will build them in factories in the city, then they will drive themselves out to the land, farm it, and come back with food.
Pew question: I often do not have enought money to
make ends meet
Percent of Republicans who agree: 27
Percent of Democrats who agree: 45
Urban areas, more densely populated by Democrats, are poorer. That's a negative aspect of living in an urban center.
It seems to me that small communities discourage social change, because they can isolate themselves from outside ideas. This is the case whether or not the community exists in an urban area - immigrant communities, for example, have historically often been extremely insular and dedicated to maintaining their traditional ways. Within an urban center, however, community information barriers cannot be absolute, and the cross-fertilization of ideas that creates social change happens regardless. The more people there are to generate ideas, the more ideas penetrate that tradition barrier, and the more rapidly the culture as a whole changes.
It's interesting that that change has by and large been positive; I can't think of a reason off the top of my head why that should necessarily be so, but it does fit with my experience. Now if only we could fix the air quality, lack of color, and smell issues. There's a limited number of individuals I can mentally account for at any given time. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and people I pass randomly on the street are the first to go.
I personally think you're making an A to B connection when E & D are causing A and C & D are causing B (or something like that). Urban areas can go either in the direction of an integrated community where people of different lifestyles merge and form an informed and understanding community or form isolated cultures adjacent to each other and cause major cultural friction.