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I don't know that it's worse than ever. Like everything else, it certainly seems to be over-analyzed. The problems arise when city people try to force their ways on country folks, and the occasional vise-versa.
Sometimes, it's not totally a question or urban vs rural. In Washington we have the "cascade curtain" dividing the western, liberal third (by area) from the eastern conservative two-thirds. There are cities and rural areas in both. In general, rural Western Washingtonians are less conservative than Eastern Washington city dwellers. The curtain is not impenetrable, however. Spokane, Whitman and Asotin counties hard up on the eastern border are less conservative than Lewis county, in the heart of Western Washington. I looked at a map of past presidential elections and was surprised to see that there were elections in which counties all over the state--east and west--voted similarly. In recent elections, for president and governor, the eastern counties are almost always red, the western blue, with one or two exceptions. Now, is it the population that is becoming more polarized or, as I submit, the candidates of the two parties becoming more liberal or conservative--more doctrinaire--than in the past?
There are only a few urban areas that remain Republican. In 2000 there were many urban counties that voted for Bush. The fact minorities congregate in urban areas is part of it but a lot of it also has to do with Southern stategy in the Republican party, in which Republicans target rural, white voters. That worked 30 years ago but no longer works today as we are becoming an increasingly urban country.
It's more of a gradient than a sharp divide, since suburbs tend to be more conservative than central cities in many (not all) cases. So typically you get a blue central city and purplish suburbs, and they become more red the farther out one goes.
Nothing new here. It's been this way forever. Rural people tend to be more independent, self-sufficient, conservative, traditional, religious, in favor of smaller government, etc. City dwellers are more dependent on the government running everything and taking care of people.
Rural people tend to be more independent, self-sufficient, conservative, traditional, religious,
in favor of smaller government, etc. City dwellers are more dependent on the government running everything and taking care of people.
Independence vs. Dependence, to summarize.
How about higher concentration levels of differing types of population requires a willingness
and perhaps even enthusiasm for more compromise and accommodation among them.
The problems come when that compromise and accommodation are taken advantage of.
So Maine and Vermont should be the most conservative states east of the Mississippi River if it was purely Urban/Rural distribution
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