Why cities tend to be blue and rural areas red

[jp1]

Came across this article the other day. As a lifelong city dweller I can't speak for the rural reasons, although they seem logical and reasonable. The city reasons all seem to make sense to me though and I live most of them every day.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-ways-big-cities-turn-you-liberal-converts-perspective/

[nswef]

I live in the country and can see the thinking.

[iris lilies]

If I read this jp will it just make me mad?

[flowerseverywhere]

If I read this jp will it just make me mad?

it might but for some people the generalizations in the article are all too true. As usual, it is not one size fits all.

[Chicken lady]

The arguement is coherent, but I grew up in a rural area in which my father - small business - was a political conservative and my neighbors - farmers - were liberals. Everybody was "morally" conservative (the religious right issues). Dh grew up upper middle class in a more populated area in a very conservative family . His parents have become much more socially liberal as they have aged and moved to the country. I have probably become more liberal as I have aged and I turned dh from a conservative to a socially liberal moderate. We raised one moderate, one practical liberal and one bleeding heart in rural Ohio. (The bleeding heart's best friends are conservative Catholics)

but, basically the articles premise is that your experience and focus affects your politics - duh. So it still holds true, it's just that my family was less shaped by local goegraphy.

[catherine]

The arguement is coherent, but I grew up in a rural area in which my father - small business - was a political conservative and my neighbors - farmers - were liberals. Everybody was "morally" conservative (the religious right issues). Dh grew up upper middle class in a more populated area in a very conservative family . His parents have become much more socially liberal as they have aged and moved to the country. I have probably become more liberal as I have aged and I turned dh from a conservative to a socially liberal moderate. We raised one moderate, one practical liberal and one bleeding heart in rural Ohio. (The bleeding heart's best friends are conservative Catholics)

but, basically the articles premise is that your experience and focus affects your politics - duh. So it still holds true, it's just that my family was less shaped by local goegraphy.

Your post makes me think that an interesting thread is what factors plotted us where we are on the continuum from bleeding heart to conservative?

My mother used to say "if you're young and Republican you have no heart; if you're old and a Democrat you have no brains." So there's another "cut" in the stereotypes.

The article suggests that city liberals are more self-serving than empathetic. They want the homeless off their stoops, they want to be sure they're water keeps coming. It explains the environment of the liberal elite landscape, but I don't know if it adequately explains the motivations, but it's a decent rationale.

I do think that it may be true that the relatively sheltered lives of many people in rural areas can blind them to the issues of others, which would definitely shape their worldview. But the rural folks have so much to teach in terms of being that neighbor sharing a couch. Too bad in the City, most people aren't going to invite the homeless in. So ironically, the message I take home from the article is that the "bleeding heart" liberals are in fact self-protective, while the "unfeeling" conservatives are the friendly neighbors with their doors open. Interesting.

[Chicken lady]

My dad said a similar thing, except he said "if you aren't a liberal at 18 you have no heart. If you aren't a conservative at 40 you have no wallet."

[jp1]

There is certainly plenty of self serving in city liberal attitudes. Sit lie laws (making it illegal to sit or lie on the sidewalk in certain neighborhoods) being a prime example of liberals not being at all interested in actually helping people but simply trying to make them go away. On the other hand the matter of self preservation makes it unlikely that significant numbers of homeless are going to be invited into strangers' homes to sleep on the couch. Most of the visible homeless have obvious mental health and/or substance abuse issues, that inviting one into one's home would be a fairly risky endeavor. Wanting one's tax dollars to be spent providing shelters and the like is, at least for me, a reasonable although imperfect compromise.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I think people are kind of tired of seeing homeless and tent cities and so on everywhere every day. So it's kind of why people want to tackle homelessness at a local level (they know the Fed gov under Trump etc. isn't going to be anything but chaos). Yes people are tired of 3rd world America with rank desperation everywhere. If the rural areas are so much more generous then the solution to homeless would just be to send the urban homeless there and they will take them in? Right?

Believing something needs to be done about homelessness seems to cross the political spectrum though, every who sees it, including conservatives, seems appalled at the situation of all these people living on the streets in the U.S.A.

[Teacher Terry]

Interesting article. The COL difference can be so huge. 2 of my adult sons like in Wichita, KS and while wages can be lower then the West Coast they have a much higher standard of living there because the COL is very cheap. I have lived in both cities and rural areas and I think where you grow up can start as your frame of reference for the world although people do change over time.

[bae]

If the rural areas are so much more generous then the solution to homeless would just be to send the urban homeless there and they will take them in? Right?


My rural area has a sizeable homeless population. The character of the homeless has changed over the past 20 years or so though. Used to be people who couldn't find housing in our odd and expensive housing market here. Now there is a big chunk of the homeless population that has moved into the area from elsewhere. Odd choice, considering we have very little in the way of social services here (it's a small rural island), and they have to purchase an expensive ferry ticket to get here. Encampments are springing up in various wooded spaces near/in our village, which has caused some public safety issues.

We also have another brand of "homeless" here, seemingly-fit early-20s individuals, with nice REI clothing and gear, and no means of support. Usually the first thing they do when they hike off the ferry is ask where the food bank is, and the free showers. Drifters/grifters. Plenty of jobs available here at $25-$45/hour for fit people, but these folks, primarily male, choose to ask for handouts and kick back. There's been some discussion about the wisdom of limiting what social services we have to known residents of our community.

[LDAHL]

We also have another brand of "homeless" here, seemingly-fit early-20s individuals, with nice REI clothing and gear, and no means of support. Usually the first thing they do when they hike off the ferry is ask where the food bank is, and the free showers. Drifters/grifters. Plenty of jobs available here at $25-$45/hour for fit people, but these folks, primarily male, choose to ask for handouts and kick back.

Wow. Even your bums are up-market.

[Chicken lady]

Wow Bae, as the mom of three twenty-somethings, I'd like to come offer them some motivation. (I used to have a hc college textbook entitled "applied child psychology" and when my kids were young teens, I used to wave it at them and threaten to "apply" it.)

you lead me to think though, at our foodbank, you can have all the baked goods (of which there is always excess) and fresh fruits and vegetables (which sometimes go by) that you want, but you have to show proof of residence to get a monthly "non-perishable" with cleaning items (plus meat, dairy, and eggs) package. So, if you were truly homeless, you could get food from us, but you would eat mostly bread, cake/donuts, and produce (which is usually not varied much - right now we have potatoes, onions, cabbage, apples, and oranges - last week we got a bag of grapes.)

we also give out - when available, clothes, shoes, books, toys, and personal care products, no questions asked. (Well, actually, we ask a lot of questions "what size pants does he wear? does he like trucks? Minions? Did you see we have a book about trucks over here? Do you like stories? Would you like that bear? Is it ok with your mom?(great! The bear is so happy!)

[bae]

Wow. Even your bums are up-market.

Well, the REI-grifter/wanderers are not the majority of our homeless, I mentioned them as they really stand out from the rest of the crowd. The folks in the longer-term encampments seem to have more serious issues in their lives :-(