More urban versus suburban. The suburbs are an enormous money sink that require tons of subsidy and infrastructure expansion to persist. A bunch of our municipal, state, and national policy revolves around keeping life in the suburbs artificially cheap and expanding the housing stock.
Rural communities don’t have anywhere near the kind of political influence as the suburbs, as they lack a wealthy professional workforce or a large enfranchised voter base to command elected offices. While you definitely see rural politics show up in suburban races, they tend to revolve around cultural icons (driving a big truck versus riding the bus, having a big yard versus living in a town home, proximity to colleges and communities of color, taste in clothing or music) rather than actual rural political issues (water rights, agricultural labor issues, affordable education and health care).
Rural communities get steamrolled as regularly as urban communities. We’re seeing that now in Texas, where the governor is turning a blind eye to another big drought and unleashing his police force on migrant farm workers as he gets ready to axe all the public schools out in the tiny towns and force people into low-budget charters. Urban centers are louder in their opposition, but the rural neighborhoods are getting fucked just as hard.
Yes I agree, and that’s a reality that we don’t point out often enough. Even so, schisms really tend to happen more along cultural boundaries than actual policy.
Just balkanize already
It’s rural vs urban, just like in a lot of other countries. Pretty tough to separate that way since they both depend on each other.
More urban versus suburban. The suburbs are an enormous money sink that require tons of subsidy and infrastructure expansion to persist. A bunch of our municipal, state, and national policy revolves around keeping life in the suburbs artificially cheap and expanding the housing stock.
Rural communities don’t have anywhere near the kind of political influence as the suburbs, as they lack a wealthy professional workforce or a large enfranchised voter base to command elected offices. While you definitely see rural politics show up in suburban races, they tend to revolve around cultural icons (driving a big truck versus riding the bus, having a big yard versus living in a town home, proximity to colleges and communities of color, taste in clothing or music) rather than actual rural political issues (water rights, agricultural labor issues, affordable education and health care).
Rural communities get steamrolled as regularly as urban communities. We’re seeing that now in Texas, where the governor is turning a blind eye to another big drought and unleashing his police force on migrant farm workers as he gets ready to axe all the public schools out in the tiny towns and force people into low-budget charters. Urban centers are louder in their opposition, but the rural neighborhoods are getting fucked just as hard.
Yes I agree, and that’s a reality that we don’t point out often enough. Even so, schisms really tend to happen more along cultural boundaries than actual policy.