The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent
In the New Yorker...
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 16, 2023, 03:50:22 pm ---I was going to add another paragraph explaining why I think city dwellers are more homogeneous even though they may be more ethnically diverse and in other aspects such as wealth, sexual preferences, education, and so on. I'll bet I have more in common with Black or Latino people who live in Denver than white people who live in rural Weld County Colorado. My food preferences, political leanings, what music I listen to, groups I belong to, holidays I celebrate, books I read. The way I react to issues that crop up. I don't know why I left this out, but that's what I meant.
--- End quote ---
That's probably true! The question is, do you have more in common with other Denver residents than Weld County residents have with each other? I'm not familiar enough with Denver and not at all with Weld County. But in Minnesota I have lived in a large suburb (Minnetonka, 36,000) a small farm town (Crookston, 8,000), a medium-sized city (Duluth, 90,000) and the Twin Cities metro area (3.7 million). Minneapolis residents don't seem more homogenous than Crookston residents. But definitely if you look at it as one state it's heterogenous.
Front-Ranger:
I think rural people are pretty heterogeneous today. Some of the institutions that used to glue these populations together have broken down: church attendance, the Grange, farmer's organizations and co-ops have experienced attrition and fracturing. But there are still lightning rod types of people (Trump) and groups/voices (QAnon) that can have a unifying and motivating effect. As rural people have become attached to the Internet, they have been taken advantage of by those who use misinformation to gather believers. Just as televangelists did in prior generations.
Front-Ranger:
From the Boston GLobe: WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. ? On the 797th day after the defeat of former President Donald Trump, a rural Pennsylvania county on Monday began a recount of ballots from Election Day 2020.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on January 17, 2023, 11:31:06 am ---I think rural people are pretty heterogeneous today.
--- End quote ---
Oh for sure! I just meant I don't think they're necessarily any more heterogeneous than city-dwellers. Personally, I would argue less, but certainly not more -- or are they?
--- Quote ---From the Boston GLobe: WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. ? On the 797th day after the defeat of former President Donald Trump, a rural Pennsylvania county on Monday began a recount of ballots from Election Day 2020.
--- End quote ---
:laugh:
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on January 17, 2023, 01:50:36 pm ---Oh for sure! I just meant I don't think they're necessarily any more heterogeneous than city-dwellers. Personally, I would argue less, but certainly not more -- or are they?
--- End quote ---
Let's remember that homogeneous means "similar in nature", not demographics. So I interpret that to mean similar in behavior or actions. City dwellers have many opportunities to influence each other, supposedly, so over time it's logical to assume they would become more homogeneous. Rural people have less opportunity to do that, plus they are more likely to be individualistic to the point of stubbornness. Thirdly, I think rural people more often fall prey to the tactics used to divide people. I'm tempted to mention education as well, but I'll leave that out. I've had the embarrassment of assuming rural people were poorly educated several times only to find out that they had an MBA from Stanford, for example!
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