Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Red State, Blue City: How the Urban-Rural Divide is Splitting America
The Atlantic ^ | November 30, 2012 | Josh Kron

Posted on 12/01/2012 9:14:27 PM PST by Seizethecarp

The new political divide is a stark division between cities and what remains of the countryside. Not just some cities and some rural areas, either -- virtually every major city (100,000-plus population) in the United States of America has a different outlook from the less populous areas that are closest to it. The difference is no longer about where people live, it's about how people live: in spread-out, open, low-density privacy -- or amid rough-and-tumble, in-your-face population density and diverse communities that enforce a lower-common denominator of tolerance among inhabitants.

The only major cities that voted Republican in the 2012 presidential election were Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Fort Worth, and Salt Lake City. With its dominant Mormon population, Mitt Romney was a lock in the Utah capital; Phoenix nearly voted for Obama. After that, the largest urban centers to tilt Republican included Wichita, Lincoln, Neb., and Boise.

The gap is so stark that some of America's bluest cities are located in its reddest states. Every one of Texas' major cities -- Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio -- voted Democratic in 2012, the second consecutive presidential election in which they've done so. Other red-state cities that tipped blue include Atlanta, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Birmingham, Tucson, Little Rock, and Charleston, S.C. -- ironically, the site of the first battle of the Civil War. In states like Nevada, the only blue districts are often also the only cities, like Reno and Las Vegas.

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2012election; 2012electionanalysis; bluecities; bluezones; demographics; obama; redstates; rural; urban
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-71 next last
To: 43north

Electoral votes need to be awarded proportionately or the Red country areas are going to continue to get screwed by the blue cities.

Absolutely NOT. The Democrats want to get rid of the electoral college and you want to tinker with it. NO WAY! if we want to win, we need to pick a candidate that believes the way that we do and not some stupid liberal piece of crap that they nominated this year. Very simple solution to us winning!!!


41 posted on 12/02/2012 6:06:15 AM PST by napscoordinator (GOP Candidate 2020 - "Bloomberg 2020 - We vote for whatever crap the GOP puts in front of us.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: montanajoe
Most folks are not the loons of the left or right but in our system we need both. They define and set the parameters of the debate which is how we have always done it...

Maybe you haven't kept up with current events...

The inner city is composed of people who don't work and spend there days engaged in crime of some sort. Nothing good or productive comes out of it. There is no political viewpoint beyond give me more free stuff. If they attend a church at all it is to hear about how oppressed they are. Those people rule this nation and set direction because they have the media to peddle their viewpoint and their political leaders are thugs with no respect for the rule of law.

The suburbs and rural areas consist of people who get up every morning and go to work. They get up on Sunday and go to real churches where they are exhorted to be moral, generous, and hardworking. These people have been utterly marginalized. Even when the candidates they elect win, they only manage about a 10% reduction in the rate of growth of government that the former group wants to provide their free stuff.

This narrative that we are just groups with different viewpoints that need to compromise is utterly fraudulent.

The latter group comprises a functioning, prosperous nation. The former group is a dysfunctional third world hellhole sucking blood from the carotid artery of the latter.

Keep negotiating and making your compromises, but you are starting to look awfully pale. You aren't going to muddle through this.

42 posted on 12/02/2012 6:20:11 AM PST by hopespringseternal
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: okie01
You omitted the reason why the experiment eventually ended. The "city rats" became homosexual and died out.

Seriously? I never heard that about the "population sink" study. It sounds too much like a punchline to be true, although I wouldn't dismiss it outright.

In any event, cities are great places to visit until they become not-so-great places to visit... and they all get there eventually.

Mr. niteowl77

43 posted on 12/02/2012 6:23:48 AM PST by niteowl77 (Getting stuck with other peoples' just desserts good and hard for over 50 years.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp
Remember. Voter Fraud is centered in Big Cities! Fact!
44 posted on 12/02/2012 6:27:51 AM PST by Texas Fossil
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Strategerist

“This is one of the reasons why it seems to me so many FReepers don’t understand how outnumbered they are, or how fringe some of their views have become.”

Well, for one thing, the 79% urban population number is a flat-out falsehood. Cities have been losing population for 50 years and continue to do so. All you need do is compare population numbers from 1960 to today and the falling population in cities is apparent. Seattle has more dogs than children. Detroit is being reclaimed by nature. Cities are dead or dying.

The bulk of the population now lives in exurbia. Read any survey and you’ll discover that families with children are fleeing cities by the millions. If you want to see where the future population growth will happen, head to exurban areas in the south, which are filled with schools, playgrounds and children. Walk through a southern mall parking lot in Baptist territory and note all the little stick figures that people paste in the back window of their SUVs. There’s a lot of kids represented.


45 posted on 12/02/2012 6:30:16 AM PST by sergeantdave (The FBI has declared war on the Marine Corps)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: sergeantdave
That view may be true in the south, but in the NE and even out west, the suburbs have become more urbanized, while the cities have become gentrified, and more expensive to live in than either suburbia or exurbia. US birthrates are now at an all time low, and most of the growth has come from 1st generation immigrants and their children.

Besides all of the growing, dynamic areas of the south are yankeefied anyway. Anglo-Celtic evangelicals will never be the dominant class in anything outside of the military.

46 posted on 12/02/2012 6:45:11 AM PST by Clemenza ("History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil governm)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 45 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp
Do liberals ever give this a thought?

.Thus the stage is set for utter disaster.


47 posted on 12/02/2012 7:16:34 AM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

I have the best of both worlds. I’m far enough in the country to have the independence, but close enough to a city to take advantage of what it has to offer, with a flood plain in between to provide some separation.


48 posted on 12/02/2012 7:26:55 AM PST by yawningotter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Melas

I guess I had a different experience. After working in 19 states I picked east Texas to buy a place to settle into. I can find everyone from Boulder style liberals to Louie Gomert conservatives.


49 posted on 12/02/2012 7:27:54 AM PST by El Laton Caliente (NRA Life Member & www.Gunsnet.net Moderator)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Clemenza

Most of the job creation in the first decade of the 21st century took place in exurbia. IBM and the financial sector weren’t establishing branches in psycho cities to hire headbangers and gang-bangers. Granholm tried to invigorate Detroit with her idiotic “Cool Cities” scam, and it failed miserably. Companies follow the population groups that can best fill out critical positions to help the company profit and grow. That means hiring individuals with families. Boeing moving to South Carolina is one example of a company abandoning a dying, leftist city and seeking out a population that can help the bottom line.

There’s a lot of myth being propagated by the commies who want to force individuals into ant hill cities.


50 posted on 12/02/2012 7:43:36 AM PST by sergeantdave (The FBI has declared war on the Marine Corps)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: 43north

The last time I drove to Boston, there was a sign that told drivers to be aware that they were driving into a densely populated area. Even at that, two people got out of their cars and started arguing over a parking place that I took. They ended up screaming at each other.

I haven’t driven to Boston since.


51 posted on 12/02/2012 7:59:44 AM PST by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

“The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution”.
Thomas Jefferson


52 posted on 12/02/2012 8:00:36 AM PST by SWAMPSNIPER (The Second Amendment,a Matter of Fact,Not a Matter of Opinion)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SWAMPSNIPER
Jefferson is right (again). And it worse now with public employee union underfunded Ponzi schemes for retirement and healthcare.

Good news is that CA, IL and NY won’t likely make it to the next presidential election without going under, especially with Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion tossed onto their liabilities.

Also, Obama will not be on the ballot in 2014 or 2016 and the Dems have no one on the bench that can drive minorities to the polls to seek “revenge” for racial/minority slights.

I believe that the GOP can replay 2010 in 2014 if lots of “blue state” minorities stay home and if the fiscal cliff crisis resolution tips the US into recession...which I believe will happen regardless of the solution.

53 posted on 12/02/2012 8:15:58 AM PST by Seizethecarp (Defend aircraft from "runway kill zone" mini-drone helicopter swarm attacks: www.runwaykillzone.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: Melas
It’s not really a divide when 79.219% of the population lives in urban areas. Just sayin’.

The urban population may outnumber the rural population by 4-1, but if the SHTF I expect the casualty rates to be at least 20-1, and possibly much higher.

54 posted on 12/02/2012 8:25:32 AM PST by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: ilovesarah2012

“I am now living in a small city suburb of Greenville ...”

Easley? The Mrs. and I are looking at houses in that area. TR was way too “touristy” for my taste. Met too many NE liberals there too. The greek pizza place out on 25 was great, though — baklava to die for!


55 posted on 12/02/2012 8:35:54 AM PST by Peet (Everything has an end -- only the sausage has two.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: pepperdog

I spent 32 years on the railroad, a number of those years hauling freight trains into and out of New York City.

The only loaded cars leaving NYC these days are garbage and construction waste, heading for mass disposal in the Midwest...


56 posted on 12/02/2012 9:53:32 AM PST by Road Glide
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: sergeantdave

“Boeing moving to South Carolina is one example of a company abandoning a dying, leftist city and seeking out a population that can help the bottom line.”

Even Apple Computer chose to locate its massive server farm in North Carolina...


57 posted on 12/02/2012 9:57:46 AM PST by Road Glide
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Seizethecarp

The same is often true in Blue states, where the rural folk are more likely to vote GOP, but the city and immediate suburbs vote for the donkey party. Not always of course, but there are more conservative people in my rural part of Conn than most FReepers would guess. We’re just outnumbered by the brain-dead Dem zombies.


58 posted on 12/02/2012 10:05:02 AM PST by Betis70 ("Leading from Behind" gets your Ambassador killed)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Betis70

Bump for later reference.


59 posted on 12/02/2012 12:02:24 PM PST by meyer (Proud member of the 53%.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 58 | View Replies]

To: Wonder Warthog

What you say is true. And, i have read articles supporting your contention, towns paying incentves for young professionals sych as doctors, dentists, technical types with needed skill sets, etc,to relocate to their area.But, when looking at the national trend and not the exceptions the data shows that mid America is coring out. I believe that 2010 census data supports that. I live in the dallas metroplex and have a deer lease near Quanah. The population loss hit me when I was driving around out in this area scouting for a lease and talking to locals. They call this area “The Big Empty”. This is an area that starts just west of Fort Worth, and goes up into the Panhandle and west to Lubbock, an area bigger tan many states. It’s really sad, houses and store fronts boarded up, forget about doctors and dentists, some of these little towns no longer even have a grocery store or a cafe. It goes on and on. I travel up through the Midwest some and see the same thing occurring there.


60 posted on 12/02/2012 1:17:09 PM PST by snoringbear (Government is the Pimp,)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-71 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson