Red State, Blue City: How the Urban-Rural Divide is Splitting America

The Atlantic ^ | November 30, 2012 | Josh Kron

[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.

[OKRA2012]

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

How exactly would you award electoral votes proportionally.

Would each county be awarded electoral votes in a state depending in the land mass of the county or would you propose some other formula?

[central_va]

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

Reference for that?

[x]

Not entirely new. The last Republican to carry New York City was Calvin Coolidge. And the liberal vote had to be split that year by LaFollette.

Eisenhower was the last Republican to carry Chicago (against native son, Adlai Stevenson), and the Black wards helped him out there.

Some states buck the trends though. More of rural Iowa is Democrat than it was a generation or two ago, and of course the same is true of the Northeast.

[43north]

Hmmm, I’ll have to think about that some more. I believe there are one or two states that already do this.

As I see it the problem is that you can have all of the Red rural counties in a state vote conservative but they are outnumbered by the rat-infested blue city votes. The entire electoral total for that state then goes to the blue candidate. That is not right and disenfrachises the Red voters.

Of course, the rats will never allow this to happen. It is too easy for them to control the vote fraud in their enclaves and they don’t care about anything other than their side winning.

[Melas]

Federal highway administration. Or you can use the census. Try here: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/ua/2010urbanruralclass.html

[Kickass Conservative]

When you put two hungry Rats in a shoebox, things happen.

Same goes for Democrats.

[Melas]

Initially a little place called Pineland, TX (which the natives pronounce (pine-LAND). The population was under a thousand in 1994 when I moved there, and is under a thousand still. The nearest “city” is Jasper, pop 8,000 or so, and 25 miles away.

[Wonder Warthog]

"The population was under a thousand in 1994 when I moved there, and is under a thousand still. The nearest “city” is Jasper, pop 8,000 or so, and 25 miles away."

LOL. The "town" (unincorporated) I grew up in was smaller than that (probably 300 max). The nearest town (New Roads, LA) is just about the same size, and same distance away. The nearby "big city" (Baton Rouge) is about 60 miles away to the SW, though Alexandria is about the same distance to the NW.

What country folks look at is not the distance to a location, but the time it takes to get there. I could get from my little unincorporated village to New Roads in less time than it took me to drive across Baton Rouge to get to similar amenities.

New Roads has hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, excellent restaurants (MANY), and even a Wal-Mart. LOL...the folks there thought they had "really arrived" when Wal-Mart opened a store.

If I didn't have severe allergies, I'd move back there in a heartbeat after retiring. As it is, I'm actually looking at spots in Texas, probably around the Hill Country near San Antonio....my allergies are better in a drier climate than in Louisiana.

[central_va]

This is bull. When you looks t smaller towns less than 100,000 the vote republican. Again this is bogus.

[Fiji Hill]

I remember my roommate who said (in the '80s) that eventually the big cities would become one entity.

He called it Bos-Was. Meaning an almost singular bloc from Boston to DC.

I recall an article in the late 1960's that predicted that most people would soon be living in three super-cities--Bos-Wash (Boston to Washington), Chi-Pitts (Chicago to Pittsburgh) and San-San (San Diego to Santa Rosa). However, these didn't quite pan out. There are lots of open spaces between Boston and Washington; much of "Chi-Pitts" has become the Rust Belt, and In California, the Bay Area and the Southland may have grown dramatically since the 1960's, but they are still separated by hundreds of miles of practically empty country.

[Olog-hai]

Thine opus revealeth what manner of “diversity” meeteth thy favour.