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As a political junkie this is the only real issue that actually matters as I see it. The emotion-inducing topic of Rural vrs Urban influence in America and who will essentially "win" in the future. I think it's the one issue that all others derive their inherent problems from subtly so.
Future Influence: Rural vrs Urban America. Who Wins?
For the first time in history, more people worldwide live in cities than outside them. Across the globe, urban areas add more than 60 million new residents every year. In the United States, of course, the rural-to-urban tipping point happened generations ago. Today, nearly 80 percent of Americans live in metropolitan areas). But it’s a demographic shift that’s ongoing.
It’s the age of urban ascendance. But it’s also an age of urban/rural discord. In an ever-flatter world, big cities often identify more with urban counterparts halfway across the globe than they do with rural leaders just down the road. Chicago woos jobs from Shanghai, but may not coordinate with small towns in downstate Illinois. Boston aligns itself more with Berlin and Beijing than with the Berkshires.There’s always been a gulf between rural and urban America. But that rift is widening -- in politics, in funding, in economic mobility, on social issues. How government leaders respond to that rift can either help bridge the gap between cities and rural areas, or drive the country down an even more divergent and potentially debilitating path.
America's Rural/Urban Divide: A Special Series
There really are two Americas. An urban one and a rural one. - The Washington Post
Red State, Blue City: How the Urban-Rural Divide Is Splitting America - The Atlantic
[url]http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/12/rural-decline-congress/1827407/
[/URL]
Future Influence: Rural vrs Urban America. Who Wins?
For the first time in history, more people worldwide live in cities than outside them. Across the globe, urban areas add more than 60 million new residents every year. In the United States, of course, the rural-to-urban tipping point happened generations ago. Today, nearly 80 percent of Americans live in metropolitan areas). But it’s a demographic shift that’s ongoing.
It’s the age of urban ascendance. But it’s also an age of urban/rural discord. In an ever-flatter world, big cities often identify more with urban counterparts halfway across the globe than they do with rural leaders just down the road. Chicago woos jobs from Shanghai, but may not coordinate with small towns in downstate Illinois. Boston aligns itself more with Berlin and Beijing than with the Berkshires.There’s always been a gulf between rural and urban America. But that rift is widening -- in politics, in funding, in economic mobility, on social issues. How government leaders respond to that rift can either help bridge the gap between cities and rural areas, or drive the country down an even more divergent and potentially debilitating path.
America's Rural/Urban Divide: A Special Series
There really are two Americas. An urban one and a rural one. - The Washington Post
Red State, Blue City: How the Urban-Rural Divide Is Splitting America - The Atlantic
[url]http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/12/rural-decline-congress/1827407/
[/URL]