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Future Influence: Rural vrs Urban America. Who Wins?

Future Influence: Rural vrs Urban America. Who Wins?

  • Rural America will win and keep its historical influence in Governance

    Votes: 3 15.8%
  • Urban America will win and take over Rural Americas influence in Governance

    Votes: 16 84.2%

  • Total voters
    19
Almost all farmland is owned by massive agricultural corporations. Big corporations are very much an urban idea. The owners and operators of those big corporations are almost all urban people, educated in urban universities, raised on urban ideas.

So you are saying the 1%, I thought you meant the unwashed masses living in cities.

You keep changing it up man.


No it's not. But you can be in denial if you like. The majority of movies are made by urban people about other urban people. The majority of music (even country music) is made by urban people. Technology is made in urban labs and universities. The computers and software that we're using to have this conversation was created and popularized in urban centers. The bible that you quote in your signature was developed and popularized in urban centers. Even the heavily edited and politicized versions of the bible specifically made for rural Americans were developed and created in urban centers (the New International Version that is the text most bible thumpers quote was designed and developed in New York City and it is a heavily political document tailor made so that you will thump it).

Most of American culture, even rural American culture comes from urban centers. Now, I don't actually think that it's a contest. Despite everything I've said in this thread, I don't really care where culture comes from or where ideas come from. I just want the best ideas. That they come from urban centers is why I like urban centers and why I live in them. I would never presume that it is the other way around.



So what rural area are you from?
 
This is basically the fundamental issue of the thread though and I have to say you are overall attacking 80% of America.






What about Urban or SUBURBAN peoples right to be "Respected" and have their way of life "Respected"? What about my interests as a member of the majority of this country who has to listen to some insidious wanna-be rural politician lecture me about my values while I and people like me pay for the streets to be paved, pay for the public funds said supposed "Rural Values Hero" uses to attack the majority of Americans values and way of life on a daily basis so some suburban mom or dad 5 miles from downtown can sit in their bunko lounger with a smile on their face believing they're "Rural people under attack" (They're not)?


-What about the 80% of Urban Americans right to be respected?

-What about 80% of Urban Americans right to their way of life?

-Why do I have to cater to a 20% minority of Americans and hear how "Bad" 80% of Americans are on a daily if not second by second basis?

-Why do we 80% of Americans have to sit and hear our values attacked by people who listen to Fake Country Music that isn't country music?




George Strait hated country music and didn't listen to it in his youth by his own admission. He listened to rock. George Strait - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Strait began his musical interest while attending Pearsall High School, where he played in a rock and roll garage band. The Beatles were popular when Strait was in high school. "The Beatles were big", Strait confirmed. "I listened to them a lot and that whole bunch of groups that were popular then". Strait did not tune to the country music radio often as a youth, usually listening to the news and the farmer's report.

did you honestly think using a larger font would mean something to me?

I don't give a rats ass about George Strait and I have no idea what he has to do with anything.
 
Urban ideas determine most of our national culture and policy. They are simply better, more powerful, and more effective ideas. Even when rural conservatives band together to oppose their urban neighbors, it doesn't make a difference. Urban ways still dominate. We're the affluent ones. We're the cultural creators. We're the ones driving innovation, industry, technology, and basically everything else that makes our nation powerful. Rural culture gave us... country music? All the prosperous capitalists who made fortunes in rural areas were urban people with urban ideas. Good ol' boy and Texas rancher W Bush is from New Haven, Connecticut and went to Yale and Harvard. That basically sums up the urban/rural dynamic. Even in rural areas, the successful ideas and culture are the urban ones. Nobody goes to see movies made for rural audiences. They go to see urban Hollywood blockbusters, even cynical patriotic pandering ones like American Sniper (Chris Kyle himself was from metropolitan parts of Texas and Bradley Cooper is from Philadelphia). Even the high rollers in the Republican Party like the Koch Brothers are urban men with urban ideas. They're from Wichita, and David lives in Manhattan. Sheldon Adelson is from Boston and lives in Las Vegas.

Even rural conservatives are marching to the beat of urban people and their urban ideas. Rural ideas simply have no power.

Urban people are more affluent....you sure about that one Pasch? A drive through the inner city of pretty much every major American metropolitan area would leave one with a different impression. Baltimore, for example....

Universities are located in urban areas? Well, would you expect anything else? They're naturally going to be located where the most people can access them. And in the cases where universities are located in rural areas, what happens is that cities spring up around them. I could rattle off a list of "college towns" that are essentially anchored by a major university, but you already know this.

Urban people are better educated? Again, not sure I buy that entirely, you have to show stats. But even if that were the case, could it be that many of those educated folks are people who come in to the cities from rural areas in search of an education?

You say that urban ideas are better than rural ideas...yet can you back this up with any stats? And what is an urban idea anyway?

Cities exist as centers of commerce for rural areas surrounding them. They are a crossroads and a gathering point. But the relationship between rural and urban is symbiotic...one could not prosper without the other.
 
The correct answer to this poll is "neither."

The SUBURBS rule and dominate America in terms of economic, cultural, and political influence.
 
CEO's don't produce food. Or oil. They don't mine.

Most of America's wealth originates in rural areas.


That's factually incorrect. Cities have more wealth. Your claim (and others) that suburbs represent rural areas is wrong. Suburbs are urban people who work in cities and drive home to their suburbs, which are still almost always part of the city in some legalistic way.

The average person in rural America isn't wealthy. They're lower middle class just barely but there's very few legitimate "Rural" people (less than 21% of America) so it's hard for people to grasp their true socioeconomic situation. Take the city I live in for instance. It has a massive economy. 50 miles away from it in every direction are true rural areas with small "True" populations of lower middle class rural people. However SOME of those rural areas are upper middle class. How? Because upper middle class doctors and lawyers from the city suburbs decide to build $300,000 houses next to the lower middle class rancher. Does that mean the doctor who drives 50 miles into the city to derive an income every day is a "Rural person"? No. Do they listen to country music and call themselves rural? Very possibly so. I'd say almost surely. Do they fist pump to Rush Limbaugh in their car on the way home from their $200,000+ doctors job in downtown? Perhaps many of them do. Still. They aren't rural. They aren't that rancher who has no degree and has been ranching for the last 4 generations barely being lower middle class.
 
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The correct answer to this poll is "neither."

The SUBURBS rule and dominate America in terms of economic, cultural, and political influence.


The Suburbs are urban-esq people who derive their income from cities..
 
That's factually incorrect. Cities have more wealth. Your claim (and others) that suburbs represent rural areas is wrong. Suburbs are urban people who work in cities and drive home to their suburbs, which are still almost always part of the city in some legalistic way.

The average person in rural America isn't wealthy. They're lower middle class just barely but there's very few legitimate "Rural" people (less than 21% of America) so it's hard for people to grasp their true socioeconomic situation. Take the city I live in for instance. It has a massive economy. 50 miles away from it in every direction are true rural areas with small "True" populations of lower middle class rural people. However SOME of those rural areas are upper middle class. How? Because upper middle class doctors and lawyers from the city suburbs decide to build $300,000 houses next to the lower middle class rancher. Does that mean the doctor who drives 50 miles into the city to derive an income every day is a "Rural person"? No. Do they listen to country music and call themselves rural? Very possibly so. I'd say almost surely. Do they fist pump to Rush Limbaugh in their car on the way home from their $200,000+ doctors job in downtown? Perhaps many of them do. Still. They aren't rural. They aren't that rancher who has no degree and has been ranching for the last 4 generations barely being lower middle class.

If it's factually incorrect, hit me with some stats.
 
The Suburbs are urban-esq people who derive their income from cities..

What is "urbanesque?" Is that just some designation you're making up on the fly?

Many in the cities derive their income from rural areas, so your point is largely moot.

For the sake of simplicity, "urban" is anyone who lives within the city limits of a major metropolitan city.
 
If it's factually incorrect, hit me with some stats.

You cannot be serious.. (OH wait you are..):roll:

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What is "urbanesque?" Is that just some designation you're making up on the fly?

Many in the cities derive their income from rural areas, so your point is largely moot.

For the sake of simplicity, "urban" is anyone who lives within the city limits of a major metropolitan city.

All 100% factually wrong entirely.


Suburban means semi-urban. Kindergartners know that. Over 80% of Americans drive to a major city to derive their income from. Over 80% of Americans live in or around (suburban) said cities. You are wrong 100% sir.
 
You cannot be serious.. (OH wait you are..):roll:

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Pictures aren't stats. This shows nothing meaningful, as the suburbs surrounding the cities (not urban areas) are what make the areas of your map light up.
 
Pictures aren't stats. This shows nothing meaningful, as the suburbs surrounding the cities (not urban areas) are what make the areas of your map light up.

Absolutely 100% wrong good sir.

Suburbs are people who are classified as urban because they're urban. Hence the word, sub-urban. I think maybe you don't understand the meanings of words good sir. Those are all perfectly legitimate stats. They come from a thing called a website sir called NASA.
 
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Absolutely 100% wrong good sir.

Suburbs are people who are classified as urban because they're urban. Hence the word, sub-urban. I think maybe you don't understand the meanings of words good sir. Those are all perfectly legitimate stats. They come from a thing called a website sir called NASA.

I did your homework for you. Here are the actual per capita income figures for the five largest cities in the United States, compared to the per capita incomes of the states they are in. As you can see, urban residents are hardly more affluent, being below average in every case:


NY City $ 22402
NY State $40272

LA $27952.
California $29634

Chicago. $20175
Illinois $23104

Houston. $18813.
Texas $26019

Philly $21946.
PA $29190


Boom. Your move sir.
 
You seem to not grasp what your eyes see in the actual NASA datamaps on urban incomes and incomes derived from suburban people. Then again sir you seem to not even have a basic logical understanding of the word suburban and in that respect I don't know that intellectually we could proceed much further with your argument until you somehow learn what suburban means by any modern measure. Suburban peoples derive their incomes and work in city's good sir. Not rural America. Nor are they part of rural American good sir. Learning is a good thing sir!
 
Now here's where I (and I think most fellow millennials) would 100% disagree with you (and I believe you are actually incorrect factually so on this).


Suburban is point in fact urban. No it doesn't have inner-city clutter (although actually that's not true, I've seen numerous city-esq high business buildings in mass suburbia just as high and big as any downtown, they aren't actually that rare). Suburbia is urban. Suburban residents simply don't want to believe it is. It has all the commercial hubs of a city. In many respects modern suburbia is the city writ large. I think in this sense this is the underlying cultural problem of America. Cities died and became the suburbs. With the death of the city came the idea for 80% of Americans residing in cities proverbial offspring, suburbs, that "Okay we aren't urban we're country people because we no longer live in cities". (Whatever that is). The truth is no they aren't. They're living in cities offspring.


-There's more Starbucks in mass suburbia than there are in most downtown's in America

-There's more fast food in suburbia than in the average city in America


It's simply not true that "Suburbia is somehow rural". It is not. It is completely urban. There are bike paths. There are parks. There are massive hospitals nicer than any you'll find downtown. The idea that suburbia is somehow "Secret Rural America" is totally delusional and frankly is the equivalent of living in a fantasy world. (Which I'd argue probably the average suburban person does live in a pseudo fantasy world. They go to Olive Garden and spend $100+ on family dinner, drive home in their Lexus's and then deem themselves country people all while being 50+ miles away from the nearest rural area.)

Oh my God!!! TREES!!!! We're in the country!!! LoL.. No you aren't. You're 12 minutes from a downtown with millions of people..

1lCTzTA.jpg

If you drew a twelve mile circle with my house in the exact center there would be TWO stabucks and 3 fast food joints. if you go to downtown Seattle I personally know of at least 12 sbux locations just in the downtown core (two in the Columbia center, one in the 1201 3rd building, Westlake park, and in Westlake mall, Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market, 2 on fourth avenue, one on 5th, yada yada so the argument there's more starbucks in suburban areas fails, actually my area may well be classed as rural, depending upon who's definition you use.

I am a millennial as well, I do not consider suburban to be urban, I have lived in both, living in suburban south kitsap county, is not anything remotely like Seattle.

to claim suburbs as "urban areas" is to me, silly. that's the problem with "80 percent of americans live in a metropolitan area" statistic is its 100% arbitrary. I live in a "metropolitan area" where there's no full time firefighters, the county is over 70% forested, and most people work in trades or in the 4 different wood product mills in nearby Shelton. I'm the outlier being that I commute 70 miles to Seattle for work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_metropolitan_area

my county (Mason) is listed in the Seattle Metropolitan CSA, no one who's been to Mason county would describe us as "urban" the only city in the whole county doesn't even have 10,000 people!
 
You seem to not grasp what your eyes see in the actual NASA datamaps on urban incomes and incomes derived from suburban people. Then again sir you seem to not even have a basic logical understanding of the word suburban and in that respect I don't know that intellectually we could proceed much further with your argument until you somehow learn what suburban means by any modern measure. Suburban peoples derive their incomes and work in city's good sir. Not rural America. Nor are they part of rural American good sir. Learning is a good thing sir!

Suburbanites are neither urban nor rural. There's enough of them in this country to merit their own designation, which they have.

You can't just lump the rich suburbs in to your stats just to make your case for the cities look better. It doesn't work that way. People live in suburbs because they choose not to live in cities...be that for the space, the front lawn, the safety and privacy, the schools, etc. These people are anything but urban.

If stats don't convince you, use common sense. Someone living in Plano Texas, a suburb 45 minutes from Dallas, is not "urban" the way someone living in Manhattan is urban. You can't compare the two.
 
You seem to not grasp what your eyes see in the actual NASA datamaps on urban incomes and incomes derived from suburban people. Then again sir you seem to not even have a basic logical understanding of the word suburban and in that respect I don't know that intellectually we could proceed much further with your argument until you somehow learn what suburban means by any modern measure. Suburban peoples derive their incomes and work in city's good sir. Not rural America. Nor are they part of rural American good sir. Learning is a good thing sir!

The problem is you're counting suburbs as urban areas, which is incorrect.
 
As opposed to destroyed rural areas?



Not even a little bit confined to urban areas. In fact, there's probably more pollution in the remote rural areas where they build polluting factories than in cities where all the people live.



While this bothers you, to many of us the density of cities is a feature, not a bug.



Finally, a valid point. However, plenty of habitats are destroyed in the clearing for forests for agriculture, or the diverting of rivers. This is a problem, but like the pollution, hardly contained to urban areas.



And higher incomes and a much higher standard of living to make up for it.

None of this, of course, has anything to do with my assertion that urban ideas, wealth, culture, and innovation are what drive this country. The thread is about influence. The influence that defines who and what we are as Americans doesn't come from rural living. It comes from the cities. It always has. This has been true since the first city that humans built.

higher personal incomes in urban areas come exclusively from a handful of really wealthy who live in cities. I don't think the immgrants cleaning hotel rooms or the high school drop out pumping your gas would agree that there is a higher personal income from just living inside city limits. and urban living has gotten incredibly expensive as of late.
 
The problem is you're counting suburbs as urban areas, which is incorrect.

exactly, the census bureau considers this

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and

picture-uh=2edeccc2f3d7d857b3e51d319652d895-ps=a2f46512ad3fbdeeab85f7659375a-21-N-Suncrest-Dr-Hoodsport-WA-98548.jpg


to be "metropolitan areas"
 
And a metro area is not the same as a city. Not legally, not practically. All it means is that you live relatively close to a city.

the pictures I've showed you are lumped In to Seattle's metro area. at the shortest a two hour drive to seattle. virtually no one who lives here works in Seattle.

this is what I'm saying, Kitsap and Mason counties are not "urban" but by proximity to seattle they're counted as in the metro area, when in reality, they're not. so that's 290,000 people in the metro column who shouldn't be. so when someone is saying urban is better because 80% of americans live in an urban metro area, it's a misleading number.
 
As opposed to destroyed rural areas?



Not even a little bit confined to urban areas. In fact, there's probably more pollution in the remote rural areas where they build polluting factories than in cities where all the people live.



While this bothers you, to many of us the density of cities is a feature, not a bug.



Finally, a valid point. However, plenty of habitats are destroyed in the clearing for forests for agriculture, or the diverting of rivers. This is a problem, but like the pollution, hardly contained to urban areas.



And higher incomes and a much higher standard of living to make up for it.

None of this, of course, has anything to do with my assertion that urban ideas, wealth, culture, and innovation are what drive this country. The thread is about influence. The influence that defines who and what we are as Americans doesn't come from rural living. It comes from the cities. It always has. This has been true since the first city that humans built.

Higher incomes? Not really. Here's the per capita income for the 5 largest cities in the U.S., as compared to the general figure for the state they're in. If anything, urban residents are worse off...




NY City $ 22402
NY State $40272

LA $27952.
California $29634

Chicago. $20175
Illinois $23104

Houston. $18813.
Texas $26019

Philly $21946.
PA $29190
 
the pictures I've showed you are lumped In to Seattle's metro area. at the shortest a two hour drive to seattle. virtually no one who lives here works in Seattle.

this is what I'm saying, Kitsap and Mason counties are not "urban" but by proximity to seattle they're counted as in the metro area, when in reality, they're not. so that's 290,000 people in the metro column who shouldn't be. so when someone is saying urban is better because 80% of americans live in an urban metro area, it's a misleading number.

I agree with you. Most of the influence, money, and political power in the United States is in the suburbs....the inner cities are hardly the epicenter of influence and affluence some are trying to paint them as.

This is one thing that distinguishes us from Europe, where urban areas truly are the prime areas
 
Higher incomes? Not really. Here's the per capita income for the 5 largest cities in the U.S., as compared to the general figure for the state they're in. If anything, urban residents are worse off...




NY City $ 22402
NY State $40272

LA $27952.
California $29634

Chicago. $20175
Illinois $23104

Houston. $18813.
Texas $26019

Philly $21946.
PA $29190

I can't imagine trying to live in some of those cities on 20K a year. I make 38K and I can't live in seattle really, and seattle isn't as expensive as NYC and LA
 
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