I live in a small town about an hour north of Philadelphia, and boy, are people religious and socially conservative around here. But if I go into Philly (just a bus to the station and then a train ride away--I"m lucky!), it's very different.
I feel weird, because I vote Democrat (or even Green--the horror!), and I know most of the people in my town vote Republican. The local coffee shop plays contemporary Christian music in the mornings. There's an "inter-faith hospitality network" program at the nonprofit I volunteer at, and it's all Protestant churches that are involved--not even a Catholic church, let alone anyone from another religion. There was one Jewish girl in my high school.
It's like we live in a wacky alternate universe or something here.
It's an interesting read, but I'm curious why didn't address the wishy-washy middle of suburban/exurban areas. In terms of population, suburbanites outnumber both rural and urban folks.
I was wondering that, too! I totally agree with the part about small towns being more conservative (in fact, my reaction to the third paragraph of this story was, "Oh, they've finally figured that out? What took them so long?" LOL), but things are just not as simple as that
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Metro Detroit is the same way. I have a teabagger wack-job as my congresscritter, but some of my friends in nearby suburbs have a fairly normal middle-of-the-road Democrat. And our county government is mixed as well. Some of them are die hard Republicans, but there are some Democrats as well, and we were one of the 4 counties in Michigan that opened their offices on Saturday so same-sex couples could get married.
They actually say in the article that they've lumped suburbs into the "urban" category for the overall comparison.
That said, suburban areas are often a weird mismash of both. You have to drive 30 minutes to find a Starbucks. Someone brought a copy of The Turner Diaries into my bookstore store in trade at one point. But I've been out walking the dog and had folks pull over to ask me for directions to the gay bar. It's next to the Amish furniture place. Because suburbia is WEIRD. (I am in Connecticut, where it starts turning into farmland)
As someone who has lived in MO all my life this was an interesting (and completely unsurprising) read. I have some problems with the 'lifestyle' markers that they have used (Country music is not urban/rural but more likely an indicator of the region in the US where you live/grew up for example
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I didn't really read this, I'll say upfront, but i'm in St. Louis, so I kind of wanted to leave my two cents.
I'm originally from right across the river, in Illinois. I'm pretty liberal, and I hate going over there. I hate going deep into Missouri. We went on a float last summer to the Huzzah Valley, and one of my friends was quick to let a couple of our POC friends of the group not to go far or by themselves. It's amazing (and terrifying/depressing) to me, the night and day nature of how things can change with driving an hour or so east or west.
I'm glad people are finally starting to acknowledge this split. I spent the last year of my life in a small town in Western Minnesota on an internship. I grew up in Kansas City, MO (not far from Troost, on the "wrong" side, as it were) so I was pretty shocked when I was visiting an elderly woman in my church and heard one of the wildest 'I'm not racist but I'm racist' comments. I told her my fiance and I had just bought a house in the Twin Cities, and she said 'oh, do you have any black neighbors? I'm not racist, but I just prefer if they keep to their own kind
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I live in a small town about an hour north of Philadelphia, and boy, are people religious and socially conservative around here. But if I go into Philly (just a bus to the station and then a train ride away--I"m lucky!), it's very different.
I feel weird, because I vote Democrat (or even Green--the horror!), and I know most of the people in my town vote Republican. The local coffee shop plays contemporary Christian music in the mornings. There's an "inter-faith hospitality network" program at the nonprofit I volunteer at, and it's all Protestant churches that are involved--not even a Catholic church, let alone anyone from another religion. There was one Jewish girl in my high school.
It's like we live in a wacky alternate universe or something here.
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That said, suburban areas are often a weird mismash of both. You have to drive 30 minutes to find a Starbucks. Someone brought a copy of The Turner Diaries into my bookstore store in trade at one point. But I've been out walking the dog and had folks pull over to ask me for directions to the gay bar. It's next to the Amish furniture place. Because suburbia is WEIRD. (I am in Connecticut, where it starts turning into farmland)
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I'm originally from right across the river, in Illinois. I'm pretty liberal, and I hate going over there. I hate going deep into Missouri. We went on a float last summer to the Huzzah Valley, and one of my friends was quick to let a couple of our POC friends of the group not to go far or by themselves. It's amazing (and terrifying/depressing) to me, the night and day nature of how things can change with driving an hour or so east or west.
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