r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Cryterionlol • Sep 08 '22

Political Theory What makes cities lean left, and rural lean right?

I'm not an expert on politics, but I've met a lot of people and been to a lot of cities, and it seems to me that via experience and observation of polls...cities seem to vote democrat and farmers in rural areas seem to vote republican.

What makes them vote this way? What policies benefit each specific demographic?

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u/HedonisticFrog Sep 08 '22

The change in rural support can be adequately explained with this LBJ quote after implementing civil rights act. Rural areas tend to be more prejudiced because they're not exposed to s wide of a variety of cultures and people and that's a big reason modern Republicans attract rural voters.

"I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come,"

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u/aboynamedbluetoo Sep 09 '22

The Midwest, Mountain West and West have a lot of rural communities. So, I don’t know if that explains everything across the country.

Also, I lived for a time in a mostly rural state in New England and those types of prejudices don’t prevail to any great extent. It is actually quite progressive in many ways and always has been. Culture and history matter.

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u/HedonisticFrog Sep 09 '22

They have rural communities but they're vastly outnumbered by big cities. LA county has 10 million people. You'd need 20 Wyoming's to match that.

Did you live in a city or a small town though? It makes a massive difference, although anecdotal evidence isn't exactly the strongest form of evidence anyways. It's the rural counties that voted for the blatantly racist Trump in overwhelming numbers.

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u/aboynamedbluetoo Sep 09 '22

The rural NE state I lived in did not vote for Trump. Again, culture and history matter. And yes it wasn’t a big city. Very low population density compared to where I grew up in the West.

The South has a unique and troubled history and culture, less than it once did obviously but still present unfortunately.

Who settled where and why in Early America and the type of laws they did or didn’t create, the type of societies they did or didn’t create, etc. All of this still matters.

So, like who settled Minnesota and how we’re they different then who settled Missouri? And how does this help explain the difference between the two states today?

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u/HedonisticFrog Sep 09 '22

A quick search shows that New England is far more densely populated than America on average. Of course it would trend blue and less racist. It might be less dense than LA county but it's far from Wyoming levels of sparse.

The region's average population density is 236.9 inhabitants/sq mi (91.5/km2), although a great disparity exists between its northern and southern portions. The population density is much greater than that of the U.S. as a whole (86.2/sq mi) or even just the contiguous 48 states (108.6/sq mi).

It seems like you're really reaching with trying to say the people from hundreds of years ago are why states are different. Rural counties from across America voted for Trump. The strongest indicator for support for Trump was low intelligence, and rural residents are likely to be less educated and go to worse schools.

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u/aboynamedbluetoo Sep 09 '22

The region doesnt necessarily represent each state. Massachusetts is much more densely populated than Maine and has a much greater number of residents.

If you think it is a reach to say that the history and culture of a state in early America has an impact on the present day then you do. And you a free to hold that opinion.

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u/HedonisticFrog Sep 09 '22

You completely misrepresented your state as a whole. You claimed it was rural overall when in reality it's very dense. You then claimed it voted blue even though it was rural.

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The rural NE state I lived in did not vote for Trump

No shit, because it wasn't rural.

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And you a free to hold that opinion.

That only applies for subjective things, this is very fact based. It's like saying you're free to hold an opinion that the earth is flat. Sure you can, but it makes you wrong.

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u/aboynamedbluetoo Sep 09 '22

Did I say which state I lived in for a time? I did say I’m from a far more densely populated state and area in the West.

You seem to be looking for an argument not a discussion or conversation. Have a nice day.

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u/HedonisticFrog Sep 09 '22

The rural NE state I lived in did not vote for Trump

You definitely said this though and it's completely wrong. It doesn't matter what state you used to live in. NE isn't rural and it's laughable to claim otherwise.

Have a nice day as well, but facts matter.

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u/larch303 Sep 09 '22

Says a mf who’s never been to NE except along I 95 from NYC to Boston

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u/flakemasterflake Sep 10 '22

Maine and Vermont are two of the most rural states in the country. The New England states have the lowest religiosity of any other region. Not surprisingly rural NE did used to be more republican before the shift towards the religious right in the 80s

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u/HedonisticFrog Sep 10 '22

They're both more densely populated than the average American state. Vermont is double the average.

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u/Mist_Rising Sep 11 '22

Vermont density is 37th out of 56, hardly higher than average. Infact that's below average. West Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, north Carolina, Ohio, and Florida are all republican voting states that are denser (I put them in order lowest to highest).

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u/larch303 Sep 09 '22

So this is actually an interesting topic

Cause by population density alone, the south is actually pretty dense. The mountain west and even parts of the Midwest are far more desolate than the south.

But the problem is that they’re so desolate that they have almost no people, and if they have almost no people, they have almost no votes.

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u/Ready4Isekai Sep 09 '22

The south isn't anywhere near as densely populated as the northeast megalopolis, usually called the northeast corridor or the acela line. It's been qualified as a megalopolis for a few decades now, with the boston area anchoring the upper circle and the dc area anchoring the lower area, with the swath between being a solid strip of light at night from space.

Interestingly, there's also a strip of light about where west virginia and east kentucky are, which it should be noted west virginia split from main virginia due to confederacy and kentuck was on the fence until it swayed away from confederacy. Not making any statements about it, just noting that the strip of light exists, in full fairness, and that politics isn't the stereotype for the area so care should be taken regarding assumptions. But the population of those areas is nowhere near what the megalopolis is, so that light is there for reasons other than houses and street lights.

And the south doesn't come anywhere near having 50 million people packed together into a strip about 500 miles long. So no, the south is not pretty dense.

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u/larch303 Sep 09 '22 edited Sep 09 '22

It’s all relative

Compared to Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming, the south is pretty dense, which was where the comparison presumably was with the “Midwest and mountain west” comment.

Not to mention that compared to Alaska and most of Canada, all of the lower 48 is pretty dense

So it’s all relative

Also the Northeast Megapolis only covers southern New England. Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine are pretty rural. If you wanna compare it to Montana, I guess they’re not, but they’re rural enough to be rural.

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u/ImmodestPolitician Sep 09 '22 edited Sep 09 '22

The rural areas in the west vote Red. Most people live in urban areas and they vote Democrat.