Urban & Rural Politics

Urbanites tend to vote liberal and ruralites conservative.
Conservatives in the US and Canada tend to favor smaller government, particularly when it comes to the economy.

However, on some other issues, like national defense/offense, conservatives tend to favor bigger government, but when it comes to the economy at least, conservatives squarely favor smaller government, and this kind of makes sense, since farmers, fisherman and so on, have to be heartier and more self-reliant, self-employed, as opposed to urbanites, who, with the exception of some small businesses, tend to either be employees or employ lots of employees.

Of course there is industrial agriculture too, coalmining, forestry, manufacturing, and many on the bottom rungs of these industries tend to liberal, but overall, rural areas are more decentralized, and so naturally wearier of both big government, and outsiders.

The way provinces in Canada and states in the US are structured, is they tend to contain both densely populated urban areas (cities), sparsely populated rural areas (villages), and areas somewhere in between (towns), as well as unpopulated areas (wilderness).

Unfortunately, politics seem to be becoming increasingly polarized.
Perhaps this liberal conservative rift is less about right and wrong, and more about demographics, and it could be resolved by a parting of ways, instead of trying, and failing to reach a consensus, when instead we could change the structure of states, for example the coast of California is very urban, and very liberal, where as the inland is very rural, and very conservative.
These two areas of California are so different from one another, how could we expect them to ever agree on anything, so what do we do?
We split California into two states, we split every state that has both a large urban area and a large rural area in two, where as states that’re almost exclusively one way or the other, can remain as they are.

So urban liberals can run things the way they like, with a bigger government, and rural conservatives can run things the way they like, with a smaller government, and on issues that effect them both, like foreign policy, immigration, protectionism and so on, those can be decided federally, but many economic issues, as well issues like abortion, gun control and so on, you can have all the abortion and socialism you want in exclusively urban states, and all the guns and capitalism you like in exclusively urban states.

When you think about it, gun control makes more sense in urban areas, and less sense in rural.
In urban areas, you can rely on the police more to solve your disputes, but in rural areas, the nearest police department could be miles away, so you have to rely on yourself for protection more. In rural areas, you do a lot more hunting, or protecting livestock from poachers and predators, so you need to rely on guns more.

Abortion makes more sense in urban areas too.
In areas with high population density, crowding, having lots of kids makes less sense.
Naturally urbanites would tend to be more cosmopolitan, welcoming in nature, and ruralites more insular, suspicious.

I think a lot of this liberal/conservative rift just boils down to demographics, rather than some absolute right/wrong way to do things.
Rural areas tend to be more traditional and Christian based, urban areas secular, progressive and science, psychology based, and on and on it goes.

Of course lone wolves and small communities could handle things more bottom-up, where as millions of people living together require more coordination, central planning.
I mean these aren’t absolutes of course, there is overlap between the two, occasionally central planning could work in rural areas and spontaneity in urban areas, but overall, one fits more with one and the other the other.

As for areas that’re completely or almost completely wilderness, they could be ran by the federal government, like national parks and such.

in theory this seem like a good idea, to split a state into
urban and rural states…the problem, one of many, is
that the urban areas and the rural areas need each other…

the urban area’s are by large, far wealthier then the rural area’s…

I live in the San Francisco bay area…by itself, the bay area is
the 12th largest economic land in the world…whereas the inland area,
as you pointed out is vastly rural and very poor…as is typical, the wealthier
area’s keep the rural area’s afloat… without money from the wealthier area’s
in the form of taxes, the rural areas would go belly up…they don’t have enough
economic activity to be self sufficent…if you want a job, you must travel vast
distance to find a job… I know many people who travel hours a day, from home
to work, because housing cost in the bay area is insane and not so much in the
rural area’s but, there are no jobs in the rural area…giving them statehood
won’t create any jobs for them…and they will become like states in the south,
the so called red states, welfare states… states that can only survive on
the taxes from the wealthy blue states like California and New York…

this tells you something BTW, that the so called model of conservatives of small government
and low taxes, doesn’t actually survive without the taxes of the wealthy states…
the model of government of conservatives fail the actual test of real life…
because they are unable to sustain themselves…right wing, red states like
Mississippi and Alabama and the plain states like Wyoming and the Dekota’s
would fold like a deck of cards without the money from the federal government…
they cannot survive on their own…and this would be true of any carved out
state like California split into two…the rural part would simply become like
all red states, a welfare state… dependent on federal money to survive…

Kropotkin

If that’s the case, the federal government could be given limited powers to tax richer states and fund poorer ones when need be, but the way states are currently divided seems wholly arbitrary and antiquated.
They should be divided more along demographic lines, and the demographic/geographic divide: urban and rural, seems the most fundamental.
Rural and urban areas should be given the chance to more independently govern themselves, and maybe then there’d be more harmony and less havoc, less cultural clashing, putting an end to the culture wars.

K: at this point, I shall use an conservative argument… why should I, a wealthy
productive state, give my money to a poor, obviously lazy, no good, do nothing,
welfare state? the poor states are clearly poor because they are lazy, shiftless,
welfare state? if they weren’t so lazy and irresponsible, I wouldn’t need to bail
them out from their dire straits… if I give them my money, what incentive
would they have to improve their status? They would be welfare states forever,
generation after generation after generation, living off of my money and my
hard work…it has nothing to do with the culture wars and everything to do
with lazy, shiftless welfare states that only suck the life out of states that
have jobs and pay taxes…lazy states should get jobs instead of sponging
off of productive members of society…

it is about far more then just the culture wars, it runs clear across our
society…life is more then just demographics…

Kropotkin

Why not use the liberal argument instead?
For example: just because blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans and women are partly in some cases and wholly in others dependent on handouts from wealthy white men, doesn’t mean they should be forced to adopt wealthy white male, patriarchal values and ways of life.
Are we not our brothers keeper?
Are the haves not responsible for the have-nots?
After all, it’s by luck of the draw, external circumstances largely outside of our control that we have anything, we should be gracious.
We could all easily wind up poor some day.
If we needed help, wouldn’t we want that help with no strings attached?
Isn’t real compassion unconditional, without imposition?
Have rich regions not exploited poor ones in all sorts of ways?
Competitively they have unfair advantages, simply on account of them already being rich.
The rural, red neck regions need your sympathies, not your antipathy, just as native americans, women, immigrants and others do.

That’s genius, gloominary. The problem is that states rights were defeated in the civil war and have been steadily eroding ever since.

Both liberals and conservatives are idiots in my book in that I hold disdain for both but I’ll play along with the script of this thread. No, liberals will never relinquish control of rural areas because they are the food production areas of agriculture that feeds their urban sprawls. Any questions?

Well thanks, it may not be practical at this point in history, but I think it’s a good, or at least an interesting idea.

I agree with liberals on some things, with conservatives on some things, and I disagree with them both on some other things.
When you think about it, much-most of their ideological rift comes down to demographics, urban versus rural, but also rich versus poor.
Urbanites tend to be liberal, but the rich tend to be conservative, ruralites tend to be conservative, but the poor tend to be liberal, so rich urbanites and poor ruralites can go either way.
Overall, I don’t like them very much either, and in practice, they end up looking nearly identical anyway, for as we know both parties are largely controlled by the elite, and the elite plays them off one another, divide and rule, just like they play blacks and whites off one another, men and women, Muslims and Christians, which’s why immigration is an absolute must for both parties, Trump will do little-nothing to change that.
Nonetheless we’re kind of stuck with these two ideologies for now, and this would be one way of resolving the rift between them, so they, and society as a whole could move on.

I understand with what you’re saying and while I tend to have some very traditional views I also have some non traditional views that a lot of people would disagree with especially from other traditionalists.

I understand your desire for compromising and wanting a peaceful resolution believe me I do however I’ve dedicated my entire life to these dilemmas, conflicts, confrontations, and human inequities where I tell you right now none of what you want is possible.

All of these things was decided well in advance before you or I were a twinkle in the eyes of our parents and we’re beyond the point of easy solutions, compromises, negotiations, and peaceful settlements. I’m a long term thinker, forecaster, projector, and calculator, it’s what I do best on a sociological level and I’ve been over the many variables hundreds of times where none of this ends well at all. It is a hard pill to swallow to be sure but this is where we’re at currently.