Bridging the Gap

Can the rural vs. urban gap be bridged - or are the frames of reference just too far apart?

In rational thought, a frame of reference is defined as a set of ideas, a grounding in philosophical or religious doctrine, in terms of which other ideas are interpreted or assigned meaning.

We all build our frames of reference based on a lot of things, but in the sense of where you live, the environment is a significant factor as well because we tend to live in areas where our principles and values are shared.

I am sure you all have seen the county electoral maps after presidential elections and noticed that the GOP candidate typically wins ninety plus percent of America’s counties. However, population matters, and the Democrat candidate wins the counties where the large urban areas exist.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, the election in France shows the same thing.

According to a Europoll published in the Economist, Marie Le Pen’s party came top in 93% of French towns and villages.

It is a demonstrable fact that in an urban and suburban setting, people depend more upon public services for many of the things that facilitate their existence. Things like garbage disposal, public utilities and even immediate access to grocery stores and other commercial services insulate the suburban and urban dweller from the necessity to expend effort for these things – they exchange tax money for the public services and even though access to immediate conveniences are examples of capitalism, the creation of these entities are often not – there are many of these commercial centers that are attracted to a particular location through tax deferments and other incentives to the developers.

Since these things, especially the government services, are simply provided and the most effort that most people expend is to drag the wheelie bins out to the curb on garbage day, it is easy to see why most city dwellers think that bigger government is a good thing. Conversely, I can see where it is difficult for someone who lives one hundred miles from a city with an airport with major carrier service to understand why taxes must go up to support more government spending for public services.

There is no question that when population reaches a certain density, there are things that the populace simply cannot do for themselves.

Clearly, public sanitation is one of them but if you look at a “heat map” of the last presidential election, you will notice that the support for liberal policies as demonstrated by the “red” vs. “blue” vote majorities, there is a general correlation between the proximity to urban centers, the counties with higher population density and the likelihood of a Democrat (liberal) majority. There are, of course, exceptions in the Border States where there is a relatively small county population with many lower income people with a predisposition toward government assistance.

There are necessarily collectivist activities that are required in areas of high population density – but these activities should be understood because of the choice of location and lifestyle and not a political ideology that is right for all of America.

When these majority areas decide what is best for the other ninety percent of America, we have a problem - because what is good (and necessary) to support residing in Manhattan is not necessarily needed for someone living on a farm in rural Utah or Texas.

That is a divide difficult to bridge.

Maybe too difficult.