# So apparently rural America (modern hunter gatherers) think city folk look down on them **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 17, 2016, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221 "2016-11-17T02:34:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/61 "2016-11-18T21:12:30Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > There’s no need to disparage rural people. After all they’re just a simple folk. > > “It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” -President Obama. OMFG, so THAT’S where Trump got his campaign strategy. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/62 "2016-11-18T21:18:20Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > I don’t know what you consider to be relatively reasonably priced housing in the suburbs, but I’ll guarantee you it dwarfs the cost of living in the rural Midwest. > > And anyway, you’ve missed the point. Why do people in rural communities need to move at all? Well, part of the surge for Trump was predicated on the loss of jobs for single industry heavy towns. If that is what has happened to such a place, and someone who lives in a rural area is raw about the job prospects there… why not move? Why stay in a place that is depressed if you are able to move elsewhere? If you can’t that is one thing, and I’m sure there are plenty of people like that. But others? Living on the outskirts of a city where rent is cheaper might still be more expensive than mural america, but if the income gained is even higher than… I’m not seeing the rationale to stay in the middle of a desert while complaining that no food grows there. Someone resurrect Sam Kinison to talk to these people. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/63 "2016-11-18T21:22:00Z")
> [@Anny\_Middon](#): > > Ah, but my point was that it’s more than a bit hypocritical for rural people to denounce urban people for not paying taxes if they themselves aren’t paying them. True, but the reality is that both groups are paying taxes. Believing that one’s political enemies don’t pay taxes, and are thus unworthy, is an unfortunate American tradition, related to how we equate wealth with moral value. ---
**Author:** ![ThisIsTheEnd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisistheend/32/4713_2.png) [@ThisIsTheEnd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisIsTheEnd)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/64 "2016-11-18T21:25:14Z")
Cornfed motherfuckers. Fuck them. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/65 "2016-11-18T21:41:53Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Everybody uses the same federal income tax table. Everybody pays their fair share. The US does not have a flat tax, rich people pay more than poor people. Not necessarily. Tax rates for income rise as income rises. But most rich people don’t live off their income; they live off their investments. And while the income tax rate tops out at 39.6%, the tax rate on long term capital gains tops out at 23.8%. Trump, incidentally, wants to change income tax rates. He wants to raise the lowest rate (what poor people pay) from 10% to 12% and lower the highest rate (what rich people pay) from 39.6% to 33%. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/66 "2016-11-18T21:44:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Not necessarily. Tax rates for income rise as income rises. But most rich people don’t live off their income; they live off their investments. And while the income tax rate tops out at 39.6%, the tax rate on long term capital gains tops out at 23.8%. And the rural american’s great hero, Mr. Trump, paid no taxes at all. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/67 "2016-11-18T21:44:17Z")
I specifically referenced income taxes, but you are correct. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/68 "2016-11-18T21:57:25Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > Because if your major worry is that jobs in your area are becoming scarcer, or are dependent on a single industry whose continued existence is not guaranteed, it may behoove you to move to an area where there are job openings and/or more diverse employment options. Which these days tend to be in or near cities. > > Americans these days are not only less socially mobile but also [less physically mobile](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/opinion/how-to-get-americans-moving-again.html). There has been some back-and-forth among economists / sociologists over to what extent these two phenomena are related, but they’ve been following more or less the same trajectory. But what if already you have a job? Or what if you think the reason the factory might leave is because they’d move it to Mexico? It’s not like they’re just handing out jobs in the cities, by the way. And if everyone from rural surrounding areas moved closer to the city, there’d be even fewer available jobs. “Just move out of your Podunk town” is not an attractive solution for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/69 "2016-11-19T00:31:45Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > … mural america … typo of the day ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/70 "2016-11-19T00:51:24Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Actually, if you read that cracked article, he mentions that there is an economic barrier to moving to a city that acts as a 100 foot wall with the increased property costs and rent costs. > > But you know what? Not all areas of a city or the nearby surrounding areas are that expensive. But what might need to happen for some rural white people that were not economically well off is they might have to move into areas where there are more… wait for it… minorities !!! A white person moving into a black neighborhood that is NOT related to gentrification… how often does that happen? If it happens at all it tends to be more well to due populations moving into the prime real estate that was abandoned with white flight when they saw too many black people nearby and wanted to get the eff out. > > I have zero data on this, so I can’t prove anything, but I do wonder if there is an aversion to moving to the city because of some misplaced sense of pride about not wanting to place oneself at the same level of a marginal minority population. Better to wither in the sticks with no job prospects than THAT indignity. > > Or maybe this is completely off base, but it’s not obvious to me it is. No one wants to move to the ghetto. Not even the ghetto inhabitants. Why would someone living in a relatively peaceful rural area want to move to a place they wouldn’t fit in and has a high crime rate and bad schools? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/71 "2016-11-19T15:53:42Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > No one wants to move to the ghetto. Not even the ghetto inhabitants. Why would someone living in a relatively peaceful rural area want to move to a place they wouldn’t fit in and has a high crime rate and bad schools? There are other places than the ghetto to live and still get the benefits of living near a city, you know. I live about 40 minutes north of a city. My business is about 15 minutes south of me, in the middle of upper middle class neighborhood. Crime in my neighborhood is a bit lower than you find in rural areas, and the schools are much better. My neighborhood is mostly white, but there are relatively decent representations of minorities, if that is a problem for you, then maybe you won’t fit in. Is this actually the perception that rural americans have, that the city is either for the ultra wealthy, or you live in a ghetto? If that is the case, then it is certainly not the city dwellers who do not understand how the majority of the country lives. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/72 "2016-11-19T19:16:26Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Is this actually the perception that rural americans have, that the city is either for the ultra wealthy, or you live in a ghetto? If that is the case, then it is certainly not the city dwellers who do not understand how the majority of the country lives. For some reason, segments of the US population, not necessarily all from the same regions or demographics, as well as many people outside the US, have some sort of strange concept that the archetype of the American Big City is the Baltimore of “The Wire” or a New York that somehow is composed of nothing but mid-1990s Wall Street and late-1970’s South Bronx. Large cities and their immediate environs can be quite internally diverse themselves. Compton and Encino and Venice and Santa Monica are distinct locations inside Greater L.A. Southie and Cambridge in Greater Boston. Georgetown and Alexandria and Southeast and Carver within the Capital Beltway. South Beach and Hialeah and Sunny Isles and Opa Locka inside Dade County. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/73 "2016-11-19T21:35:22Z")
> [@ThisIsTheEnd](#): > > Cornfed motherfuckers. Fuck them. I see you are eager to make four years of Trump into eight. I hope you’ll enjoy it more then I do! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sterling\_Archer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/74 "2016-11-19T23:58:29Z")
I’d say they’ve proven themselves worthy of our contempt. Not all of them, but apparently a sizable majority. ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2016, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/75 "2016-11-20T00:55:53Z")
There are definitely some downsides to living way out in the boonies, I don’t deny that. I was raised in a really small Southern town and now live in a more medium-sized town on the other side of the state, but I travel with my job, so I get to see many of the big cities across the country. I like to visit and experience something different, but I like to go home, too. Home is comforting. The upsides of living in a rural area, and what keeps many of my relatives way out there are privacy, wide-open spaces, cheaper property taxes, hunting, fishing, easy access to deep water for recreation, and smaller communities where people know who you and your people are…the whole big fish in a little pond. Some people like that. It gives a sense of security. They don’t want to go off somewhere and be a nobody and have no support system. For me, it wasn’t hard to leave. But for some people it is. ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2016, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/76 "2016-11-20T01:22:26Z")
Oh, and one more thing, since I am real gen-u-wine country person, I have 2 sons in college, and they know full well that they are going to have to go to where the opportunities are after graduation. That’s just the way it is today. And they are very open to that, even excited. That’s because they have a good Mama who has taught them that they don’t need to be afraid of change. Although, I will admit, that I do feel like a real noob hick when I have to figure out the subway system in some large metro area I have never been to before. People roll their eyes and laugh…it is embarrassing when I am struggling with the kiosk and trying to figure out how to buy a ticket! I can’t help I didn’t grow up riding a freakin’ subway every day, they don’t have mass transit where I am from, I am doing the best I can! And oh, toll roads! I drove all over Tampa on toll roads with a console full of change looking for the toll booth so I could throw my coins in. Found out you need one of those Sunpass thingys, no toll booths. :smack: Nobody tells you this stuff! And yes, I got laughed at for being sooooo unsophisticated! 🆒 Live and learn. Keep going. But I understand why, for some, these learning curves might be something they don’t want to deal with. There are things people who live in cities take for granted they think everyone knows. The don’t. Just as there are things in the country city people don’t know how to negotiate. It doesn’t mean one is smarter or better than another, just different. ---
**Author:** ![Grumbacher\_Red](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Grumbacher\_Red](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumbacher_Red)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2016, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/77 "2016-11-20T01:45:22Z")
> [@SantaMan](#): > > I still like, erm, appreciate this [cracked](http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about_p2/) article about the country vs city perspective. > We may have come a ways since Beverly Hillbillies, but we still do jokes like > Going to the country? If you hear banjos - RUN I love me some Burt Reynolds, but I cannot stand Deliverance. It almost seems like that move marked some kind of turning point in popular culture about rural people and suddenly they were evil and you should be afraid to go camping. Before that it was the loveable country folk of Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, The Darlings & Gomer Pyle on Andy Griffith, Snuffy Smith, The Real McCoys, etc…yeah, there were stereotypes, but there was always more a sense of laughing with them in a good natured way. An appreciation for their perspectives on life came across in some small way, at least to me. How could somebody hate Ellie May? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2016, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/78 "2016-11-20T02:44:59Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I see you are eager to make four years of Trump into eight. I hope you’ll enjoy it more then I do! 🙂 One of the great advantages of this forum being an “echo chamber” is that we’re unlikely to offend too many people too stupid to figure out that Trump is a shitty candidate. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2016, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/79 "2016-11-20T04:36:44Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > One of the great advantages of this forum being an “echo chamber” is that we’re unlikely to offend too many people too stupid to figure out that Trump is a shitty candidate. I suggest you go ahead and read Rensin’s “Smug Style in American Liberalism”. This post in the forum hardly matters in the scheme of things but its a million statements like these which is contributing to a cultural schism in this Republic. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2016, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221/80 "2016-11-20T12:22:26Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I suggest you go ahead and read Rensin’s “Smug Style in American Liberalism”. This post in the forum hardly matters in the scheme of things but its a million statements like these which is contributing to a cultural schism in this Republic. Honestly, if you asked me what the largest contributor to this cultural schism was, “liberals being smug/arrogant” would not be my first choice. My first choice would be “half the nation are fucking idiots”. Because without that, you don’t get the smugness. But okay, let’s just say that a big part of why Trump got voted in was that people were sick of liberals being smug and arrogant about how much smarter we are. Okay. How do you fix that? How do you talk to these people as if they’re intelligent, well-informed adults when they clearly aren’t and any attempt to lower the level of discourse enough either completely neutralizes the strength of “having decent policy” or comes off as _impossibly_ patronizing, like “Explain it like I’m 5”? What’s the play here? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-apparently-rural-america-modern-hunter-gatherers-think-city-folk-look-down-on-them/772221.md?page=5)