# What (if anything) is good about rural America?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-anything-is-good-about-rural-america/922450>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 7, 2020, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-anything-is-good-about-rural-america/922450 "2020-10-07T21:56:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 30

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**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2020, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-anything-is-good-about-rural-america/922450/30 "2020-10-08T15:20:05Z")

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> [@Gyrate](#):
>
> But then I’m a straight white man (and assumed Christian), and in practice I’ve found that the same folks can be perfectly polite to individuals to their faces but horribly bigoted about groups that they don’t belong to, in large part due to only experiencing those groups via the filter of selected media (and particularly FoxNews). And if you live there but don’t go to their church (or - worse - _any_ church), you’re going to struggle to fit in.

We live in a relatively small town.

This.

When we have visitors from diverse metropolitan areas, one observation seems to break into two camps:

1. They love the homogeneity – the very narrow demographic. They’re tired of “Pressing ‘1’ for English”

2. They’re a bit disquieted by the stark lack of diversity. One termed it a “white utopia.”

And it isn’t always benign. The lack of diversity has a very insidious side that comes off as judgment, bigotry, fear, and intolerance.

Or worse.

There are websites and videos produced by some of the few minority members of our population that detail _their_ experience of living here _as_ a minority.

The majority swears it’s a “live and let live” town. I’m sure some of them truly believe that. But I think they’re mistaken.

Easy access to open spaces is nice. Rarely being stuck in traffic (you can definitely get stuck because of the train). Every day logistics of movement are simpler than in a major metro area.

When you live in the City, I think it’s much less attractive to “go for a drive.” We can still do that.

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