# Pro/Regressives and hive-cities



## MembersSchoolPizza (May 23, 2019)

A number of cows we keep tabs on are vocally, angrily pro-urban, anti-rural. 

Some of them will cite things like environmental reasons for this, but I'm not interested in that. And we know a huge chunk of it is that it favors their politics better to concentrate humanity. I'm also not interested in that, because those are too obvious. 

What gets me is that a number of them - MovieBob, for example, or BootlegGirl, just to name two I can think of off the top of my head seem to feel that this sort of existence - with everyone crammed in ass-to-nose in sardine can cities - is actually the ideal living situation for humanity. 

On the flip side, I would sooner slit my wrists than live in those conditions. I've got friends who do, and I hate visiting them. I'm living in too much of a city right now, as it is - I live in a small rural-ish town on the outskirts of a "city" of around 200,000. It's still too goddamned big and too urban around here. 

Now, look, I'm open minded in general. Cities are going to exist, so it's a good thing some people like living in them. That's fine. But it seems like most of the people who do are of one side of the political spectrum. And it might be one thing if they were all wealthy and could afford to take frequent vacations to "decompress", or whatever, but most of them aren't. Very few cows are. 

So what is it? Is there some correlation between left-leaning politics and a lack of stress from being crammed in like that?


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## The Manglement (May 23, 2019)

I think it's funny especially with people like Moviebob, who despite living in a big city is effectively a hermit. I feel he particularly likes the idea of the city rather than the actualities of the city. It is a place with all minorities and few whites, all enlightened euphoric atheists and few disgusting religious people, and all fart-sniffing liberals and few dangerous conservatives.


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## From The Uncanny Valley (May 23, 2019)

The Manglement said:


> I think it's funny especially with people like Moviebob, who despite living in a big city is effectively a hermit. I feel he particularly likes the idea of the city rather than the actualities of the city. It is a place with all minorities and few whites, all enlightened euphoric atheists and few disgusting religious people, and all fart-sniffing liberals and few dangerous conservatives.



It's also funny because Lynn(MA) has a reputation for being a disgusting shithole.


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## Judge Holden (May 23, 2019)

The Manglement said:


> I think it's funny especially with people like Moviebob, who despite living in a big city is effectively a hermit. I feel he particularly likes the idea of the city rather than the actualities of the city. It is a place with all minorities and few whites, all enlightened euphoric atheists and few disgusting religious people, and all fart-sniffing liberals and few dangerous conservatives.


Hmm...I wonder whether the Mouse-Utopia experiments might have some relevence here given the conclusions drawn


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## The Last Stand (May 23, 2019)

I would say it's a form of gentrification as well. When you live in a city, you're around stores and chains within blocks of each other. Because of the high population, it would be a great revenue stream as well. Get the people that can't afford it out so they can expand, then leave when it's too "mainstream". Another theory is because since the city is always busy, you are excused from interaction as everybody is busy going from one place to another. In a rural area, you would almost know everybody and there's a lot of open space. Both have their pros and cons but it's preference.


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## Foxxo (May 23, 2019)

They want to feel like they're part of something bigger, while still living as anti-social shut-ins because they have no people skills.

I'd say it involves jobs, too, but who am I kidding...


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## Clop (May 23, 2019)

MembersSchoolPizza said:


> So what is it? Is there some correlation between left-leaning politics and a lack of stress from being crammed in like that?





The Manglement said:


> I think it's funny especially with people like Moviebob, who despite living in a big city is effectively a hermit. I feel he particularly likes the idea of the city rather than the actualities of the city. It is a place with all minorities and few whites, all enlightened euphoric atheists and few disgusting religious people, and all fart-sniffing liberals and few dangerous conservatives.


I like to equate this to the herd-immunity of vaccinations; If you live in a rural community everyone likely knows you, what you do, your merits like having a fucking job that benefits everyone. The city is a paradise for a fat slob that wants zero contact with other people and just wants to feed off the success of civilization. It's community-immunity.

It's really comfy living in your own isolated apartment with the store being a stone's throw away, it's slightly more work living in a rural area. Also (I hear) more fulfilling, but why have fulfilling when you can slowly die inside in a grey district of misanthropy and pessimism?


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## UntimelyDhelmise (May 23, 2019)

Give me rural or give me death is what I say. I get everyone has their living preferences but people who think living in a noisy, crammed, grimy, overly expensive and crime-ridden city is the greatest thing in the world are fucking nuts in my eyes.

...And I just realized the connection. You _have _to be nuts to live in such a place.


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## Vorhtbame (May 23, 2019)

MembersSchoolPizza said:


> So what is it? Is there some correlation between left-leaning politics and a lack of stress from being crammed in like that?



The appeal of the city is that everything you want is _right there_.  You don't have to exert yourself, travel, or even move all that much in order to obtain things.  You can get someone to drive you there, you can get someone to bring it to you; and if something breaks or breaks down, it's not your job to fix it, it's the government's.

In the less urban areas, you have to actually get off your ass and go get it or fix it yourself.  I've lived in places where if I wanted pizza that I didn't make, I had to get in the car and drive half an hour each way--for _Pizza Hut_, not even your fancy stuff.  Delivery is not a thing.  Mass transit, what's that?  I've had to pave the road in front of my own house once (and I have enormous respect for road crews now).  Out in the sticks, you _have_ to rely on yourself.

That alone breeds more right-wing attitudes and therefore politics.  If I can take care of myself without your help, then why the _hell _should I give you my tax money so you can do for me what I'm already doing for me--except you won't do it as well or as fast--and forbid me from doing it myself?  That's basically how America happened to begin with.

Ultimately, because we have freedom of movement in this country, you can choose to live wherever suits you.  And if the benefits of living in a certain place outweigh the negatives, that's where you'll make an effort to be.  People who live in the city value whatever it is that makes Sardine Life and daily muggings tolerable; people who live rural value independence and quiet enough to give up city conveniences.

_TL;DR: Cities have more left-wingers because right-wingers get fed up and move away._


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## Tasty Tatty (May 23, 2019)

Because most of these people have this notion that a city is a place that is modern, inclusive, global, yadayada, all the things they want to be. You can't be such while living in a farm in Arkansas because those awful people are retrograde bible thumpers who hate gays, ew.


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## Slappy McGherkin (May 23, 2019)

There is a middle ground. Suburbia. While I'm a fan of rural overall and could never see myself city dwelling, I'm content in a suburb. Easy access to whatever I need, friendly neighbors that I know by name. Solid services of electric, internet, water, trash pickup, sewer. But, no de-luxxx apartment in the sky or concrete jungle. When I first bought this house, it WAS rural. Suburbia caught up and it feels more like a city now. Don't know if I have it in me to move further out again.


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## Eryngium (May 23, 2019)

Spoiler: HighPosting



When I was a kid all i wanted to do was live in a big city and be a big ass killer whale, but as i get older I find myself wanting more and more to just move to some remote area with a little town, set up a farm, met a chick that isn't afraid to get her hands dirty, and living solely off the land and drinking beer every night and watching the sun set.

I know both my dreams- now and as a child are unrealistic but maybe the reason these people can't grow up is because they confine themselves to their childish dreams and are too scared to reach out for bigger things.


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## Exigent Circumcisions (May 23, 2019)

I like living in the city I'm in because it's full of Chinks and Japs and Gooks so I'm not a manlet around here. When I walk down the street I can SEE OVER PEOPLE'S HEADS I AM THE FUCKING ALPHA CHAD WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!


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## Chaos Theorist (May 23, 2019)

I only would want to live in a big city for the libraries


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## Lemmingwise (May 23, 2019)

Eryngium said:


> Spoiler: HighPosting
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Dreams die when they come in contact with reality.

And strange as it may seem, that is a good thing.


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## From The Uncanny Valley (May 23, 2019)

Lemmingwise said:


> Dreams die when they come in contact with reality.
> 
> And strange as it may seem, that is a good thing.



Source: every lolcow's creative effort ever


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## Slappy McGherkin (May 23, 2019)

Eryngium said:


> Spoiler: HighPosting
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What is stopping you from pursuing your "now" dream? Just curious, because there is really nothing wrong with it at all (or maybe a slightly modified version thereof, it is difficult to live solely off the land). I garden extensively; it keeps me from getting angry at the Internets! Was even thinking of getting some chickens. We sit on the porch and watch the sunset nearly every night, sipping a cocktail. Watch all the birds come into the feeder; we've attracted a flock of wild peach-faced love bird parrots that now come in every night for treats. Squawking and chatty, fun to watch. Relaxing. It's exactly where I chose to be and made it that way. You could too, I suspect.


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## Marissa Moira (May 23, 2019)

Suburbia for life. All others shall be trampled under our properly manicured lawns.

Only when every man owns a John Deere(PBUH) can there finally be peace!


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## Dreamland (May 23, 2019)

The older i get, the more the concept of the mega city seems to offend me. The longer i stay in one, the more often ideas creep in my head like "If an earthquake would strike here, the place would be a deathtrap!". Once i'm back home i can enjoy trees, quiet nights, and lots of *space *again.
I can imagine some people will even become anxious from living in a city, but all that progressives can see is sticky greasy streetfood to throw down their holes, sad.


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## Sprig of Parsley (May 23, 2019)

Cities drive you fucking insane.  That's pretty much it.  Cities fuck with your notion of personal space, they fuck with your perception of how society fucking works, they distort how you view other human beings.  In a city you are constantly on guard against everything, you trust almost no one, you deadbolt your apartment door at all times, you never go somewhere you aren't familiar with on your own, you hate the cops because they're useless fucking pissants that are completely incapable of Protecting or Serving, you hate your neighbors because they do exceptional shit that makes the one place that should be a safe haven for you into a torture chamber, you hate your elected officials because they do nothing but soak up taxpayer dollars while the city issues that affect you get ignored in favor of some asshole's pet project.


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## REGENDarySumanai (May 23, 2019)

I prefer the area I am in right now. The right amount of urban and the right amount of rural, while having easy access to five major cities in less than four hours.


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## Marissa Moira (May 23, 2019)

REGENDarySumanai said:


> I prefer the area I am in right now. The right amount of urban and the right amount of rural, while having easy access to five major cities in less than four hours.


Literally the figurative textbook definition of suburbia.


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## Sprig of Parsley (May 23, 2019)

Marissa Moira said:


> *Literally the figurative textbook definition *of suburbia.


The fuck.


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## Hellbound Hellhound (May 23, 2019)

I lived in the middle of a city once, and I pretty much hated it. Though it came with many undeniable conveniences, there was something decidedly depressing about life there. I think for people who are not used to it, living in a city can have a disconcerting effect on you, and for me personally, this feeling became most apparent at night, when I could look out of the window and realize that unlike the suburbs or the countryside, a city never truly sleeps. Perhaps that is normal to the people who are used to it, but to me, it felt eerie and unnatural.

This might just be my catastrophizing mindset, but I can't help but feel that a lot of cities have something of a dystopian quality about them. They're like a window into a nightmarish future where we are all crammed together like sardines into these imposing yet soulless mega-structures, and forced to subsist on Soylent Green. What's even scarier for me is the fact that there are many people who seem to welcome this kind of future.


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## Marco Fucko (May 23, 2019)

I actually like cities because you can walk everywhere and there is a certain privacy and anonymity since people are too busy with their own shit to bother you.



Sprig of Parsley said:


> Cities drive you fucking insane. That's pretty much it. Cities fuck with your notion of personal space, they fuck with your perception of how society fucking works, they distort how you view other human beings. In a city you are constantly on guard against everything, you trust almost no one, you deadbolt your apartment door at all times, you never go somewhere you aren't familiar with on your own, you hate the cops because they're useless fucking pissants that are completely incapable of Protecting or Serving, you hate your neighbors because they do exceptional shit that makes the one place that should be a safe haven for you into a torture chamber, you hate your elected officials because they do nothing but soak up taxpayer dollars while the city issues that affect you get ignored in favor of some asshole's pet project.



tfw born crazy


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## Meat Poultry Veg (May 23, 2019)

Hellbound Hellhound said:


> I can't help but feel that a lot of cities have something of a dystopian quality about them. They're like a window into a nightmarish future where we are all crammed together like sardines into these imposing yet soulless mega-structures, and forced to subsist on Soylent Green. What's even scarier for me is the fact that there are many people who seem to welcome this kind of future.



They're called Asians.


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## Randall Fragg (May 23, 2019)

I love it when people whine about 'muh superior agrarian society' while conveniently ignoring the fact that cities exist because they have economic incentives which bring people to them. 
Blumpkin County is nothing more than a bunch of doped-up inbred angry about 'damn big city liberals' and imagining that any place with over 500 inhabitants is some kind of _Judge Dredd_-esque hellhole because 'I done seen it on the talky bawks'.
Take the Bobpill motherfuckers. Superior Future!


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (May 23, 2019)

Sprig of Parsley said:


> Cities drive you fucking insane.  That's pretty much it.  Cities fuck with your notion of personal space, they fuck with your perception of how society fucking works, they distort how you view other human beings.  In a city you are constantly on guard against everything, you trust almost no one, you deadbolt your apartment door at all times, you never go somewhere you aren't familiar with on your own, you hate the cops because they're useless fucking pissants that are completely incapable of Protecting or Serving, you hate your neighbors because they do exceptional shit that makes the one place that should be a safe haven for you into a torture chamber, you hate your elected officials because they do nothing but soak up taxpayer dollars while the city issues that affect you get ignored in favor of some asshole's pet project.


I live in a city right now (and have for 6 years) and this is so far removed from my experience that I feel like we live on different planets.



Randall Fragg said:


> I love it when people whine about 'muh superior agrarian society' while conveniently ignoring the fact that cities exist because they have economic incentives which bring people to them.
> Blumpkin County is nothing more than a bunch of doped-up inbred angry about 'damn big city liberals' and imagining that any place with over 500 inhabitants is some kind of _Judge Dredd_-esque hellhole because 'I done seen it on the talky bawks'.


Needlessly hostile for joke reasons, but I do feel like there's an irrational level of negative stereotyping about urban life on this site.


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## Xarpho (May 23, 2019)

The Manglement said:


> I think it's funny especially with people like Moviebob, who despite living in a big city is effectively a hermit. I feel he particularly likes the idea of the city rather than the actualities of the city. It is a place with all minorities and few whites, all enlightened euphoric atheists and few disgusting religious people, and all fart-sniffing liberals and few dangerous conservatives.


Big city liberals have a really skewed idea of minorities, pretending to be in their favor as long as they stay out of their neighborhood but still provide good ethnic food. But it goes beyond all that. It's this weird romanticization of mid-century cities (clustered city core) that are particularly annoying, and yet you can find these things all sorts of places with their own blogs like Citylab and Streetsblog. They _hate_ cars with passion and will sperg about highways, trains, buses, cars, suburbs, parking lots, and bicycle safety. (Interestingly but expectedly, they will only look at things in affluent city cores, like discussing removing an aging but major arterial highway near downtown but never mentioning an outdated highway in a poorer part of town being redeveloped). They want nothing with a parking lot in front of it (if there's a parking lot at all). For a look at this sperging, check out this recent article about a new sidewalk in Denver (don't worry, it's an archived link).

Some people are committed batshit insane idealogues, some people are just bored millennials trying to escape from the suburbs (before reality sets in). If I had a bit more dedication to make an OP it would make a great Community Watch thread.


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## Ughubughughughughughghlug (May 23, 2019)

Pol Pot was right. Cities are dens of evil.


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## escapegoat (May 23, 2019)

Didn't Aesop already cover this?


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## pomme (May 23, 2019)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> I live in a city right now (and have for 6 years) and this is so far removed from my experience that I feel like we live on different planets.
> 
> 
> Needlessly hostile for joke reasons, but I do feel like there's an irrational level of negative stereotyping about urban life on this site.


It's because we are all alt-right, cousin-fucking Nazis who have grown accustomed to a rural lifestyle which enables our backwards social ideas. 
(Rural life ftw, cities are built for rats)


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## Ughubughughughughughghlug (May 23, 2019)

Come to think of it, I'll just go ahead and take another opportunity to spout off about my vaguely-related ideas.

People in cities often have a genuine belief that:
1) The South is like Deliverance.
2) Everything rural is like the South (???)
3) Everything rural is like Deliverance.

There's this weird notion that rural people are sketchy, untrustworthy, hateful towards outsiders, dangerous.

In reality, rural America is way more peaceful than urban America, and rural people are way more polite/friendly than urban people. Urbanites sometimes think rural people are somehow dishonest in their friendliness, which seems to mostly be suspicion coming from their own negative attitude. 

You are way more likely to get murder-raped by a retard in a Northern city than you are in the Southern mountains.


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## Webby's Boyfriend (May 23, 2019)

Cities are something that developed before the internet was invented.


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (May 23, 2019)

pomme said:


> It's because we are all alt-right, cousin-fucking Nazis who have grown accustomed to a rural lifestyle which enables our backwards social ideas.
> (Rural life ftw, cities are built for rats)


I never said any of that.



Ughubughughughughughghlug said:


> Come to think of it, I'll just go ahead and take another opportunity to spout off about my vaguely-related ideas.


As someone from the south, let me address some of these points:



> People in cities often have a genuine belief that


Saying "people in cities" is like saying "green-eyed people" or "left-handed people": it's not a very good signifier of being part of X or Y tribe.



> 1) The South is like Deliverance.
> 2) Everything rural is like the South (???)
> 3) Everything rural is like Deliverance.


This may be a stupid thing people think, but I'd just like to point out that there are plenty of major urban and metropolitan areas in the South (Atlanta, the Research Triangle, Miami, New Orleans, Dallas, Richmond, Charlotte, etc.) and the idea that these places "don't count" is absurd.



> There's this weird notion that rural people are sketchy, untrustworthy, hateful towards outsiders, dangerous.


As someone who grew up in the rural South, I am just going to ask you now: have you had any meaningful interaction with the rural South?  Because if you did, you would understand that the belief that rural people are sketchy, untrustworthy, hateful towards outsiders, and dangerous stems from the fact that there's a significant minority of rural people who are sketchy, untrustworthy, hateful towards outsiders, and dangerous.  The McDonalds in my hometown had three murders go down in its parking lot in as many years, two of which were related to inter-family blood feuds (the third was a mugging gone bad).  It was closed down the year before I moved out because meth was being sold through the drive-thru.  Its common knowledge that there are entire regions of the backcountry that you don't drive through if you aren't a member of a certain clan (or race: there's an area where a lot of very angry Eastern Band Cherokee people live that's essentially off-limits to whitey on pain of pain).  My hometown survives entirely off of tourist money and there are _still_ large portions of the native population that would rather all the tourists fuck off and leave them alone.  A neighboring town deliberately drove off all of the tourists as a matter of policy and has had a massive population and infrastructure crash and they consider this a moral victory.  In addition, my county leads the state in teen pregnancy and is dead last in high school grad rates.



> In reality, rural America is way more peaceful than urban America, and rural people are way more polite/friendly than urban people.


I suspect that the former is a matter of statistics (because there are more _people_ in urban America, there's going to be more crime even if everything else is equal), while the latter is very cultural and specific.  Rural Mainers, for example, can be very, _very_ rude with little provocation. 



> Urbanites sometimes think rural people are somehow dishonest in their friendliness, which seems to mostly be suspicion coming from their own negative attitude.


I can't comment on rural people elsewhere, but in the South, a lot of the time the friendliness _is_ dishonest: there's a reason the phrase "bless your heart" is understood by Appalachians to be the socially-acceptable version of "fuck you".



> You are way more likely to get murder-raped by an exceptional individual in a Northern city than you are in the Southern mountains.


Once again, I think this is a statistical thing.

TL;DR: as a rural Southerner, I think you're engaging in condescending romanticism towards rural people in general and the rural South in particular.


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## Ughubughughughughughghlug (May 23, 2019)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> I never said any of that.
> 
> As someone from the south, let me address some of these points:
> 
> Saying "people in cities" is like saying "green-eyed people" or "left-handed people": it's not a very good signifier of being part of X or Y tribe.



That's not a very interesting point.



> This may be a stupid thing people think, but I'd just like to point out that there are plenty of major urban and metropolitan areas in the South (Atlanta, the Research Triangle, Miami, New Orleans, Dallas, Richmond, Charlotte, etc.) and the idea that these places "don't count" is absurd.



Well, yeah, but I'm not sure why you're bringing this up. It's rare that metropolitan areas of the South are ever considered in stereotypes/impressions of the region. South Florida is its own cultural region that other Southerners don't adcknowledge (having passed to the carpetbagger invasion), New Orleans is usually treated as its own entity, and Nashville/sometimes Memphis is sometimes considered. I live closer to Richmond and Charlotte than to Chicago and Detroit, and I still don't give a shit about Richmond and Charlotte.



> As someone who grew up in the rural South, I am just going to ask you now: have you had any meaningful interaction with the rural South?  Because if you did, you would understand that the belief that rural people are sketchy, untrustworthy, hateful towards outsiders, and dangerous stems from the fact that there's a significant minority of rural people who are sketchy, untrustworthy, hateful towards outsiders, and dangerous.  The McDonalds in my hometown had three murders go down in its parking lot in as many years, two of which were related to inter-family blood feuds (the third was a mugging gone bad).  It was closed down the year before I moved out because meth was being sold through the drive-thru.  Its common knowledge that there are entire regions of the backcountry that you don't drive through if you aren't a member of a certain clan (or race: there's an area where a lot of very angry Eastern Band Cherokee people live that's essentially off-limits to whitey on pain of pain).  My hometown survives entirely off of tourist money and there are _still_ large portions of the native population that would rather all the tourists fuck off and leave them alone.  A neighboring town deliberately drove off all of the tourists as a matter of policy and has had a massive population and infrastructure crash and they consider this a moral victory.  In addition, my county leads the state in teen pregnancy and is dead last in high school grad rates.



Motherfucker, I have lived in Appalachia, in a small town, since I was a toddler. The experience you've described is something I've never heard any Yankee mention, but I've heard many say the opposite. It may depend more on what specific region you're in. I assume you're from Cherokee, NC. I'll still gamble on walking a night through that reservation before I ever try that in the South Side of Chicago.



> I suspect that the former is a matter of statistics (because there are more _people_ in urban America, there's going to be more crime even if everything else is equal), while the latter is very cultural and specific.  Rural Mainers, for example, can be very, _very_ rude with little provocation.



Mainers are Yankees, who are more hostile than Southerners by nature. I bet you they're more friendly than Bostonians (as long as we're comparing people within an area).



> I can't comment on rural people elsewhere, but in the South, a lot of the time the friendliness _is_ dishonest: there's a reason the phrase "bless your heart" is understood by Appalachians to be the socially-acceptable version of "fuck you".



And a lot of the time, the friendliness is honest, or the friendliness is neutral and just a courtesy extended to people in general. Let's consider what the alternative is. Midwestern indifference? Northeastern hostility? If the person who's being friendly isn't trying to screw you, I consider that an improvement in behavior over treating them like they're invisible. It bothers me that I can see the sentiment here changing towards a cosmopolitan attitude of not holding doors, not addressing people as sir/ma'am, not greeting strangers on the sidewalk.



> TL;DR: as a rural Southerner, I think you're engaging in condescending romanticism towards rural people in general and the rural South in particular.



As a rural Southerner, I think it's possible that I may have been raised in an uncharacteristically civilized part of the region, but my carpetbagger parents and neighbors never showed any negative opinions of the South other than a patronizing disapproval of its politics (more so the neighbors for that last part). If my view is too romanticized, yours is probably too negative.


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (May 23, 2019)

Ughubughughughughughghlug said:


> That's not a very interesting point.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


1. Swain County, although I don't live there anymore and won't go further than that for fear of someone trying to dig up my kin.  And I'd rather walk through the South Side at night than walk through a trailer park in Big Cove _in broad daylight_.  They murder people with swords and beat up the cops for fun there.  It's a step beyond ordinary gangster violence.  Relying on what a snowbird tourist has to say about your area and weighing that above someone from the area seems kind of biased to me.
2. You seem pretty blind to the cultures of other parts of the country: the Midwest, for example, has a large number of (superficially) polite and nice people there (source: essentially live with my grandparents in Ohio during December); it reminds me a lot of the South, but cold, to be honest.  As for people in the NE, they're brusque and blunt, but if you get to know them they warm up to you.  I think characterizing your culture-group as the Last Bastion of Civilization in a World Gone Mad is very natural, but also not really productive, especially if it leads you to a conclusion like "Maoist Third-Worldists were objectively correct when they wanted to burn all the cities to the ground and make everyone live in huts".
3. I'll yield that I may be biased because I got to see the worst parts of the South, but I will stand firm in my position that the difference between rural, urban, South, North, Midwest, and West is one of kind, not of overall quality.


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## Spunt (May 23, 2019)

I spent most of my life in a fucking massive European city, and have now left for the country. I thought I'd miss it, but it was 25-year-old me that would have missed it, not 35-year-old me who values peace and quiet and a slower pace of life to constant stimulation and everything being on your doorstep. Of course, people tend to move from Left to Right politically around this time (and in general as they get older) so it might be a change of life priorities. I don't have kids, but raising kids in the middle of a city if a nightmare for both kids and parents, with suburbia and the country (at least in Europe) offering better schools, more safety and more room for kids to fuck around and be kids without getting in trouble. Plus you can buy a big enough house for your family in the country, whereas the price for anything in a big European city that isn't a rotting shoebox is beyond the wildest avarice of man for the most part. Renting a tiny box is fine if you're partying, working and studying 24/7, but once you have kids and your body can't take that lifestyle anymore that has a big effect on your priorities. I just wanted to get the fuck out.

The kids thing is huge. Few SJWs have kids, either because SJW ideology or their own out-there sexual preferences (polyamory, transgenderism, lgbbqwtf) don't lead to procreation as much, or because having kids make you more conservative as you start to care about their safety, their job security and their freedom in a way you never really cared about your own. Only the dirt-poor or mega-rich raise their kids in cities. Everyone else leaves.


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## Ughubughughughughughghlug (May 23, 2019)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> 1. Swain County, although I don't live there anymore and won't go further than that for fear of someone trying to dig up my kin.  And I'd rather walk through the South Side at night than walk through a trailer park in Big Cove _in broad daylight_.  They murder people with swords and beat up the cops for fun there.  It's a step beyond ordinary gangster violence.  Relying on what a snowbird tourist has to say about your area and weighing that above someone from the area seems kind of biased to me.
> 2. You seem pretty blind to the cultures of other parts of the country: the Midwest, for example, has a large number of (superficially) polite and nice people there (source: essentially live with my grandparents in Ohio during December); it reminds me a lot of the South, but cold, to be honest.  As for people in the NE, they're brusque and blunt, but if you get to know them they warm up to you.  I think characterizing your culture-group as the Last Bastion of Civilization in a World Gone Mad is very natural, but also not really productive, especially if it leads you to a conclusion like "Maoist Third-Worldists were objectively correct when they wanted to burn all the cities to the ground and make everyone live in huts".
> 3. I'll yield that I may be biased because I got to see the worst parts of the South, but I will stand firm in my position that the difference between rural, urban, South, North, Midwest, and West is one of kind, not of overall quality.



I'll look up Swain County. The snowbirds actually live in the area, have for over a decade. It's a retirement community of Yankee world-savers in among a more generic Appalachian population. They usually look down on the Southerners politically but have good things to say about the area, never making the connection that the area is livable in large part because of the easy government.

I don't consider my group to be particularly great. I like Southern culture for its more independent and earthy attitude. However, the South is, in many ways, like a Third World country, and a lot of that stems from the attitudes of its people. Southerners have a strange attitude where they'll often be hard physical laborers, but lazy in every other regard. They have little desire to improve their towns (like New Englanders do) and little appreciation for intellectual activity. Really, my impression of Southerners is the same as everybody else's stereotype, except minus the murder-rape-banjo stuff (which is pretty much a figment of the cosmopolitan imagination), and I find them preferable to Genericans (people who mimic that sort of suburban, Midwestern-accented-but-not-actually-Midwestern culture from the sitcoms). 

Given the choice of being around Genericans or rednecks, I find that even though I don't really relate to the things that rednecks are interested in, I find rednecks way more personable, way more enjoyable being around. The Generican isn't arrogant or anything, but there's just a blandness to their personality, a reservedness that makes them tiring to be around.

What you said about New Englanders can be said of everybody, except for in the special cases where a culture has beef with another culture and doesn't accept crossing over. The closest thing to that I've seen around here is church snobbery, but I don't think they really care about regional heritage, just the denomination.

My Pol Pot statement was just a joke. Cities have their need. I just think there really is a lot of truth to the idea that cities are breeding grounds for bad morals. Somebody else already mentioned how Aesop said the same thing. It's just the natural consequence of taking a lot of people and putting them into an environment where they have too many options for misbehavior and too few controls on them.

The statement about differences in kind has merit. For the record, I consider _Midwesterners _to be the master race of America. They strike me as mostly being grounded people who have a natural propensity for community-building (unlike the lazy Southerner) but aren't prone to the hateful, moralizing bullshit of New Englanders. I figure it goes from their largely German heritage. Midwesterners are people who leave other people alone and build up their lives. Southerners are prone to lazing about and squabbling, Californians/New Englanders/Jews/NYCers are prone to degenerate modern trends and have a compulsion to impose them on everybody else.


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (May 23, 2019)

Ughubughughughughughghlug said:


> I'll look up Swain County. The snowbirds actually live in the area, have for over a decade. It's a retirement community of Yankee world-savers in among a more generic Appalachian population. They usually look down on the Southerners politically but have good things to say about the area, never making the connection that the area is livable in large part because of the easy government.
> 
> I don't consider my group to be particularly great. I like Southern culture for its more independent and earthy attitude. However, the South is, in many ways, like a Third World country, and a lot of that stems from the attitudes of its people. Southerners have a strange attitude where they'll often be hard physical laborers, but lazy in every other regard. They have little desire to improve their towns (like New Englanders do) and little appreciation for intellectual activity. Really, my impression of Southerners is the same as everybody else's stereotype, except minus the murder-rape-banjo stuff (which is pretty much a figment of the cosmopolitan imagination), and I find them preferable to Genericans (people who mimic that sort of suburban, Midwestern-accented-but-not-actually-Midwestern culture from the sitcoms).
> 
> ...


I think I agree with like 90% of what you're saying and the remaining 10% is the result of differing axioms, so I'll chalk this up as a win.  However, since you're also a Southerner, I am bound by honor and tradition to ask the most important and dangerous question any Southerner can ask another...
What's the best kind of barbeque?


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## ToroidalBoat (May 23, 2019)

It may be a relatively minor issue, but living in any place with light pollution sucks. I think humans were meant to see the night sky full of stars and the Milky Way. Not some brown-tinted haze with only a handful of the brightest stars.

In any case, complete and permanent separation from nature isn't good for the mind.


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## Ughubughughughughughghlug (May 23, 2019)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> I think I agree with like 90% of what you're saying and the remaining 10% is the result of differing axioms, so I'll chalk this up as a win.  However, since you're also a Southerner, I am bound by honor and tradition to ask the most important and dangerous question any Southerner can ask another...
> What's the best kind of barbeque?



I don't like barbeque.

I know, I don't deserve to live here. I like a lot of Southern food, it's just that one thing that I don't care for at all. Don't like pork.


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## KimCoppolaAficionado (May 23, 2019)

ToroidalBoat said:


> It may be a relatively minor issue, but living in any place with light pollution sucks. I think humans were meant to see the night sky full of stars and the Milky Way. Not some brown-tinted haze with only a handful of the brightest stars.



Light pollution is the worst thing about the city to me, hands-down.



Ughubughughughughughghlug said:


> I don't like barbeque.
> 
> I know, I don't deserve to live here. I like a lot of Southern food, it's just that one thing that I don't care for at all. Don't like pork.


Barbecue doesn't just mean pork, you know.  Ever had Beef Brisket?


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## Ughubughughughughughghlug (May 23, 2019)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> Barbecue doesn't just mean pork, you know.  Ever had Beef Brisket?



Nope. Mind you, my mom was from the Rust Belt.

Southern foods I like: biscuits and gravy, cornbread, hush puppies, hash brown casserole, fried chicken, fried fish, sweet tea, soda (most sodas were invented in the South), soup beans, mustard greens (not sure if Southern)...


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## MembersSchoolPizza (May 23, 2019)

I'll address more when I get up tomorrow, it's been a long day, but as an interesting observation, having lived in both the rural south and the rural north...

My experience is that rural southerners are superficially incredibly nice, in a very casual way. I would ask for simple favors of casual acquaintances, or even sometimes strangers, without much thought. People come up and talk to you more here. A week after I moved here I had met all the people who live on my street, had half their life stories, etc. 

Rural northerners tend to be clannish at first. You either need an "in" with them, in the form of family or friends or a good excuse for an icebreaker... Or else it can take a while. However, the northern rural types tend to be far more willing to commit to that niceness to the point that it involves genuine sacrifice on their part, _once they have accepted you_. 

In _either case,_ however, you don't want to make them angry at you, because they do tend to hold grudges. Rural folks are good at grudges. It's a hobby. Everyone has to have at least one good grudge. Even if we have to invent some shit to get a good grudge on.


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## Drunk and Pour (May 23, 2019)

MembersSchoolPizza said:


> A number of cows we keep tabs on are vocally, angrily pro-urban, anti-rural.
> 
> Some of them will cite things like environmental reasons for this, but I'm not interested in that. And we know a huge chunk of it is that it favors their politics better to concentrate humanity. I'm also not interested in that, because those are too obvious.
> 
> ...


I think it's mostly romanticization.  Living in the city seems fun when you don't.  For every small town girl, Mary Tyler Moore, getting a well paying job, throwing their beanie in the air in excitement, there are hundreds of people living in poverty dealing with crime and addiction.  Even MovieBAHB lives in the suburbs outside Boston.  So when they say everybody would be better off in a supercity, they don't realize how many people want OUT of the city.

I ask my dad why we moved from the city (I too still romanticize it) and he said partly because he wanted a front yard.  I found that funny because I was the one who had to mow it.


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## The Littlest Shitlord (May 24, 2019)

I'll repeat what I posted in Luke/Something Ellie's thread: his city-love is just another symptom of his narcissism. He actually called cities "The Bright Shining Places Where Things Happen". His love for cities stems from a narcissistic desire to live in "important" places because he foolishly thinks that _he_ is important, combined with a MovieBob-style hate for the places he grew up because he hates the people there for not recognizing him: as a pretty girl, as a genius, as a Very Important Person, etc.

Why does he think that cities are Very Important Places, though? I think a lot of it has to do with the nationwide media, which are headquartered in big cities and therefore treat events there as being more newsworthy than events elsewhere. Likewise, the entertainment media tends to favor fictional big city settings for a variety of reasons that you can find explored at places like TVTropes. The result is that people with poor critical thinking absorb this message and turn into brainless, shambling, drooling zombies moaning, "Must... live... in city! Must... vote... Democrat!" This also fits nicely with their observed desire for censorship and control of entertainment media, because they project their own susceptibility to media brainwashing onto other people. The Media Brainwashing Hypothesis also fits MovieBob pretty well, as the idiot actually bought into Star Trek as a plausible future and recently had a meltdown about the lack of starships and sentient robots and other shiny Superior Future signifiers.


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## ToroidalBoat (May 24, 2019)

Like others said, mentally ill can favor mentally ill environments -- like the anonymizing mechanistic modern city.



Senior Lexmechanic said:


> Light pollution is the worst thing about the city to me, hands-down.


I like astronomy, so it's one of the worst things to me as well. I haven't seen the Milky Way in who knows how long, and I've never even seen stuff like comets, other galaxies, or globular clusters in real life. At least there's the Moon...



Sprig of Parsley said:


> [neighbors] do exceptional shit that makes the one place that should be a safe haven for you into a torture chamber


This. I live next to a chain smoker who doesn't know what an ashtray is. A previous neighbor had the oh so delightful habit of listening to loud rap music anytime, day or night.


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## PT 522 (May 24, 2019)

They want you in cities so you become reliant on government provisions and therefore reliant on them. If you take a bus or train to work, live in subsidized housing, have a supplemented income, need bike lane laws, drive on paved roads, have a large electrical grid, need food and business regulations, and so on, then the government is feeding you out of the palm of their hand. Not all of these things are necessarily bad, but in a big city you'll find the most concentrated types of mundane bureaucracy on earth.
And, if you're a big government liberal, this is great news because it means you have a huge population to control. It's an extreme amount of power to have--"don't agree with us? Well, guess you're homeless, jobless, and without transportation until you come around."


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## AlexJonesGotMePregnant (May 24, 2019)

To anyone in a rural area: what are stars like? What is quiet like?


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## Syaoran Li (May 24, 2019)

AlexJonesGotMePregnant said:


> To anyone in a rural area: what are stars like? What is quiet like?



As someone who grew up in the middle of nowhere, the stars are nice.

But what I miss most about living in the hollers of the Appalachian woods is the peace and quiet.

That and being able to shoot guns in your own backyard for shits and giggles


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## UntimelyDhelmise (May 24, 2019)

AlexJonesGotMePregnant said:


> To anyone in a rural area: what are stars like? What is quiet like?


In truth, at least where I live, it's not quiet in the dead silence kind of way. But the ambiance is very calming. The sound of wind through trees, chirping birds, croaking frogs, I consider it therapy in all honesty when I need to clear my head.

And I still find myself stopping to look outside at night to stare at the stars, and when it's a clear sky on a full moon it's always a treat. Sometimes it gets so bright during that time you can see everything clearly in a faint blue glow even in the middle of the night.


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## Medicated (May 24, 2019)

Drunk and Pour said:


> I think it's mostly romanticization.  Living in the city seems fun when you don't.  For every small town girl, Mary Tyler Moore, getting a well paying job, throwing their beanie in the air in excitement, there are hundreds of people living in poverty dealing with crime and addiction.  Even MovieBAHB lives in the suburbs outside Boston.  So when they say everybody would be better off in a supercity, they don't realize how many people want OUT of the city.
> 
> I ask my dad why we moved from the city (I too still romanticize it) and he said partly because he wanted a front yard.  I found that funny because I was the one who had to mow it.



I don't think people will get that reference, so for posterity.





Which brings to my question. What attracts people to this?  It seems like it's about "image" or "culture".   Even though people can usually earn the same amount, or more if they worked somewhere rural or in suburbia.  People go, "I'm going to the city! It's filled with culture!"  Like virtually these people have told me this.  Suffice to say they were asshats.


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## Caesare (May 24, 2019)

Randall Fragg said:


> I love it when people whine about 'muh superior agrarian society' while conveniently ignoring the fact that cities exist because they have economic incentives which bring people to them.
> Blumpkin County is nothing more than a bunch of doped-up inbred angry about 'damn big city liberals' and imagining that any place with over 500 inhabitants is some kind of _Judge Dredd_-esque hellhole because 'I done seen it on the talky bawks'.
> Take the Bobpill motherfuckers. Superior Future!



People who say things like that who aren't children (that don't know shit about shit anyway) are being tongue in cheek. They understand the necessity of an urban/rural mixture in a healthy society. 

And btw, methamphetamines began in the urban areas of southeast Asia, spread to the Pacific northwest from there, then started moving to the rest of the country. There is more meth being bought in large cities than in the country but it's more easily available in rural areas because they have the space and privacy required to cook large quantities of methamphetamine. 

It's much more difficult to make meth in a crowded city where you have neighbors close by who will smell the process and sic the police on you. It's not worth it, manufacture of methamphetamine is a serious crime that will send a person to prison for a very long time. 

There's a method of manufacturing it in small amounts that wouldn't attract much attention and would be the more suitable process for making it in the city, however the punishment for making a small amount is no different than for making a large amount. So if someone's gonna take that chance they're not gonna bother making a small amount when the charge is the same.


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## Caesare (May 24, 2019)

Senior Lexmechanic said:


> I'd just like to point out that there are plenty of major urban and metropolitan areas in the South (Atlanta, the Research Triangle, Miami, New Orleans, Dallas, Richmond, Charlotte, etc.) and the idea that these places "don't count" is absurd.



Those places do count. The rural vs urban divide has very little to do with South vs North. It's the same everywhere, not just in this country. All over the world there is the same divide between city dwellers and country dwellers, they even use the same points many have brought up in this thread when comparing the differences and saying why they think one or the other is superior.

On a personal level, I think I'd choose a more rural type area to live when I retire. I've been in the city my entire life and while it has some crucial advantages, it would be nice to buy a piece of land and settle down somewhere quiet, with little to no traffic, and very clean air/water.


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## Xarpho (May 24, 2019)

Medicated said:


> I don't think people will get that reference, so for posterity.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You could argue that there's more parks, shops, restaurants, and cultural events than rural areas or small towns, but those don't mean squat if you're a hermit with no friends not making much more than minimum wage, and if you valued those things but actually had money/friends, you can basically take advantage of maybe 80% of those with day trips from smaller towns.


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## I-chi (May 25, 2019)

AlexJonesGotMePregnant said:


> To anyone in a rural area: what are stars like? What is quiet like?



Sleeping with your window open at the turn of spring or the middle of autumn, when the air crisp and you can hear the rustle of the trees outside. The crickets aren't awake yet, and you'll hear maybe two or three cars spaced out between five or ten minutes apart depending on the kind of road you live along. If the cloud cover has cleared up, perfect darkness will still be tinged slightly by a glow; I don't think the stars ever peek out too much up here, but it's quite becalming.

As for my take,  I've been to major cities on hand count before in my lifetime; the jump in energy is very noticeable and I feel like I'd only want to live there if I had stuff in mind to be doing between sleep. I've lived between three towns practically my whole life, so I'm used to long stretches of ambient peace where the flow of time feels like you're just floating along at your own pace, instead of being swept up in the collective inertia of everybody else surrounding you. I can certainly understand many people who find the stasis of rural life to be stifling to the kind of speed they want their lives to be at, in a 'nothing happens around here, and you miss the shit that does if you blink' kind of way.

Out in the city, shit's ALWAYS moving, people are ALWAYS awake, and life might feel stretched out in a way that streamlines the manner in which you choose to spend it.

tl;dr I like the occasional visit to the city; and the extent of my faggy romanticism is wanting to sit on top of a really tall skyscraper or building and watch the sunrise sometime in my life. Maybe go for those extra points and listen to some vaporwave while I do it.


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## Bum Driller (May 28, 2019)

I love cities. The bigger they are, the better. Sadly my country is mostly rural landscape, with few cities and far between.


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## heyitsmike (Jun 26, 2019)

AlexJonesGotMePregnant said:


> To anyone in a rural area: what are stars like?


I've been out to sea in the middle of the nowhere. Like so far from civilization that with the radar ranged all the way out you don't even see another ship for two days.

It's really something to see all the stars. It's much more impressive in real life than in photos. While photos are obviously accurate about the quantity of stars, they are all blown up. In reality, the smallest, faintest, furthest stars, the ones you can't see from the city or even the country, are at the very limit of your eye's ability to perceive them.

I tried to take some of my own but my camera was woefully inadequate for the job. The stars are so tiny that the photos just looked completely black. With the ISO turned all the way up, I still couldn't get them because then there was so much noise. I can't even imagine how long of an exposure I would have needed. But even then the ship was moving so that wouldn't have worked either. Oh well.


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