The Urban-Rural Divide: Deep Roots In American History

Anyone observing America’s ongoing culture wars, especially as they surface in the current presidential election cycle, is forcefully reminded that we are not a country divided by red and blue states; it’s an urban-rural divide that represents the political and cultural fault lines in the nation. The difference is no longer where people live, it’s about how people live: in widely-dispersed, open rural areas with plenty of privacy or in high population density, diverse urban areas where tolerance becomes almost mandatory among its residents. But how far back does the urban-rural divide go? Before the Civil War, our political and cultural differences fell mostly along state and regional borders. Worldviews and politics followed a mostly north-south direction. But even in the early 19th century, one can spot the primitive origins of the town-country, urban-rural divide that has become so pervasive in modern America.