More and more, it seems the culture of some states from others is so different

[cali]

they may as well be separate nations.

What, aside from language does Utah have in common with MA? What does VT have in common with Oklahoma? The gulf between cultures, is ever broadening. Political differences are rooted in cultural differences. Rural life in MA or Vermont is entirely different from rural life in OK or Utah, so it goes beyond the urban/rural divide.

About 20 years ago, I read a book called Culture Wars:The Struggle To Control The Family, Art, Education, Law, And Politics In America. Here's a snippet from an Amazon review that I think sums up the author's premise:

Hunter defines a cultural conflict as "political and social hostility rooted in different systems of moral understanding" (42). According to Hunter, the culture war in America revolves around different worldviews, "our most fundamental and cherished assumptions about how to order or lives - our own lives and our lives together in this society" (42). The contemporary culture war is "a struggle over national identity - over the meaning of America, who we have been in the past, who we are now, and perhaps most important, who we, as a nation, will aspire to become in the new millennium" (50).

http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Wars-Struggle-Education-Politics/dp/0465015344

I think the culture wars have increased in intensity since the book was published 22 years ago, partly because we are further removed from a time when we did have more in common.

[RKP5637]

1. Definitely true IMO, especially your last sentence! And, IMO, why the

one size fits all introduces so many conflicts. People are migrating to parts of the country that fit their cultural desires. In my travels/working in various parts of the US it is far different today than in years past when most people seemed to have more in common.

I think in urban areas there is probably more commonality today ...

[grilled onions]

2. A Huge Line Between The North and The South

Many are still "discussing" the "merits" of the civil war in one part of the country. Some states have localized holidays it seems. Patriots Day, General Lee Day,Pulaski Day..it's all a matter where you live. Some parts of the country deem the first day of dear season a day to skip work or school. Rattlesnakes may be important to Texans but not many would dash out the door for a snake hunt in many other states.
You have a huge culture difference in areas where people never leave far from their ancestors and know everyone in town then those who live in an area where no one knows anyone else. People who live around strangers seem more likely to be willing for change and new ideas. The others feel if it was "good enough for grandpa" it's good enough for me. That includes many ideas that seem racist in some parts of the country or where what religion you are is far more important than just being a decent citizen and helping others in need.
One would think that this great melting pot is a done deal however far too many don't want much to do with others or their ideas. It's much like it was during the huge wave of immigration where each group that came here stayed in their own block--their own neighborhood and kids got into fights when one strayed from their own neighborhood,daring to cross city lines to go to school or to a job.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. I think we would need

More than two countries. And I'm moving to New Cascadia if it ever happens . . . if they'll have me!

New Cascadia was a concept by Chuck Thompson in his latest book - but even putting the title on here gives people the need for the vapors because they judge an entire book by it's title.

His book is an update to The Culture Wars. Chuck Thompson - look him up.


And I think you've inspired me to go back and read again The Culture Wars. I have it on my bookshelf right next to Backlash.

[get the red out]

4. Or even within states

I grew up in a culture I could not fit into, I had a nasty habit of thinking too much and being interested in the "wrong" things. That culture was as happy to have me gone as I was to leave. I only moved two hours away and the difference was (and is more than ever now) astounding.

[Agschmid]

6. Within states is very true...

In PA Philly is very different than what is in the middle of the state...

And even out west in California San Diego is much more reliant on the MIC than San Francisco and it shows in the politics!

I think a lot of it has to do with major metros and the diversity of the people in said metros.

[get the red out]

13. Major Metros and diversity

I agree with that. Kentucky (where I live) is a much smaller state but Louisville and Lexington are very different from the rest of the state. I think a lot has to do with the fact that the states two largest universities are in those cities, as well as the fact that those are the two largest cities and naturally have more diversity since there is more to attract various people to them. And those two cities are tiny by comparison to actual large cities in this country. But I grew up in a town of 5,300 people in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, so size and diversity are definitely relative and any size and especially diversity are certainly more helpful than none. And there was basically zero diversity in my hometown, I didn't meet an African American person until I was in 10th grade on a school trip.

[tabbycat31]

60. Very true

Look at New York--- Buffalo and Brooklyn are worlds apart, and they're both cities.

[Agschmid]

64. I've lived in Rochester and its worlds away from

Brooklyn and NYC! Though both have great breweries!

[RKP5637]

8. Yeah, that's what I tell people where I live wanting a more

progressive environment. ... that maybe this is what the people want, they keep voting in the most RW people they can find. The people know what they are getting and they vote them in, it is not a mistake by the voters. Maybe we just don't fit and 'we' need to get out. To me at least, the US is becoming more and more regionalized for some things. I am amazed by it ... but it sure seems that way for some things.

[rurallib]

15. Iowa has two splits - one is rural vs. urban

and the other is east | west. Since the west is much more rural than the east, it is like another urban/ rural split.
Religion seems to be one of the big split causers.

[hedgehog]

51. I think the urban rural split is the key element, and that the

split between Red States/Blue States reflects whether the urban or rural population is dominant in a given state.

[rurallib]

54. I agree - Iowa is right @ 50/50

and of course no area is fully one or the other.
I live in a very blue rural dot in a red county

[ljm2002]

5. I think the cultural differences have always been there...

...but they have been magnified by design, e.g. by things like the strident right wing radio programs.

It used to be, that Americans had their differences but were still united by a common vision. We were the "good guys" after WWII, including the Marshall Plan to let the war-torn countries of Europe rebuild -- even our enemies. And Japan. And we held the Nuremberg trials, laying down a groundwork of moral principles. This was how it was presented, anyway. So that helped us all to feel a shared identity.

Then there was the Cold War, which gave us a common enemy. You did not want to be labeled a "Communist" after WWII, it was a one-way ticket to irrelevance, unemployment or worse. But on the other hand, we all had the Russians to face off against. So we still had our divisions, but when the time came to show what we were made of and put a man on the moon, we were up to it.

Then the Soviet Union fell, and the peace dividend never came. The MIC didn't know what to do with themselves until they were able to identify "Terror" in the form of Al Qaeda as the new existential threat. Now don't get me wrong, Al Qaeda does of course exist and they do make strikes against us. But whether it's an existential threat on the order of Nazi Germany and the Axis, or the old USSR with their nuclear arsenal, is somewhat less clear.

In any case, the threat now is more amorphous, so our collective response is less defined. In the meantime the 1% and the bought and paid for politicians find it to their advantage to emphasize the cultural differences within the population at large, so they beat the drums for this that or the other wedge issue and keep the $$$ siphoning upwards.

At least that's how I see it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. I agree.

History shows us there always has to be an external menace to focus people's energy.
It is not, I think, any co-incidence that as the howls of outrage towards the 1% grew, a countering meme was created and spread:
the "takers", the "lazy undeserving poor", who are eating up all of those "entitlements".
This meme is getting louder, I do believe, because the "terra,terra, terra" fears whipped up by Bush are becoming less believable.
Ironically, less believable from both sides of the party politic.

[JNelson6563]

58. Well said!

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. I find it sad and frustrating to see the culture wars fought daily on the pages of DU.

We are supposed to represent the values of democratic beliefs, where differences are supposed to be respected and supported.

I agree that culture wars have become more acerbic over the last decade, but must point out that many many people are not involved in intolerance. Sadly, the loudmouth minority are often mistaken for the majority.

[Fumesucker]

11. How could it be otherwise on a political forum?

DU is a very diverse group and we have no lack of subtle and not so subtle disruptors, the numbers 80 and 20 come to mind for instance.

There are protected groups which are free from critical voices but for the most part they're not all that popular, a lot of the posters in GD are people who enjoy disagreeing, sometimes vehemently and sometimes go over the top a bit.

But check out the thread where the DUer was about to have their electricity cut off, it was a very different affair altogether than many GD threads.

[magical thyme]

35. "the numbers 80 and 20 come to mind"

Gee, I can't imagine who or what you're referring to....

[CBGLuthier]

9. Because states are like Star Trek Races. Monolithic and homogenous

Everyone within the borders of a state thinking and acting exactly alike.

This is just an extension of the state bashing DU must engage in from time to time. Either accept we are all americans or break the fucking country up.

[cali]

17. No, of course not and I'm not bashing other states, dear

I'm pointing out a rift that exists. Look, states like Vermont and Oklahoma just do not have a lot in common as whole. That doesn't mean there aren't people in each state that don't share common ground, but states DO have a culture- whether YO choose to ignore that fact or not.

[Buzz Clik]

10. It's easy to find differences when you're looking for them. How do you act on them?

That's what is telling.

[Baitball Blogger]

12. I so agree with that.

Florida is way out of step with what one would expect from an American society. The only honest town is the Conch Republic.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

38. I disagree.

A lot of good and bad in Florida, mixed up all over.

[Baitball Blogger]

45. We shall see when I get around to posting my story.

[1-Old-Man]

14. I could not possibly disagree with you more

For years now I've been noticing how much we have lost the regional differences in this country that existed as recently as the 1960s. More than any other causes it was, in my opinion, a combination of the growth of the interstate road system mixed with the omnipresence of Television that made us more homogeneous. Today we are more like toothpaste in its tube, the same from one end to the other.

[ChazII]

52. I agree with you.

Arizona has changed quite a bit since my girlhood days of the 60's and teenage years in the 70's. Many folks moved here from the midwest and back east and brought their 'culture' with them. There is a difference between Tucson (Pima county) and Phoenix (Maricopa).

[tridim]

16. Maybe we're just now noticing the cultural differences because of the Internet?

World cultures are starting to normalize because of it.

One big obstacle remains.. Religion. That's why Utah seems so different from MA.

[RKP5637]

19. Yep! I think the internet is a big factor! n/t

[hfojvt]

30. having lived in Utah

I have to say, I did not really notice any difference in religion. Maybe because I was near an Air Force base, but I met plenty of non-mormons and jack-mormons (as the ex-mormons are called). When you go into a store you cannot tell if the other shoppers or clerks are mormons or not. It's not like they wear burkas or Amish clothing or something. The only difference I noticed was there were a lot more hispanics than I was used to. I went to the same BTO-Van Halen concert in Salt Lake City that I could have gone to in Kansas City or the Twin Cities. They even, much to my disgust, allowed people to smoke at that concert. They do, I guess, have state liquor stores, but that did not make a difference to me since I don't drink alcohol.

[4_TN_TITANS]

18. "States Rights" are getting out of hand...

Especially when you can be married and stoned in one state, but neither in the next. The disparities are getting too great.

[RKP5637]

21. It's ridiculous! Poof, you're married; poof, you're not; poof, stoned OK; poof, stoned = jail! n/t

[Stuckinthebush]

20. Well, this is Alabama.

Y'all are all like us aren't you?

[RKP5637]

22. I guess they wouldn't like my upside down cross there.

[Stuckinthebush]

43. HA!

Funny!

We'd just ask you to kindly leave, sir. Of course our back door opens up to the panhandle of Florida, the front door to Tennessee,and the side doors to Mississippi and Georgia. Not many places to go!

Oh! We do have an island or two of progressivism - Birmingham and Huntsville. You can bring your cross to my house and we'll have a beer on the front porch.

[RKP5637]

61. LOL! That's me walking up now with the pitchforks and torches following me! LOL

[bamacrat]

63. I see that sign every time I am on my way to my parents house.

Arkansas is way worse when it comes to the Jesus billboards.

[Stuckinthebush]

67. Right outside of Clanton

On I 65

Funny thing is that the guy who owns the land was a big Lucy Baxley supporter. He had her signs up on that water wheel if I remember correctly.

[Sunlei]

23. Not just by states, it's the county and local govs that have the huge differences.

Our society is very segregated at the most local of levels.

[hfojvt]

24. why isn't diversity a good thing?

I always think it is really stupid when every little group of 300,000 people wants to be their own "nation". Like East Timor. Or even wants to keep their own language that nobody else speaks or understands.

In what ways though, do you think Utah and Oklahoma are so different from Vermont and Massachusetts?

For myself, I lived in Utah in 1985-1986. It did not seem radically different from South Dakota where I grew up or Minnesota where I went to college. But I cannot remember anything about Vermont which I probably visited briefly in the 1970s. I barely remember anything about Maine, except thunder hole and lobster traps.

And I have never been to Massachusetts.

But here are the things I would say we have in common

1. language, which you already discounted

2. residency - there are people from other states living in Utah, like I did, and people from Utah living in other states.

3. family - my mom's little brother has lived for about 40 years in Oklahoma. He was born in New York. His brothers lived in New York. His sisters lived in DC, South Carolina and South Dakota. I have first cousins in New York, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Washington, Missouri, and North Carolina, and even a first cousin once removed in Alaska of all places. I have siblings living in Minnesota, Nebraska, Missouri and myself in Kansas and our parents in Wisconsin.

4. friends - I have high school classmates living in probably twenty states - Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Nebraska, Minnesota, Colorado, Georgia, Montana, Virginia, Kansas (and not just me), Wisconsin (ironically I was in tiny little Richland Center, population 5,000 and discovered that a classmate from the class of 1981 was getting married there - small world), California, Missouri, Texas, North Carolina, Washington, Louisiana, Nevada, Iowa, Oregon, Washington DC, Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Ohio.

Those are all addresses that I pulled from the 20 year reunion book. Granted, that is not a large portion of the population of any of those states and we classmates from Huron High are not even all that close necessarily. But there is a certain amount of connection just from one small high school of 250 graduates in one year. Not to mention other people I would know from the classes of 1978-1982 or their siblings.

5. businesses - many retail chains are nationwide or regionwide. (Although I was surprised as I was driving east that I got to the middle of Ohio and suddenly there were no more Phillips 66 gas stations.) Do they not have McDonalds, Wal-mart and Home Depot in Vermont? Are there no Sonics, Subways, or Walden books?

6. television shows - people all across the nation watched, and knew about Walter Cronkite and Johnny Carson, and we still across the nation watch things like Oprah, the Today Show, Saturday Night Live, and so on.

7. History and literature - I may have never been to Massachusetts, but I certainly heard about it in school with the Boston Tea Party, the battle of Bunker Hill, the Lexington alarm, etc. All across the nation we probably still learn about Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain in American literature.

Some people it seems are just trying to divide us into warring tribes, and want to talk about how different we are, when we have lots of things in common too. You can point to Vermont and Oklahoma, but there are only about three degrees of separation there. Oklahoma has a lot of things in common with Missouri and Arkansas. Vermont has a lot of things in common with New York. New York has lots of things in common with Pennsylvania and Missouri has lots of things in common with Illinois. So where is the split? You cannot tear away Oklahoma without taking a piece of Missouri.

And I forgot to mention politics.

8. political parties are nationwide. There were 92,698 Romney voters in Vermont (31% of all voters) and 251,813 Obama voters in Utah (25% of all voters). It's hard to find a Democrat who did well in Utah, without going all the way back to LBJ who got 55% of the vote, but Bush in 2000 got 41% of the vote in Vermont. So almost half of all Vermont voters voted the same way as Utah did as recently as 2000 (and he still got 39% in 2004 running against a northeasterner).

And heck, unfortunately (in my view), in many ways the political parties are not even that divided. There was only 15% difference between the Obama tax cuts and the Bush tax cuts, for example.

[The2ndWheel]

33. Why wouldn't that be diverse?

"I always think it is really stupid when every little group of 300,000 people wants to be their own "nation". Like East Timor. Or even wants to keep their own language that nobody else speaks or understands."

What's not diverse about a situation like that?

[hfojvt]

36. because there is diversity and there is division

say, my high school for example. It is diversity when my high school class includes Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, etc. The school has a diverse population.

It is separatism if each of those religions starts its own homogeneous school. Now the Catholic school is all Catholic and the Lutheran school is all Lutheran. There's less diversity and more division.

It's diversity when you mix, not when you break off into a homogeneous and separate group divided from the rest.

The state of Oklahoma UNITED with the state of Vermont is diverse. A nation of Oklahoma and a nation of Vermont is first of all two jokes to call such tiny little groups "nations" and second is not as diverse as the union was.

[The2ndWheel]

42. I'm seeing both situations as examples of diversity

1 group with 100 people in it.

10 groups with 10 people in each.

What's more diverse? I would say neither, as they're both homogeneous and diverse at the same time. Just depends on how you look at it.

[hfojvt]

44. unless those ten groups are somehow united

the group of 100 is always more diverse if both groups include the same 100 people.

Some things are simply true and do not depend on how you look at it.

For example, again, my school was divided a couple of ways - by class. We had seniors, juniors and sophomores, and also each class was divided up into homerooms, split about equally based on the alphabet. The homerooms would not be as diverse as some of the classes. Chemistry and physics classes included both juniors and seniors. Whereas juniors and seniors would be divided into separate home rooms. A home room probably would include the same percentage of male and female as the larger school, but some home rooms might include a left handed person and some would not. In that way a home room would be less diverse than the whole school. Most home rooms did not include a native American, but the school included a few of them. The school has more diversity than the home rooms.

But the home rooms were united by being part of the same school. If they were separate then they clearly would not have as much diversity that way as they would united.

[The2ndWheel]

46. A different kind of diverse, not really more diverse

1 group of 100 might have 1 way of doing things because there is 1 group. The same people making up 10 groups with 10 people in each might have 10 different ways of doing things because there are 10 groups. The list of possible differences and similarities between and among those groups and people is obviously endless.

To me, the line between homogeneity and diversity is quite blurred. Where does one start and the other end? Someone looking at given situation could see a lot of diversity, while someone else looking at the same situation could see something very homogeneous. A third person could see a mixture of the two.

[hfojvt]

62. but you are thus "uniting" the ten groups

as I said "unless they are somehow united". With 50 states in the United States we CAN, at least theoretically have 50 ways of doing things. If you divide the 50 states into 50 nations, the "group" does not become more diverse because now there is no "group". You cannot say the "100" are more diverse as 10 separate groups because your uniting of the 100 is arbitrary. The point of the separate groups is that they are separate.

Consider the schools, again. Our school contained a diverse group of religions, but united in one school. If, instead, each religion has their own school, the "group" is not thereby more diverse, it is, instead, less cohesive. Now the Catholic kids do not have any protestant friends. Now the Lutheran kids don't have any Methodist friends. The collection then becomes less tolerant of diversity, because they are never exposed to diversity. And that is especially true if the smaller groups are divided by language. Imagine 50 different states with 50 different languages. The "nation" would not be more diverse because it would be very hard, if not impossible, to keep it together as a nation.

[One_Life_To_Give]

26. Romantasizing the past?

Selective memory perhaps. Don't know that 1960's Boston and Birmingham could be described as "similar" in any cultural context. Even 20 yrs ago our TV viewing habits were shaped by region/ethnicity. School curriculum used to be under local control, localities were far less integrated, leading to mono-cultural experiences.

In our memories it's all "White Picket Fences" but don't look to closely.

[hfojvt]

41. selective what?

You've got to be pretty darned old to remember the 60s. Even a geezer like me cannot remember the 60s, and besides that how would a person be aware of how diverse places were? Unless the person from Boston spent some time in Birmingham or vice versa, or read a book or a study about it or a magazine article.

[One_Life_To_Give]

59. Segregation

1960's Birmingham was Central to the Civil Rights movement. Gov. Wallace vs Pres Kennedy over Integration, kkk church bombing.
While Boston was every bit as racist they perhaps hid it better. The Irish and Italian descendents tended to keep isolated within their own communities, schools etc.

[aristocles]

27. The Soviets tried to create a monolithic culture

And see what happened with their experiment.

Q.E.D.

[Grins]

28. Religion

Given Utah and Massachusetts, and Vermont and Oklahoma, I'd say Religion first.

Another might be Massachusetts and Kansas. The Jayhawks of the 1850's were New Englanders.

[Marr]

29. I'm not sure that region is necessarily the big divide anymore.

With our level of media access, from internet to television and radio, it seems to me like our biggest divisions are demographic, not geographic.

The "type" that defines the political scene in Georgia can be found all over California, too. They would align on just about every issue, I expect. I've met plenty of them. Things like hate radio or certain websites reinforce their shared identity and allow them to make contact with one another. A Georgia conservative will likely feel a stronger bond with another Limbaugh fan (wherever they happen to live) than to their own neighbor. And that neighbor could very well have more in common with me, a California liberal.

[Nye Bevan]

31. I'm guessing that those who see huge cultural differences between the states have not been abroad

very much.

Visit a couple of European and Asian countries as well as Utah and Vermont, and then start thinking about cultural differences and similarities.

[aristocles]

34. You're absolutely correct

If you haven't been to any of the countries of the Pacific Rim, or Europe, or the Middle East, you can't appreciate how homogenous American culture is.

[smirkymonkey]

66. Actually, I have travelled through Europe extensively and even lived

there in college as a student and I actually felt more comfortable in many places in Europe than I have in some US states.

Then again, I feel more of an affinity toward European culture than I do toward American culture, so it's probably just me. However, in many US states I have definitely felt like an outsider in my own country and I never felt that way in Europe.

[mwooldri]

32. I think this is true for most countries.

Certainly in most European countries there are cultural differences within each country. The UK is technically four nations. Germany has its own divisions - the East Germany culture still exists, it's different in Bavaria, and so on. Even Switzerland - French speaking Swiss, Germany speaking, Italian speaking... and there's Lichtenstein - a micro-nation that ought to be IMO part of Switzerland but isn't.

Here in the USA there are definitely the differences in states and within states... Virginia near DC is different to Virginia in the Norfolk area, and definitely very different in the mountain regions - with people in the mountains having more things in common with NC mountain folk than those living near DC.

[HereSince1628]

37. Setting aside the "Fry-sauce" vs "Gravy" thing it seems both UT and VT

love french fries, mountains, and a number of winter sports.

Just saying.

I suspect there are a lot of folks in both places equally appalled by HOARDERS and 16 and Preggars

Neither state has a decent professional baseball team, so you guys are apparently both rebellious rejectors of the mainstream of American life.

I'd bet that people in BOTH states eat JELLO, and do it with a spoon!

[galileoreloaded]

39. its just natural tribalism

and increasing the amount of connectedness is exposing the dark side of multiculturalism and a lack of boundaries and borders (all types)

[dawg]

40. The differences are sensationalized and overblown.

I know these numbers aren't exact, but Pennsylvania is 55% blue and Georgia is 45% blue and people act like they are two different worlds. They aren't.

[geek tragedy]

49. Yeah, all anyone has to do is drive down the middle of Pennsylvania

to disabuse themselves that the state is painted blue corner to corner.

[Egalitarian Thug]

50. They are, it's just that the differences are far deeper than which

political party the citizens identify with.

The differences between the two parties have shrunken to the point that they are insignificant to our lives. The republicans want to cut taxes more and demand more from those on the bottom, the Democrats promote the same thing, but with the bottom suffering just a little less and some lip service for the fuzzy things the party used to actually stand for.

To deny that the people in various states have changed in their attitudes is to deny reality. I grew up with and around conservative republicans in the flat parts of the country, and I see that those attitudes are now well-represented in the Democratic Party.

[dawg]

53. I live in a rural area of a Southern state.

The people here do not fit the caricatures drawn for them by people outside the region. Just like anywhere in the U.S., there is a wide variety of personalities and attitudes.

But I am far from being just a blue dot in a sea of red. There are all sorts of people down here (and out here). There isn't really a single common thread running through all of the people in my area. We're all individuals, just like up North or in the big city.

(And by "big city" I mean Athens! )

[datasuspect]

47. wal mart

binds us as an Uhhhhnmerican family

[geek tragedy]

48. There are more disparities within states than there are between states.

Rural New York state has more in common with West Virginia than it does with New York City.

Austin has more in common with Madison Wisconsin than it does with rural Texas. etc etc etc

[kentauros]

55. And Houston may end up being a model for the rest of the country to follow,

at least according to a Rice University study on our diversity here:

Houston Once More Shows America Exactly Where the Country Will Be in 20 Years
By Casey Michel Tue., Apr. 23 2013 at 1:00 PM

Stephen Klineberg is animated. He's twirling his arms, and he's shuffling his feet, and his voice is jumping and falling and tripping over itself in anticipation of what he'll next say. He's as excited as a Rice University sociology professor could rightly be, sharing his latest findings of the most comprehensive urban research study in the nation.

"Houston is the embodiment of the American perspective," Klineberg tells a group of reporters Tuesday morning, detailing the results of the 32nd Annual Kinder Institute Houston Area Survey. "It's a much more typical US city than San Francisco or New York. ... This is where America will be in about twenty years -- and there's a growing comfort with it."

By now, most will have heard of the Kinder Institute's annual publication. Begun in 1982, two months before the oil bust collapsed the local economy, the city-wide survey assesses the demographic, political, and economic realities of the fourth-largest city in America. While nothing in this year's release quite matched the 2012 finding staking Houston as the most diverse city in the nation, there were a handful of trends and numbers that were even more illustrative of Houston's current state.

Before anything, it should be noted just how much we love it here. According to the survey, which polled 1,304 respondents by cell phone from Feb. 7 through March 6, 90 percent of those in Houston believe life here is preferable to other US metropolitan areas, up from 78 percent in 2005. We love it here. And we have every reason to.
(more at link)

[geek tragedy]

56. I dunno if there will ever be a typical American city. nt

[Jennicut]

57. The United States is a huge county, so of course

there are big differences. I live in Connecticut. Most of the other states just seem way too big to me. I mean, how can it NOT take you only an hour and a half to get from one end of the state to the other? Seriously, we have differences because we are different. I see less differences within CT because we are a dinky little state but between the cities and suburbs, there sure are. Near NYC and the rest of the state there is. It that good or bad?

[Uzair]

65. Stop pretending it's not rural versus urban

The rural areas in MA and Vermont all overwhelmingly vote Republican same as the ones in OK or Utah.

Of course it's rural versus urban. It always is, all over the world. Always has been, always will be. The problem with America is that the minority - the rural folk - have all the political power, while in other countries with parliamentary democracies like the UK and Canada the urban population has the power.

Why do Utah and Idaho and North Dakota and South Dakota get two Senators each? That's the root of the problem. Can't pass gun laws, can't get universal health care, can't stop wars, all because the ignorant minority has everyone else by the short and curlies.

[LWolf]

68. This rural dweller

does not appreciate being classified as "the ignorant minority."