A 2012 Prelude to the Divide Between Rural and Urban America
I wrote the below article for this blog in June 2012, four years ago in the last presidential election cycle.
Back then the Maryland Governor was Martin O'Malley who would run briefly for President in this year's Primaries. In 2014 O'Malley's Lieutenant Governor, an insider, was anointed to become his successor but lost the bid in an upset by a Republican outsider. A stunning result in a blue state like Maryland.
In 2015 Baltimore experienced a widespread disturbance that rattled the city. The Governor called it a riot and sent the National Guard. The Black Lives Matter movement called it an uprising. The Governor rode into town a few times since decrying the conditions in this city and promising decisive action. But he cancelled the city's largest project in decades, a $3 billion rail project slated to connect the rich and the poor parts of the city.
The recognition that anger was also bottled up inside the big city did nothing to reduce the anger in the rural parts of the state. It only increased the contempt for the city.
The identification with "rural America" begins right outside the core city, in the outer suburbs where population still grows in spite of all the talk about the "renaissance of cities". The red campaign signs continue deep into the western panhandle where small towns still lose population and jobs are scarce.
The 2012 article about the rural/urban divide is still on point. (See also this interview in CityLab). I repeat it here unchanged with an added post-script:
The Growing Divide Between Rural and Urban America (June 2012)
There appears to be an ever growing divide between rural America and urban America. Rural America is populist and deep red, urban America is elitist and blue. Rural America is about property rights and urban America about socialism. Or so we are told. This troubling image of the country permeates deep into state and local politics.
In Maryland, a state invested in "smart growth" for quite some time (Former Maryland Governor Glendening claims to have coined the term), some rural legislators recently declared even a war. Rather, they diagnosed that "war" had been declared on them, the "war on rural America".
They see urban elitist liberals conspire with new regulations and urban mentality against the freedom of the rural resident. Namely, the freedom to develop agricultural land for large lot residential development or to develop outside of water and sewer areas on well and septic systems. Rural politicians see the State clandestinely undercutting local land use authority through overreaching state agencies. For example, the Maryland Department of the Environment regulating septic tanks and using this tool as a Trojan Horse for growth management.
The full scale of the rift was on display this morning at a small meeting organized by the local chapter of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) which I attended. The invited speaker was the new Planning Director of rural Carroll County, a County that has gone into total opposition to "Annapolis" (Maryland's capital whose reputation in rural Maryland is very similar to the reputation of nearby "Washington"). With one of the "culprits" sitting right next to him (State Planning Director Peter Conrad), local Planning Director Philip Hager soon had assembled the whole litany of complaints that bother his people in rural Carroll County (which, by the way, has one of the best AG preservation programs in the country, as Mr Hager immediately pointed out).
"One shoe does not fit all" say those rural legislators, Planning Commission members or Planning Directors. And "we don't want to be urban, maybe not even walkable" added Mr Hager. Our worries have to do with crops and soils, with the volatility of the ag markets, with availability of seasonal labor, they say. We can't wean ourselves from cars, they are our only option for mobility, they add. We don't just want to be the rural playground for you urbanistas who may drive along our roads to see pristine landscapes only to find the roads lined with houses. We also don't just want to be bedroom communities for the cities. "We have our own vision" Mr Hager pointed out again and again, but, he concluded, "nobody listens to us". Especially he complained about "Plan Maryland", a statewide land use plan that really is mostly a toothless collation of local plans to see if in aggregate they still make sense.
Fact is, parts of rural America are slowly bleeding out, at least in terms of population. (Carrol County has growth, though, due to its proximity to DC and Baltimore). Nationally, more and more people move to the urbanized areas, especially along the two coasts and into the "sunbelt".
Fact is, too, that many urban areas are suffering from flight and disinvestment, as well. And, as everybody knows, entrenched poverty occurs just as much in cities as in rural areas.
Fact is also that many cities are thriving and that lately, a new "urban vibe" has put air under the wings of "urbanistas". Especially the Millenium generation seems to have an urge to move into cities. But fact is, too, that agriculture has become more profitable lately, that crop prices have gone up for many areas and crops and that the whole (urban) local food movement may translate into even more push for nearby agricultural products. The also urban craze for "organics", too, offers all new opportunities for rural entrepreneurship. Information technology makes good progress of bridging the education divide between urban and rural and possibly, new technology production may offer similar opportunities for places far away from interstates, navigable waters of major freight lines. So why has rural America so combative, so defensive, so feeling under assault?
For me as one who practically grew up on the farms of my father's family near the Danish border, and who is also deeply convinced that we Americans are very wasteful with our lands, the state of our discourse is deeply troubling. I agree with the rural side that rural issues are very different from urban ones and I certainly agree that the future of rural America should look vastly different than the one of urban America. But I also agree with smart growth advocates, that sprawl as usual won't work for either rural, nor urban America and that we have already sprawled way too much. To me, there should be much to agree on. Actually, urban and rural America depend on each other and can ill afford to be at each others' throats.
We should agree that good stewardship of the land is good. Farmers have been stewards of the land since there has been farming, the vast damages inflicted by industrial farming methods notwithstanding. We should agree that sprawl is not sustainable, neither environmentally, nor economically, nor socially. A farm field (especially one with great soils) paved over by a cookie cutter subdivision should make the farmer's heart bleed even more than the urban "treehugger's". Local and slow food movements should be good for all, even if some farmers might smile about the naivete of some Whole Foods shoppers. Less nutrients should be good for the soils and for the rivers. Land preservation, easements and stream buffers, who would oppose these measures to protect the rural lands?
I don't want to propagate a simplistic "why don't we just all get along" myth that would assume that there are no conflicts of interest at stake, no issues that are harder on the rural population than on the urban, that farming has all of a sudden become easy. But the threats of change, technological, social and cultural are ubiquitous. In rural and urban America those changes pose risks and cost many people their livelihood. Yet, they also bear promise and hope, opportunity and prospects for a brighter future.
In a time when the US as a country have to compete internationally, when regions compete worldwide with each other, local "wars" seem ill advised. It is time we start looking forward and project a future that can endure and that does not pit one American against another. This election season is a perfect time to start a constructive dialogue about that future. And it won't be defined by old ideologies and boogie men. It will be defined by a will to collaborate and succeed. Pragmatic problem solving has to be the starting point, not the black and white images of the "war on rural America".
Post Script:
The argument whether the world is "flat" (Thomas Friedman) a view in which technology and universally available knowledge spread opportunity across continents and rural urban divides or whether it is "spiky" instead, a view in which knowledge, opportunity and resources become more and more concentrated, has been resolved towards spiky. At least that is what the growing divide between rural and urban suggests.
Across the world people in areas of lower opportunity feel aggrieved that global collaboration and migration does not serve them but "others". As a result, resentment, tribalism, nationalism and irrational angst and anger are on the rise. Trying to explain the phenomenon revives the socialist term of "the working class", describing that it has been left out and forgotten as cause for anger and election results. But the majority of people no longer works on rural farms or in urban factories. The numbers are 6% and 16% respectively, not enough to explain the shift.
Rural "red" states with small cities have actually benefited from industrial advance, global trade and new technology. Think Lexington, KY (Lexmark, Toyota), Tuscaloosa, AL (Mercedes Benz), Spartanburg, SC (BMW) or Chattanooga, TN. "Red" Texas' success in the new economy is legendary. All those places are more prosperous than large parts of disenfranchised populations in the large cities
This year the US political discourse has crossed a line. The appeal to come together and collaborate will no longer suffice. It remains to be seen, how defining the line between red and blue will prove to be and how easily it can be crossed. 16 years into the new Millennium and 100 years after Woodrow Wilson called on America to enter the word stage to intervene in WW I, the inability to interpret the world using common metrics has pushed America into another place.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
Back then the Maryland Governor was Martin O'Malley who would run briefly for President in this year's Primaries. In 2014 O'Malley's Lieutenant Governor, an insider, was anointed to become his successor but lost the bid in an upset by a Republican outsider. A stunning result in a blue state like Maryland.
In 2015 Baltimore experienced a widespread disturbance that rattled the city. The Governor called it a riot and sent the National Guard. The Black Lives Matter movement called it an uprising. The Governor rode into town a few times since decrying the conditions in this city and promising decisive action. But he cancelled the city's largest project in decades, a $3 billion rail project slated to connect the rich and the poor parts of the city.
The recognition that anger was also bottled up inside the big city did nothing to reduce the anger in the rural parts of the state. It only increased the contempt for the city.
The identification with "rural America" begins right outside the core city, in the outer suburbs where population still grows in spite of all the talk about the "renaissance of cities". The red campaign signs continue deep into the western panhandle where small towns still lose population and jobs are scarce.
The 2012 article about the rural/urban divide is still on point. (See also this interview in CityLab). I repeat it here unchanged with an added post-script:
The Growing Divide Between Rural and Urban America (June 2012)
There appears to be an ever growing divide between rural America and urban America. Rural America is populist and deep red, urban America is elitist and blue. Rural America is about property rights and urban America about socialism. Or so we are told. This troubling image of the country permeates deep into state and local politics.
In Maryland, a state invested in "smart growth" for quite some time (Former Maryland Governor Glendening claims to have coined the term), some rural legislators recently declared even a war. Rather, they diagnosed that "war" had been declared on them, the "war on rural America".
They see urban elitist liberals conspire with new regulations and urban mentality against the freedom of the rural resident. Namely, the freedom to develop agricultural land for large lot residential development or to develop outside of water and sewer areas on well and septic systems. Rural politicians see the State clandestinely undercutting local land use authority through overreaching state agencies. For example, the Maryland Department of the Environment regulating septic tanks and using this tool as a Trojan Horse for growth management.
 |
Bucolic and romantic farm images are often deceiving. Here: Rural southwest Virginia Photo: ArchPlan |
"One shoe does not fit all" say those rural legislators, Planning Commission members or Planning Directors. And "we don't want to be urban, maybe not even walkable" added Mr Hager. Our worries have to do with crops and soils, with the volatility of the ag markets, with availability of seasonal labor, they say. We can't wean ourselves from cars, they are our only option for mobility, they add. We don't just want to be the rural playground for you urbanistas who may drive along our roads to see pristine landscapes only to find the roads lined with houses. We also don't just want to be bedroom communities for the cities. "We have our own vision" Mr Hager pointed out again and again, but, he concluded, "nobody listens to us". Especially he complained about "Plan Maryland", a statewide land use plan that really is mostly a toothless collation of local plans to see if in aggregate they still make sense.
Fact is, parts of rural America are slowly bleeding out, at least in terms of population. (Carrol County has growth, though, due to its proximity to DC and Baltimore). Nationally, more and more people move to the urbanized areas, especially along the two coasts and into the "sunbelt".
Fact is, too, that many urban areas are suffering from flight and disinvestment, as well. And, as everybody knows, entrenched poverty occurs just as much in cities as in rural areas.
Fact is also that many cities are thriving and that lately, a new "urban vibe" has put air under the wings of "urbanistas". Especially the Millenium generation seems to have an urge to move into cities. But fact is, too, that agriculture has become more profitable lately, that crop prices have gone up for many areas and crops and that the whole (urban) local food movement may translate into even more push for nearby agricultural products. The also urban craze for "organics", too, offers all new opportunities for rural entrepreneurship. Information technology makes good progress of bridging the education divide between urban and rural and possibly, new technology production may offer similar opportunities for places far away from interstates, navigable waters of major freight lines. So why has rural America so combative, so defensive, so feeling under assault?
For me as one who practically grew up on the farms of my father's family near the Danish border, and who is also deeply convinced that we Americans are very wasteful with our lands, the state of our discourse is deeply troubling. I agree with the rural side that rural issues are very different from urban ones and I certainly agree that the future of rural America should look vastly different than the one of urban America. But I also agree with smart growth advocates, that sprawl as usual won't work for either rural, nor urban America and that we have already sprawled way too much. To me, there should be much to agree on. Actually, urban and rural America depend on each other and can ill afford to be at each others' throats.
We should agree that good stewardship of the land is good. Farmers have been stewards of the land since there has been farming, the vast damages inflicted by industrial farming methods notwithstanding. We should agree that sprawl is not sustainable, neither environmentally, nor economically, nor socially. A farm field (especially one with great soils) paved over by a cookie cutter subdivision should make the farmer's heart bleed even more than the urban "treehugger's". Local and slow food movements should be good for all, even if some farmers might smile about the naivete of some Whole Foods shoppers. Less nutrients should be good for the soils and for the rivers. Land preservation, easements and stream buffers, who would oppose these measures to protect the rural lands?
I don't want to propagate a simplistic "why don't we just all get along" myth that would assume that there are no conflicts of interest at stake, no issues that are harder on the rural population than on the urban, that farming has all of a sudden become easy. But the threats of change, technological, social and cultural are ubiquitous. In rural and urban America those changes pose risks and cost many people their livelihood. Yet, they also bear promise and hope, opportunity and prospects for a brighter future.
In a time when the US as a country have to compete internationally, when regions compete worldwide with each other, local "wars" seem ill advised. It is time we start looking forward and project a future that can endure and that does not pit one American against another. This election season is a perfect time to start a constructive dialogue about that future. And it won't be defined by old ideologies and boogie men. It will be defined by a will to collaborate and succeed. Pragmatic problem solving has to be the starting point, not the black and white images of the "war on rural America".
Post Script:
The argument whether the world is "flat" (Thomas Friedman) a view in which technology and universally available knowledge spread opportunity across continents and rural urban divides or whether it is "spiky" instead, a view in which knowledge, opportunity and resources become more and more concentrated, has been resolved towards spiky. At least that is what the growing divide between rural and urban suggests.
Across the world people in areas of lower opportunity feel aggrieved that global collaboration and migration does not serve them but "others". As a result, resentment, tribalism, nationalism and irrational angst and anger are on the rise. Trying to explain the phenomenon revives the socialist term of "the working class", describing that it has been left out and forgotten as cause for anger and election results. But the majority of people no longer works on rural farms or in urban factories. The numbers are 6% and 16% respectively, not enough to explain the shift.
Rural "red" states with small cities have actually benefited from industrial advance, global trade and new technology. Think Lexington, KY (Lexmark, Toyota), Tuscaloosa, AL (Mercedes Benz), Spartanburg, SC (BMW) or Chattanooga, TN. "Red" Texas' success in the new economy is legendary. All those places are more prosperous than large parts of disenfranchised populations in the large cities
This year the US political discourse has crossed a line. The appeal to come together and collaborate will no longer suffice. It remains to be seen, how defining the line between red and blue will prove to be and how easily it can be crossed. 16 years into the new Millennium and 100 years after Woodrow Wilson called on America to enter the word stage to intervene in WW I, the inability to interpret the world using common metrics has pushed America into another place.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
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