The idea that rural America and city dwellers are strangers in the same country has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. But is it true?
What you wear, your hometown, your beliefs, and even your car are converted into symbols of personality by some folks. Your choice of chicken (free-range or caged) may even have some people inventing all manner of back stories to suit their world perceptions.
But when it comes down to it, is urban vs. rural culture a real thing or is it just a perception or story people like to tell?
The big cities and small towns of the United States are home to Americans of many backgrounds and points of difference are just vibrant pieces in the rich tapestry of the American dream. Right?
Let’s compare and contrast urban vs. rural cultural dynamics to find out. But first, let’s define what we mean by rural areas.
Urban vs. Rural Culture: What Is a Rural Area?
About one in five of the U.S. population, some 60 million people, live in what is labeled rural America. However, rural isn’t a totally objective term — it’s also subjective. For instance, people living on a small farm could be classified as living in an urban area. How?
The U.S. Census Bureau says 97% of the country’s land mass is rural and home to just under 20% of the population. Conversely, just 3% of America is defined as an urban area yet it houses 80% of Americans.
The Census Bureau has a unique method for defining what is urban or rural, which resulted in these astonishing figures. A rural area is basically “everything that is not urban.”
Let’s expand.
What Is an Urban Area?
First comes population density. The U.S. Census Bureau defines an urbanized area as those with 50,000 or more people. There is a subsection called an urban cluster where 2,500-50,000 people live.
Next, at least 1,000 people must live in each square mile (people per square mile, or ppsm). Of course, many areas we think of as urban include sizable attractions like parks, schools, or industrial estates. These buildings could reduce an area’s ppsm and see them classified as rural. So, a lower 500 ppsm population density threshold applies to these areas.
Planners also include nearby “urban” structures like shopping malls in their thinking. These buildings can be bunched in with urban areas, known as “hops” and “jumps,” to help take a more practical picture of what is urban or rural.
Anything that doesn’t reach these classifications is a rural area. In this way, counties can contain both rural and urban areas. As such, those hops or jumps could even be a farm. That means a rancher’s estate could be considered “urban” for classification purposes.
What Is a Suburban and Metropolitan Area?
A suburban area has a lower population density than an urban area. Suburban areas may form part of a city or urban area but usually mark a line that divides commercial and residential areas.
Suburban areas have grown because of automobiles and commuting. People travel from their suburban homes with their extra space to the more cramped big cities to work.
Conversely, a metropolitan area is a densely populated area. It can be a city of 50,000+ people or an urbanized area of 100,000+ people. The metropolitan area of New York-Newark-Jersey city is America’s largest, with almost 20 million inhabitants as of 2022.
Does living shoulder-to-shoulder with buildings rather than wheat fields radically alter quality of life?
What Are the Main Concerns for Americans?
People in urban and rural areas often face the same issues that affect their quality of life. These include:
- Healthcare
- Education
- Housing
- Employment
- Climate change
- Finances and the cost of living
- Reforming criminal justice
- Drug issues, from alcoholism to meth
- Obesity
The background may look different for urban vs. rural culture but the concerns are universally human.
Is There a Rural-Urban Divide?
The rural-urban divide may be a lived experience to some or a myth to others. City dwellers may think rural folks tend their farms, go to hoedowns, and don’t have much else to do. Rural folks might paint city people as career-obsessed and materialistic with no time to enjoy life, family, and nature.
Neither is wholly accurate or helpful. More of the preconceptions about rural and urban life that increase the rural-urban divide include:
- Rural areas feel they get less than their fair share of federal government support.
- Rural adults are much more likely to live near family members, enjoy higher family life happiness, and know their neighbors compared to urban communities.
- Most rural Americans (60%) believe urban dwellers do not share their values. A similar number of urban dwellers (53%) say the same about their rural neighbors.
- Around two-thirds of rural folks feel their lives and issues are misunderstood by their fellow urban American citizens.
- Most rural counties have more people moving out than in.
- Fewer rural residents complete higher education than urban residents.
Interestingly, the bucolic image of people working extra hard in fields does seem to ring true. A National Agricultural Workers survey revealed that agricultural workers put in an average of 47.6 hours per week at work compared to 42.5 weekly hours for non-agricultural workers.
Myth-Busting the Political Urban vs. Rural Cultural Divide
The U.S. is a country where every state and territory has rural areas, from New York to Texas to the Midwest and even California. The reality is that rural life comprises many minorities where more than one in five residents are people of color. Tellingly, only 6% of Americans are farmers.
Rural areas, like the rest of America, are experiencing a massive demographic shift. The whole country’s population is growing and becoming more ethnically diverse, with ever more significant Black, Latino or Hispanic, and Native American communities. But the urban and suburban areas have taken the lion’s share of those extra people.
Habits are often similar but in different contexts. Modern streaming and entertainment services mean anyone, from Guerra, Texas (population six) to Houston (2.3 million residents), can follow the same news, movie, and entertainment channels from home.
A drink after work with friends and colleagues in the local hipster cafe is essentially the same as enjoying a brew on a porch or veranda on a farm. Sports fans are as passionate in the sticks as among the skyscrapers. A hoedown is just a party dancing to a different beat.
Equally, national holidays are observed in most places, the Stars and Stripes raised and the anthem sung with pride, and people aspire to uphold longstanding American values.
What Unites Urban and Rural Communities?
There is much that unites Americans. The majority of U.S. states are rural and people across all lifestyles experience the same happiness, isolation, and support levels.
Away from the statistics, perhaps what unites Americans more are perceived values. Boston University identified the following values in American culture:
- A goal-orientated society with lots of energy.
- Seeing change as a positive force.
- Valuing time and using it productively.
- Egalitarianism and giving people equal opportunities.
- Taking pride in your accomplishments.
- Optimism that the future will be better.
- A no-nonsense attitude that work is proper and it’s morally wrong to waste time.
- Society has a relaxed and equal view of contemporaries based on a rejection of formality.
- Being truthful develops trust and an open and honest society.
- Practical and efficient decisions are more highly valued than emotional ones.
- Material rewards come from hard work.
Most people want to stay in their communities, wherever they live. One in six are very attached to their neighborhoods and many long-termers feel great affection towards neighbors.
Significantly, America’s aging demographic is the same in rural and urban zones but is most marked in suburban areas. Everyone’s earnings have dropped during the 21st century and drug addiction is a perceived problem everywhere.
Urban vs. Rural Cultures in Texas
Lifestyles in urban and rural areas are as markedly different as they are similar.
In Texas, for example, uniting cultural aspects include Tex-Mex and Mexican food, rodeos, calling any soda a Coke, and a love of college and high school sports. Many of these Texas traditions, and others like springtime photos with bluebonnets, bring urban dwellers into the countryside to appreciate its ways of life.
Likewise, rural residents need the pull of big cities to access the best healthcare, universities, higher education facilities, and much more. But all across the state, people enjoy Texas toast, cheering on their favorite sports team, and relaxing at home with family and friends.
The deep debate is whether taking a car, public transport, or riding a horse home after work makes people inherently different. And that is a debate best discussed over a famous Texas barbecue. (Unless you’re vegan, of course!) What is clear is that not all incomes in America are equal.
Why Rural Poverty Underpins Many Issues
The elephant in the room when looking at urban and rural areas is income. Poverty rates in rural areas (15.4%) are higher than in urban areas (11.9%). In the rural south, that spikes to 19.4%. Rural African Americans suffer a shocking 30.7% poverty rate.
In 2015, almost a third of rural working poor earned $12,000 or less, all to support a family of four, an income 50% below the poverty line.
Poverty affects the well-being of these communities with restricted access to healthcare and fewer higher education opportunities compared to urban America. Research suggests rural people in poverty also struggle to access state and federal government programs designed to help. But, in recent years, poverty has surged in suburban areas versus urban and rural regions.
Metropolitan area job growth outstrips rural areas, increasing by 4% over a decade compared to a 4% job shrinkage in rural sites. The information betrays the entrepreneurial spirit of rural folk, with more startups and self-employed business proprietors in rural counties than in urban areas. These new businesses are also more likely to thrive than their metropolitan cousins.
Urban vs. Rural Culture: It’s Time to Bridge the Gap
Urban vs. rural culture is a multi-layered and complex framing of an age-old societal issue: change.
Big cities are swelling to more significant sizes as America’s population grows. Urban areas are becoming more diverse more quickly than rural areas, undergoing similar but slower demographic shifts. But everyone struggles with the higher cost of living while seeking a better quality of life.
Change is indeed coming to rural America as much as it is to the urban U.S. Therefore, the challenge is to frame and celebrate the similarities rather than drive wedges based on studied differences. Yes, riding a horse is different from an electric scooter, but both are valid forms of transportation that give the rider a sense of freedom with the wind in their hair.
Rural areas are much more racially and educationally diverse than the trope of being full of unschooled white farmers. Binary ideas don’t encapsulate the intricate weavings of one person’s mind, let alone an entire street, town, or city.
Through empathy between urban, rural, and suburban populations, people can recognize the similarities in their daily lives and celebrate their cultural differences.
Brought to you by amigoenergy
All images licensed from Adobe Stock.