I love this! Sick of the division. We are all just writers and philosophers. To clarify, I did not grow up in rural Florida. I grew up in the suburbs of Miami where everything was ultra-sanitized. Think Stepford Wives. I moved to rural Florida (Jacksonville) during the pandemic to save money and escape the lockdowns in NYC. It was here I felt like an alien even more than in the suburbs of Miami. Despite my avant-garde reactionary views I realized how culturally blue I was. Cities like Austin attempted to solve the divide yet left much to be desired.
Thank you for the correction Rachel. The article has been edited accordingly.
You said it best: “red-state” politics (at least when it comes to being anti-prog)” with “blue-state” tastes. That’s exactly how I feel too.
Like, for example, I don’t want to eat shitty food. To some, that makes you a commie, which is kind of weird when you think about it, but c’est la vie.
My family stayed in the Miami suburbs. I became downwardly mobile and moved to Jacksonville alone so I could live in a nice apartment for a reasonable price. Hate to make you edit this again since it’s such a good piece. 😂
The rural/urban divide is not just limited to the U.S. It is a worldwide phenomenon - look at even places like Iran, where Tehran is very liberal and the rural areas are very conservative. I would say most or perhaps all major cities worldwide are liberal. And as you state, this rural/urban divide regarding politics has always been there...
As someone who grew up in what could be considered half-country (as in countryside still in the Soviet times, for we still have the old Kolhoz building, a suburb today), and, like most Latvians, having a country home, (of my grandmother) to go to for many weekends and summers, while at the same time going to school both at the very heart of Riga and the Commieblock districts, I suppose I never saw the glamour of the city. Though being fair, I imagine that is me being fairly introverted.
Still, I can't help but feel that the 'Everything interesting happens in cities" creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of the interesting people leaving and because of this there being nothing interesting. And i see in it the same excuse that carries so many of my people across the sea as my homeland flounders - or even the countryside. My grandma's home we actually bought, and there the ruins near outnumber the houses standing.
I think the Industrial city is a profoundly unhealthy existance, but it is also a completely different beast from the Pre-Industrial city. But it seems to me that it is not good that most people live in the city for them or for society - shitty suburbs/downtowns(depending on the continent) seem to be a universal phenomenon.
Perhaps it could be said, that the countryside has the generative force, but the city - the creative/shaping force? (If only in sheer fertility, but I think it is fairly obviously more than that). An overabundance of generative force is a blessing, but not an overpouring of creative force, that the former cannot match, I think.
Good points, Karaļauču. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
The "self-fulfilling prophecy" remark is trenchant. Cities have often been called "IQ shredders," because they draw the best and brightest from the surrounding areas, causing a brain drain in areas which could really use their hometown best and brightest to use their talents to the betterment of the communities they grew up in.
There is something profoundly unhealthy with how our cities are run, at least here in the United States (the only country I'm qualified to speak about). And as with most things, it doesn't have to be this way.
"Having lived extensively in both, I don’t see why people can’t be equally comfortable in either place. We have to pick? Really?"
It's possible that many people are more adaptable, but I do not fare well when living in a city. Cities can be fun to visit, but when it comes time to go home at the end of the day, nothing beats the country for me. In the times when I've had to live in a city, I always felt claustrophobic and imprisoned, with nowhere to go and no privacy. Whenever I would go out in my yard, there could be neighbors watching. I couldn't walk far without passing near other people's property. It started to feel like living in a panopticon. Then there was all the noise...noise...noise! (to quote the Grinch).
I only feel free when living in the country, with green grass and thick forests stretching as far as the eye can see, peace broken only by the occasional passing car, the ability to take a long walk with no one watching but God and the animals, and cricket and cicada lullabies at night. Due to a set of miraculous circumstances, I am now again living in such a place, after a miserable four years stuck in a city with a population of about 5,700 (which is fairly large by my standards and the largest city I've ever lived in, although many people would probably consider it a small town). To be fair, I've never lived in a good part of town, only the poorer neighborhoods. The only good places I've lived in have been rural. Plus, I'm introverted.
I think a lot of it comes to how one grew up, though. My formative years were spent mostly in peaceful rural areas, interrupted by unwelcome times living in noisy, somewhat impoverished neighborhoods in cities. And at least here in Mississippi, the same amount of money can get you a much better lifestyle and standard of living in the country than in the city.
"I know everyone has different experiences. I also know this country is divided. I myself am weird because I grew up red state and I guess I have red-state values, but I definitely have blue-state tastes and sensibilities. I can get along in and with either. Does this make me a squishy, or just socially adaptable?"
Where I live, "city" and "country" aren't very different in values, since they're just a few miles apart, and a big chunk of the population of each city lives in the rural areas on the outskirts. Technically, I still live in the city that I did last year (in terms of the postal address), but I'm now 20 miles outside the city itself rather than inside it. I've occasionally been to bigger cities, but nothing huge like New York or Chicago. The biggest city I've ever been to is Baton Rouge, Louisiana (population 221,000). So "blue state" culture is something I've never experienced firsthand.
"I honestly prefer more urban environments. I can relate to city people better. I have never hunted in my life. I never served in the military. I am not Evangelical or Born Again or Congregationalist or atheist or pagan. I’m not into NASCAR or cars in general. I don’t really watch TV, and though I like sports my sport of choice is basketball, not football."
Some of that fits me more or less (I haven't hunted despite growing up around hunters and eating free venison from them, I haven't been in the military, I'm not heavily into cars, and I'm not into sports - any of them). I do differ in that I watch a significant amount of television (albeit mostly older movies and shows) and my religious beliefs are much more similar to the type of Born Again/Evangelical views common here in the Bible Belt than a Catholic or Orthodox type of belief system. I tend to get along really well with country people, too. But then again, I spent many of my formative years tending vegetable gardens, shoveling cow manure to use as fertilizer, roaming the countryside in a straw hat, practicing knife-throwing, and shooting my Red Ryder BB-gun. Your mileage may vary.
In some respects, I don't really "fit in" anywhere, as far as I can tell. The way I dress, many of my interests, etc, are somewhat peculiar to everyone I meet, whether in the city or the country. I come across a bit like an early 20th century anachronism to a lot of people. In fact, I was once mistaken for a ghost. I'm not kidding - that really happened.
"My experience is that small towns are very limiting to a certain type of person, and actively discourage thinking big. I myself fell into this trap. We’d laugh at so-and-so who had pretensions of being an actress or a musician or whatever. How dare they?"
I've had the opposite experience. Ever since my childhood years, most people I've met have thought I was destined for some sort of career in literature or the arts and were impressed by the amount of knowledge I had on various subjects. None of them have had the "crab in a bucket" mentality at all. It's only my own procrastination that has held me back. The people around me have always been supportive. I don't know if that's a southern thing in general or just my own unique experience.
To be fair, I've never been to school, so high school cliques and the like are as alien a subculture to me as beehives. I was homeschooled, and almost all of my social experience is with people much older than me. I never had any friends my age when I was growing up. Only people in their 50s or older.
Hardwicke bringing the heat in the comments like usual. Good stuff. I love reading about people’s experiences.
Your comment underscores how much everyone’s mileage may vary. My experiences are very particular to the New England region. Here, all the states are small and it’s really too difficult to be really far away from an urban center, unless you’re way out there in Maine. I mean, Massachusetts is tiny and three of the top four biggest cities in New England are in the state, and the top four (Boston MA, Worcester MA, Providence RI, and Springfield MA) are within a 90 mile radius. Plus there’s Hartford CT, Portland ME, Burlington VT, Dover NH, Portsmouth NH, and Manchester NH. These aren’t New York and LA-level cities, but they each top 100,000. Plus, New York is just a few hours’ drive from Boston. So yes, while I grew up rural, it wasn’t RURAL like rural Midwest or Texas or the south or the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Nevada.
I realize, seeing my words quoted back to me, I came down a bit harder on the countryside than I intended. I do love the country almost as much as I love the city. I grew up country and it was a great environment. I just got bored. Too ambitious I guess.
I’m sure your experiences in the South are absolutely the reason your take on this is different. I love hearing about it.
So, forgive me if this was not brought on by my debate with Walt, but in some of the resulting fall out, my own stance has been.... mischaracterized. Plus, there's a difference between what I think of cities qua cities and the healthy choice of where one should live today.
So, in Aristotle and Aquinas a city is not a city unless it is self sustaining. Which implies that it has a certain amount of rural area and farmland around it, WHICH IS PART of that city. And I mean this not simply in a materialistic/mercantilist way, but in a cultural way as well. The folk are a part of it spiritually, culturally - in every way, they are connected to that city.
One can thus see, that in a very real sense, there are no true cities in America. We import our food from places internationally. The immediate areas around cities are given to suburbs, not to farming. There is no planning or cultural connection at all even within different parts of the city, and people move to the suburbs to distance themselves from any of the connections with the city that I mentioned above.
Thus, we have schizophrenic cities, and lobotomized rural life.
But, cities are built FROM healthy rural life coming together to eventually build a healthy city.
Thus, the solution to this problem is to build a healthy rural community with the long term intentions of the good life, the Polity, and eventual city.
Because the highest good of man - high art, poetry, political life, the liberal arts, etc; are found in the city.
However, when cities go bad they are the worst man has to offer, just as when kings go bad into tyranny. We see this written of in St Augustine's City of God vs the City of Man.
Thus, I think that you see a great deal of division within people who feel drawn and compelled towards those higher things. And I get that! I really do. I have practiced and participated in many of them during my life. However, I think they fail to realize how corrupted the cities are, dangerous to the soul, and unable to be redeemed at this point, from a spiritual perspective - without the natural foundation of a solid folk life to build upon. A solid rural life to act as support for the city. For it is the lower arts, the lower life, natural beauty, and loves; that make the city possible.
I hope that this explains, a little bit, my position as it is on City Life vs Country Life. To me, that was not what the debate was about AT ALL with Walt, if that was even what you were referencing. If not, well then I hope you find it edifying all the same, and forgive me for my prideful assumption that it was about me
I'm afraid I am not familiar with your debate with Walt, but you make a really good point about the integration between the two. There are a lot of things we could be doing better, and making such interdependence not only stronger, but more obvious, could potentially bridge the gap between the cities and the countryside.
As usual, here in the United States, we chase efficiency and every last dollar of profit in the short-term to our detriment.
Not only that, but I'm certain that it's the 'divide and conquer' strategy at play as well. A disunity within the populace makes them more apt to easy rule. They're more apt to follow orders, accept Imperial oversight, and work for the Empire rather than the community/Polity. I've argued that it has gone too far, and that with -no- Polity, there's no ties at all to anyone, and no loyalty even to the Empire except in some vague, nebulous kind of way. Not the same way that we see overseas in third worlds, where they have stronger ties to their tribes, Polities, and nations than we do.
The factionalism between the hooligans of the City and those of the Country, whether good or bad, has always existed. However, I cannot shake off the feeling that, currently, this divide is further forced on our cultural paradigm. I find it very dangerous─ what good there is in modernity is due to that these two universes have become more connected than ever, and their relationship has been made stronger than it has been in most of the history we know. We need an accordance between the two to survive.
Grew up mostly in Jakarta, apparently the second largest metropolitan area in the world, so I'm a city mouse through and through. Funnily enough, here in Indonesia we don't have the best of opinions on rural people/the country. They have a reputation for being lazy and dishonest, and it's not entirely unfounded as my parents have firsthand experience with these (I'll save you the details). Heck, our word for uncouth/rude/stupid behavior is "kampungan". Kampung means village in Indonesian. So kampungan literally means village-ish. So if you're being uncouth, rude, or stupid, you're acting like someone from the countryside. I think it's the idea of, "if they're any good, they wouldn't have stuck around in the country". Having seen the latest embarrassing display of "red-state culture", I can't help but think the same principle applies in the US.
Now I'm not trying to beat up on the country. I'm sure there are good people in the country-side, and we city folks have a lot to learn from them. But I have seen my fair share of people bashing on cities (and I'm implying that they're intrinsically wrong) and being pro-country because my feed is full of right-wing political folks. They just run counter to what I know. It's almost a "me or your lying eyes" kind of thing.
It's rather tiresome. Your advice is spot on, lol: get off the Internet and do what you want.
I’m with you in not wanting to beat up on the country and the denizens thereof. But I also don’t want to beat up on the cities. In the America of my dreams, both are important and both coexist. My cities won’t be shitholes and my rural areas won’t be meth-filled voids of despair.
if you have money cities are great otherwise you're exiled to distant human-anthill suburbs or ghettos. small towns that are scenic are amazing but expensive at times and you get a mix of people (and tourists). small towns with nothing are the crab bucket you mentioned.
I love this! Sick of the division. We are all just writers and philosophers. To clarify, I did not grow up in rural Florida. I grew up in the suburbs of Miami where everything was ultra-sanitized. Think Stepford Wives. I moved to rural Florida (Jacksonville) during the pandemic to save money and escape the lockdowns in NYC. It was here I felt like an alien even more than in the suburbs of Miami. Despite my avant-garde reactionary views I realized how culturally blue I was. Cities like Austin attempted to solve the divide yet left much to be desired.
Thank you for the correction Rachel. The article has been edited accordingly.
You said it best: “red-state” politics (at least when it comes to being anti-prog)” with “blue-state” tastes. That’s exactly how I feel too.
Like, for example, I don’t want to eat shitty food. To some, that makes you a commie, which is kind of weird when you think about it, but c’est la vie.
My family stayed in the Miami suburbs. I became downwardly mobile and moved to Jacksonville alone so I could live in a nice apartment for a reasonable price. Hate to make you edit this again since it’s such a good piece. 😂
Corrected, and no worries. I want to get things right!
The rural/urban divide is not just limited to the U.S. It is a worldwide phenomenon - look at even places like Iran, where Tehran is very liberal and the rural areas are very conservative. I would say most or perhaps all major cities worldwide are liberal. And as you state, this rural/urban divide regarding politics has always been there...
It has indeed always been there. Has it always been this bitter and antagonistic? That, I don’t know.
As someone who grew up in what could be considered half-country (as in countryside still in the Soviet times, for we still have the old Kolhoz building, a suburb today), and, like most Latvians, having a country home, (of my grandmother) to go to for many weekends and summers, while at the same time going to school both at the very heart of Riga and the Commieblock districts, I suppose I never saw the glamour of the city. Though being fair, I imagine that is me being fairly introverted.
Still, I can't help but feel that the 'Everything interesting happens in cities" creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of the interesting people leaving and because of this there being nothing interesting. And i see in it the same excuse that carries so many of my people across the sea as my homeland flounders - or even the countryside. My grandma's home we actually bought, and there the ruins near outnumber the houses standing.
I think the Industrial city is a profoundly unhealthy existance, but it is also a completely different beast from the Pre-Industrial city. But it seems to me that it is not good that most people live in the city for them or for society - shitty suburbs/downtowns(depending on the continent) seem to be a universal phenomenon.
Perhaps it could be said, that the countryside has the generative force, but the city - the creative/shaping force? (If only in sheer fertility, but I think it is fairly obviously more than that). An overabundance of generative force is a blessing, but not an overpouring of creative force, that the former cannot match, I think.
Good points, Karaļauču. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
The "self-fulfilling prophecy" remark is trenchant. Cities have often been called "IQ shredders," because they draw the best and brightest from the surrounding areas, causing a brain drain in areas which could really use their hometown best and brightest to use their talents to the betterment of the communities they grew up in.
There is something profoundly unhealthy with how our cities are run, at least here in the United States (the only country I'm qualified to speak about). And as with most things, it doesn't have to be this way.
"Having lived extensively in both, I don’t see why people can’t be equally comfortable in either place. We have to pick? Really?"
It's possible that many people are more adaptable, but I do not fare well when living in a city. Cities can be fun to visit, but when it comes time to go home at the end of the day, nothing beats the country for me. In the times when I've had to live in a city, I always felt claustrophobic and imprisoned, with nowhere to go and no privacy. Whenever I would go out in my yard, there could be neighbors watching. I couldn't walk far without passing near other people's property. It started to feel like living in a panopticon. Then there was all the noise...noise...noise! (to quote the Grinch).
I only feel free when living in the country, with green grass and thick forests stretching as far as the eye can see, peace broken only by the occasional passing car, the ability to take a long walk with no one watching but God and the animals, and cricket and cicada lullabies at night. Due to a set of miraculous circumstances, I am now again living in such a place, after a miserable four years stuck in a city with a population of about 5,700 (which is fairly large by my standards and the largest city I've ever lived in, although many people would probably consider it a small town). To be fair, I've never lived in a good part of town, only the poorer neighborhoods. The only good places I've lived in have been rural. Plus, I'm introverted.
I think a lot of it comes to how one grew up, though. My formative years were spent mostly in peaceful rural areas, interrupted by unwelcome times living in noisy, somewhat impoverished neighborhoods in cities. And at least here in Mississippi, the same amount of money can get you a much better lifestyle and standard of living in the country than in the city.
"I know everyone has different experiences. I also know this country is divided. I myself am weird because I grew up red state and I guess I have red-state values, but I definitely have blue-state tastes and sensibilities. I can get along in and with either. Does this make me a squishy, or just socially adaptable?"
Where I live, "city" and "country" aren't very different in values, since they're just a few miles apart, and a big chunk of the population of each city lives in the rural areas on the outskirts. Technically, I still live in the city that I did last year (in terms of the postal address), but I'm now 20 miles outside the city itself rather than inside it. I've occasionally been to bigger cities, but nothing huge like New York or Chicago. The biggest city I've ever been to is Baton Rouge, Louisiana (population 221,000). So "blue state" culture is something I've never experienced firsthand.
"I honestly prefer more urban environments. I can relate to city people better. I have never hunted in my life. I never served in the military. I am not Evangelical or Born Again or Congregationalist or atheist or pagan. I’m not into NASCAR or cars in general. I don’t really watch TV, and though I like sports my sport of choice is basketball, not football."
Some of that fits me more or less (I haven't hunted despite growing up around hunters and eating free venison from them, I haven't been in the military, I'm not heavily into cars, and I'm not into sports - any of them). I do differ in that I watch a significant amount of television (albeit mostly older movies and shows) and my religious beliefs are much more similar to the type of Born Again/Evangelical views common here in the Bible Belt than a Catholic or Orthodox type of belief system. I tend to get along really well with country people, too. But then again, I spent many of my formative years tending vegetable gardens, shoveling cow manure to use as fertilizer, roaming the countryside in a straw hat, practicing knife-throwing, and shooting my Red Ryder BB-gun. Your mileage may vary.
In some respects, I don't really "fit in" anywhere, as far as I can tell. The way I dress, many of my interests, etc, are somewhat peculiar to everyone I meet, whether in the city or the country. I come across a bit like an early 20th century anachronism to a lot of people. In fact, I was once mistaken for a ghost. I'm not kidding - that really happened.
"My experience is that small towns are very limiting to a certain type of person, and actively discourage thinking big. I myself fell into this trap. We’d laugh at so-and-so who had pretensions of being an actress or a musician or whatever. How dare they?"
I've had the opposite experience. Ever since my childhood years, most people I've met have thought I was destined for some sort of career in literature or the arts and were impressed by the amount of knowledge I had on various subjects. None of them have had the "crab in a bucket" mentality at all. It's only my own procrastination that has held me back. The people around me have always been supportive. I don't know if that's a southern thing in general or just my own unique experience.
To be fair, I've never been to school, so high school cliques and the like are as alien a subculture to me as beehives. I was homeschooled, and almost all of my social experience is with people much older than me. I never had any friends my age when I was growing up. Only people in their 50s or older.
Hardwicke bringing the heat in the comments like usual. Good stuff. I love reading about people’s experiences.
Your comment underscores how much everyone’s mileage may vary. My experiences are very particular to the New England region. Here, all the states are small and it’s really too difficult to be really far away from an urban center, unless you’re way out there in Maine. I mean, Massachusetts is tiny and three of the top four biggest cities in New England are in the state, and the top four (Boston MA, Worcester MA, Providence RI, and Springfield MA) are within a 90 mile radius. Plus there’s Hartford CT, Portland ME, Burlington VT, Dover NH, Portsmouth NH, and Manchester NH. These aren’t New York and LA-level cities, but they each top 100,000. Plus, New York is just a few hours’ drive from Boston. So yes, while I grew up rural, it wasn’t RURAL like rural Midwest or Texas or the south or the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Nevada.
I realize, seeing my words quoted back to me, I came down a bit harder on the countryside than I intended. I do love the country almost as much as I love the city. I grew up country and it was a great environment. I just got bored. Too ambitious I guess.
I’m sure your experiences in the South are absolutely the reason your take on this is different. I love hearing about it.
The rural-to-big city is such a great adventure/initiation story aswell.
Thanks to the mouse metaphor, I’m thinking of the movie ‘the secret of NIMH’, technologies and cities
https://youtu.be/cISmv0IGoQQ?si=YdR1e9zpj-khAK1k
Yes it really is great grist for the story mill.
So, forgive me if this was not brought on by my debate with Walt, but in some of the resulting fall out, my own stance has been.... mischaracterized. Plus, there's a difference between what I think of cities qua cities and the healthy choice of where one should live today.
So, in Aristotle and Aquinas a city is not a city unless it is self sustaining. Which implies that it has a certain amount of rural area and farmland around it, WHICH IS PART of that city. And I mean this not simply in a materialistic/mercantilist way, but in a cultural way as well. The folk are a part of it spiritually, culturally - in every way, they are connected to that city.
One can thus see, that in a very real sense, there are no true cities in America. We import our food from places internationally. The immediate areas around cities are given to suburbs, not to farming. There is no planning or cultural connection at all even within different parts of the city, and people move to the suburbs to distance themselves from any of the connections with the city that I mentioned above.
Thus, we have schizophrenic cities, and lobotomized rural life.
But, cities are built FROM healthy rural life coming together to eventually build a healthy city.
Thus, the solution to this problem is to build a healthy rural community with the long term intentions of the good life, the Polity, and eventual city.
Because the highest good of man - high art, poetry, political life, the liberal arts, etc; are found in the city.
However, when cities go bad they are the worst man has to offer, just as when kings go bad into tyranny. We see this written of in St Augustine's City of God vs the City of Man.
Thus, I think that you see a great deal of division within people who feel drawn and compelled towards those higher things. And I get that! I really do. I have practiced and participated in many of them during my life. However, I think they fail to realize how corrupted the cities are, dangerous to the soul, and unable to be redeemed at this point, from a spiritual perspective - without the natural foundation of a solid folk life to build upon. A solid rural life to act as support for the city. For it is the lower arts, the lower life, natural beauty, and loves; that make the city possible.
I hope that this explains, a little bit, my position as it is on City Life vs Country Life. To me, that was not what the debate was about AT ALL with Walt, if that was even what you were referencing. If not, well then I hope you find it edifying all the same, and forgive me for my prideful assumption that it was about me
I'm afraid I am not familiar with your debate with Walt, but you make a really good point about the integration between the two. There are a lot of things we could be doing better, and making such interdependence not only stronger, but more obvious, could potentially bridge the gap between the cities and the countryside.
As usual, here in the United States, we chase efficiency and every last dollar of profit in the short-term to our detriment.
Not only that, but I'm certain that it's the 'divide and conquer' strategy at play as well. A disunity within the populace makes them more apt to easy rule. They're more apt to follow orders, accept Imperial oversight, and work for the Empire rather than the community/Polity. I've argued that it has gone too far, and that with -no- Polity, there's no ties at all to anyone, and no loyalty even to the Empire except in some vague, nebulous kind of way. Not the same way that we see overseas in third worlds, where they have stronger ties to their tribes, Polities, and nations than we do.
I don’t doubt that at all. Divide and consider is a strategy as old as time. And it’s been carried out with great success against the American people.
The factionalism between the hooligans of the City and those of the Country, whether good or bad, has always existed. However, I cannot shake off the feeling that, currently, this divide is further forced on our cultural paradigm. I find it very dangerous─ what good there is in modernity is due to that these two universes have become more connected than ever, and their relationship has been made stronger than it has been in most of the history we know. We need an accordance between the two to survive.
Awesome Rush reference!!!!!
There's a Rush reference for everything.
Grew up mostly in Jakarta, apparently the second largest metropolitan area in the world, so I'm a city mouse through and through. Funnily enough, here in Indonesia we don't have the best of opinions on rural people/the country. They have a reputation for being lazy and dishonest, and it's not entirely unfounded as my parents have firsthand experience with these (I'll save you the details). Heck, our word for uncouth/rude/stupid behavior is "kampungan". Kampung means village in Indonesian. So kampungan literally means village-ish. So if you're being uncouth, rude, or stupid, you're acting like someone from the countryside. I think it's the idea of, "if they're any good, they wouldn't have stuck around in the country". Having seen the latest embarrassing display of "red-state culture", I can't help but think the same principle applies in the US.
Now I'm not trying to beat up on the country. I'm sure there are good people in the country-side, and we city folks have a lot to learn from them. But I have seen my fair share of people bashing on cities (and I'm implying that they're intrinsically wrong) and being pro-country because my feed is full of right-wing political folks. They just run counter to what I know. It's almost a "me or your lying eyes" kind of thing.
It's rather tiresome. Your advice is spot on, lol: get off the Internet and do what you want.
I’m with you in not wanting to beat up on the country and the denizens thereof. But I also don’t want to beat up on the cities. In the America of my dreams, both are important and both coexist. My cities won’t be shitholes and my rural areas won’t be meth-filled voids of despair.
if you have money cities are great otherwise you're exiled to distant human-anthill suburbs or ghettos. small towns that are scenic are amazing but expensive at times and you get a mix of people (and tourists). small towns with nothing are the crab bucket you mentioned.