I know about small towns and the people who live in them because...

[RichardRay]

Poll question: I know about small towns and the people who live in them because...

I see a lot of posts about people who live in small towns and how they feel or think. My guess is that few folks on this board really know much about that subject, so I thought I'd try to find out.

Some definitions:

Rural Hamlet - Population less than 1,000. More than 100 miles to a freeway on ramp.

Rural Small Town - Population less than 5,000. More than 50 miles from a freeway on ramp.

Suburban Small Town - Population less than 20,000. More than 20 miles from a freeway on ramp.

"Lived in" = "maintained primary domicile, worked, shopped and recreated in for a substantial number of years..."

Living in a Rural Hamlet means there are probably well traveled residential thoroughfares that are unpaved, in northern ranges there are a substantial number of days in winter when your community is physically isolated by weather, if you're over 25 years old you can probably remember dialing local phone numbers with only 4 digits, you've never had home mail delivery, high speed Internet is new if it exists at all and available from a limited range of suppliers, you can identify the first day of deer season by the nearby fusillade early that morning.

[Beregond2]

1. Ooops

I voted before I read your definitions. I live in a town of around 40,000, which seems small to me. It's only a mile from an Interstate, but it is fifty miles to the nearest city. None of your definitions fit that.

[RichardRay]

2. That's because...

for folks who live where I live, that looks like a city! I do live in a rural hamlet. The place we go to when we go to a nearby city has a population of < 50,000, and the nearest 'real' city is 5 hours away on the freeway.

I guess that's what I was trying to get at, that the idea of what a small town is and who lives there is so relative to where you live that it's a bit hard to know just who is being talked about when the topic of 'small town America' comes up.

[featherman]

3. Nothing in this campaign has made me angrier than Senator Clinton

attacking a fellow Democrat over the rural Red America truth that God, Guns and Gays have been the wedge issue used to convince my local voters to vote AGAINST THEIR OWN BEST INTERESTS year after year and continuing to elect elitist Republicans who serve the wealthy and Wall Street and screw all of us out here in the hinterlands.

Note: My town is under 600 people in a 60-40 split Red county

[ORDem]

82. The evidence of her disingenuity is the fact that she waited a week (presumably after the focus

groups were done to decide this was an "opening" for her to attack Obama. After the repeated lies from her, her husband, and her campaign overall this "bitter-gate" crap is the limit.

:dem:

[tularetom]

4. i don't live in any town

I can only see one other house from where I live. But it's only about 30 miles from a small city with a fairly good range of services and attractions. And freeway ramps. Our road is a piece of shit but I've driven on it so much I can avoid the potholes with my eyes closed.

[RichardRay]

8. I know what you mean...

I live about 300 vertical feet off the valley floor on a road that's over 15% and steeper than that in places. In the winter it's 4WD Lo in a vehicle with studded radial snows and all four corners and I still walk in several times a season. The snow pack is just starting to rot out now, so it's almost time for mud season to commence in earnest.

[EFerrari]

5. When I lived in Boulder Creek, the pop was 3k. n/t

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. I have a problem with your definitions.

In the mid-west and west there are plenty of town that are under 20,000 which are the largest towns for a hundred miles - they are not 'sub-urban' to anything. Many are the county seats. There are entire counties in the west that have populations of under 10,000. Proximity to an interstate is no basis for judging a town, in parts of the country where you can drive on the interstate for hours and never see a city.

A great many rural small towns exist within 50 miles of small cities in the midwest and west, and they are not suburbs.

Let me guess, are you an easterner? In the SE, where I currently live, population density does tend to match up with your descriptions somewhat better, but get out to Nebraska and it's a whole different ball game.

ON EDIT:
Just read your profile, and the thread responses, and I see you know exactly what I'm saying - but still wonder how you came up with those definitions.

Of course, by MY definition, a town of 40,000+ qualifies as a city.

[RichardRay]

13. Nope, not even close.

I live in a place where a town of 20,000 is the big city; Wyoming is the least populace state in the lower 48. (Nebraska 22.3 per sq mile vs. Wyoming 5.1 per sq mile). My nearby 'town' of 7,000 is the county seat. The valley where I live has that town of 7,000 and a half dozen hamlets. If you leave the valley it's several hours to the next population center of more than 500. The population of the entire state is around 450,000.

I may have done a bad job of selecting my definitions, but what I was trying to come up with is some buckets that included what I consider truly rural, small town life. From my house to the nearest freeway on ramp where I can can start driving to a big city is about 120 miles - it's five hours beyond that to the city. People where I live make that drive to shop.

It just seems like a lot of folks think a 'small town' is one beyond the ned of city bus service.

[WyLoochka]

34. We consider our WY town a small "city"

With a population of around 9000. It's huge compared to the other burgs around. Closest freeway (an Interstate) - 2 hour drive into the next state.

Not a really "religious" place - although there are a sufficient number of churches, but I would guestimate 80% have guns.

Lots of people have to and do work two jobs, neither with any benefits - particularly single women. Good public schools here though. Many young people end up having to leave in order to pursue a "career" track. As a result, we have a disproportionate percentage of elderly folks.

Our "city" is the county seat. Our County went 62% Obama to 38% Clinton. Our experience is that the MSM meme that older, rural, "white" Democrats won't support Obama is dead wrong.

But we do see - mostly because of the fucking "gun" wedge - in spite of all the lack of opportunity for moving forward economically speaking - and the bitterness because of it - the Repukes outnumber us Dems 8:1.

People here DO vote against their own economic interests, largely over one issue. Is that stupid? Hell yes, and I tell them so when they whine and complain about things like not having health coverage or good job opportunities for their kids. "Quit yer bellyachin' and smarten up - stop voting for Republicans who will fight to the death to keep this a "right to work state" where employers can exploit workers and provide no benefits."

[baldguy]

15. Different states have different definitions.

In NY the terms "hamlet", "village", "town" & "city" are designations granted by the legislature and have no regard for the size of the community. Buffalo at 300,000, Jamestown at 30,000 and the City of Tonawanda at 16,000 are all defined as "cities".

[Lone_Star_Dem]

7. I currently live in a Rural Small Town

We're not even officially a town but rather an unincorporated village in our county. We have between 4-5K people living here and are over 50 miles from a freeway on ramp.

[debbierlus]

9. I never know what to define my town as...

It has 4,000 to 5,000 citizens, so I guess it is small but not super small.

It is flanked by towns with populations up to 45,000 (the largest) to much smaller numbers.

What is that? Not rural and not really suburban.

?

[baldguy]

10. I grew up in a town in NY with more cows than people.

My dad still lives there. The race there is between McCain & Obama, and Obama wins. Hillary isn't even a consideration.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. My hamlet has 800 people

My township has 3200 people. There is no traffic light anywhere in my township, we don't have home delivery of mail, but we live 25 miles away from a freeway ramp. I don't think I fit in your categories because damn if I would call this place the suburbs. I would accept Rural Small Town I suppose to avoid being argumentitive :)

[ImpeechBush]

12. A freeway on ramp makes an area urban?

Certainly makes it less remote, but I'm not sure it changes the rural character of an area.

[RichardRay]

18. Proximity to an on ramp

is access to the line haul. A person or business can order something that has to come in by semi and the driver has an easy time of it. I don't think an area is truly rural if its commerce is transported on the line haul.

In order for a semi to get to my town the driver has to get off the freeway, drive for over 100 miles and get over two passes over 8,000 feet with grades of 10% and better. He can avoid the passes by driving an extra 50 miles on a very twisty 2-lane road along a river canyon. In the winter it may take a few extra days to even be able to try to get here. That's off the line haul :-).

[JimGinPA]

25. I Live 1/2 Mile From A Highway Ramp And 10 Miles From The PA Turnpike...

And I have 100's of buggies drive past my house every week. A lot of small rural towns are near highways.

[amandabeech]

75. My hometown is an exit on a freeway.

Not a lot of the long haul trucks bring goods in except in the summer, when the local population swells from migrant farm laborers and tourists, and small trucks can't keep the Viking and the IGA full.

Trucks haul out quite a bit of the locally-grown fruit and vegetables once they are processed, because the railroad pulled out 20 years ago. There hasn't been a movie theater since 1965, and you can't buy a New York Times or anything other than the latest version of Boone's Farm.

There's cell phone service, but only along the freeway. Lots of people love the net, but most have dial-up connections still, so they're able to keep up on what's going on out there.

My town is the largest in the county at 2,000 and holding, and is the county seat.

Believe me, it is as rural as the towns that Obama is talking about.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. I lived in a town of 20,000 that wasn't a suburb.

I also lived in a town of 10,000 that was right on a freeway.

Your options are too limited.

[RichardRay]

20. In the places that I think of as rural

a town of 20,000 isn't a suburb, it has suburbs. 20,000 is a city. As to 10,000 on a freeway, see my other post re proximity to the line haul.

[proud2BlibKansan]

45. My town didn't have suburbs

But it was definitely a small town.

[Mother Of Four]

16. I can't answer this poll really-

Moved here to NC - Lived in a town of 581 for a year and a half. Then bought a home in a town of less than 5k, and have been here for 4.5 years. However, it's about 15-20 miles from I-40.

[crispini]

17. I'm not sure I agree with your definitions entirely.

All of my family is from a 'rural hamlet' and I returned there every summer. However, we were certainly not more than 100 miles to a freeway on ramp; more like 30 miles. The rural South is a bit more thickly populated than that. People may live out in the woods, but there's always a good sized town just a piece down the road. We were about an hour to Jacksonville, a good sized city. I lived with my grandmother three months every summer, and I still return there every couple of years. Yes, the directions to some folks' house include "turn onto the dirt road." Home mail delivery typically is to "rural route" addresses. High speed is available in town, but not out in the boonies. And, yes, most of my cousins were hunters and would typically go out to bag a deer. I have no problem with that; they would always eat what they killed.

[Speck Tater]

19. What the heck is a "hamlet"?

I live in a rural small town with a population of about 900 to 1,000. It's within 10 miles of a city of 150,000 but it's a purely farming community so it's not a suburb. What would you call that?

[AllentownJake]

22. OP

Must be from the NE because that's the only places we have Hamlets. In PA I think we call them villages.

[RichardRay]

26. Wyoming...

We call them towns, but our cities only have 10,000 to 20,000 people in them. I was using hamlet to mean a place with a store, a post office and a bar...

[Speck Tater]

33. Close, but still doesn't fit.

We have a population of 950 or so, so that fits "hamlet", but we are right on the freeway and have a truck stop, a store, a post office (in the back of the store) a Grange hall, and a church.

I can think of a dozen towns along I5 in California and Oregon that are similar in size and makeup. Here are a few in Oregon, including my own town.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Oregon3.html

[RichardRay]

23. In terms of oppotunity and culture?

I'd call it a suburb.

The nearest collection of dwellings to where I live is 150 people. There's general store (bread, milk, coffee, canoes, Carhartt's & Sorel's, western shirts, long gun ammo, motor oil, hand tools), a roadhouse bar/restaurant and a doctor's office. 12 miles to a town of 7,000 with a hospital. Because of the ski area the town has some nice restaurants and galleries, but they're closed when there's no tourists coming through.

[Frank Booth]

28. I'd say Wilson is actually somewhat culturally unisolated for

Wyoming, given the proximity to Jackson and Idaho Falls. Didn't Teton County go for Kerry in 2004?

I grew up in a different part of the state, which is about as rural as you can get in terms of culture and population.

[RichardRay]

30. Yep, Wilson is not culturally like other parts of the state

but it's still pretty rural. Idaho Falls is 110 miles over Teton Pass and Pine Creek pass. I don't go over there once a year unless I'm passing through on my way out of the valley headed west. Jackson is only 7,000 people. More restaurants than a town of 7,000 needs, but they're closed when the tourists aren't around.

Teton County went for Kerry in the last GE and dependably sends D's to the state legislature in a state where that's pretty much local political suicide (hard to get much done).

I know what you mean about other parts of the state - I smear a little extra mud over the 22 on my plates when I travel up into the northeast corner.

[Frank Booth]

41. Yeah, just about anywhere in Wyoming is more rural than almost any other part

of the country. People think I'm joking when I tell them that if my family wanted to go to a mall, the closest one was a 2 1/2 hour drive away.

[Speck Tater]

37. I think of suburb as a dwelling place for city workers.

Sure, I'm close to town, but the people who live here work their farms here. It's not rows of ticky-tacky houses in a development, it's individual houses and barns on very large individual plots of land, and all of my neighbors own tractors. Somehow a tractor jockey in bib overalls and high rubber boots man-handing lengths of irrigation pipe around his corn field doesn't fit my image of a suburbanite.

[stillcool]

21. I've lived in lots of places...

Boston the biggest, Kunkletown, and Bushkill the smallest. People have been people wherever I have lived.

[MichiganVote]

24. I fail to see what access toa freeway ramp has to do w/whether a town is small.

I happen to live in an area that has a freeway ramp about every 10 miles. But there are small towns dotted up and down this corrider.

[RichardRay]

29. Proximity to the line haul

I think that point is starting to take shape as a nice distinction between 'small town' and 'rural'. I see isolation from a freeway on ramp and as very possibily a categorical neccestity for rural. If you're on the free way you have access to the line haul and your opporutunity and culture are tied to the ends of the line haul. If you're 'rural' you're isolated from the line haul and your culture and opportunities are turned inwards, away from the line haul terminus.

So, there are 'small towns' that are not rural, and rural towns that are not small, a rural communities that aren't even towns (my 'hamlets').

[crispini]

32. I think you overestimate the opportunity and culture that the 'line haul' brings.

Sure, you can get more stuff, and you can get more stuff shipped in. That's pretty much it. It doesn't mean more jobs, better restaurants, cultural opportunities, or anything else. :shrug:

[RichardRay]

40. I guess I'm looking at it from the other side...

in terms of what isolation from the line haul pretty much completely precludes.

[crispini]

43. It precludes "stuff," yes,

what else, in your experience, does it mean to you?

Edited to add -- esp. with the price of gas these days, you can't just regularly jump on the high way and drive an hour for a somewhat less substandard job, but still substandard. It rapidly becomes not so cost effective to drive even medium (50 miles?) distances for economic opportunity.

[RichardRay]

57. Any opportunity-providing activity

that requires access to raw materials or markets needs to be close to the line haul - either physical or virtual. The valley where I live has a single circuit connecting us to the outside world. Last year Qwest put in glass, but it's still just the one; it's 190 miles long to the backbone. When it gets cut there's no voice or data in or out; none. There was one period of 3 days and two of 1 day like that this winter. No phone (cell or landline, no data, no online transaction processing, no credit approvals, no loan processing, no banking transfers, etc., etc.) Opportunities go elsewhere in the face of those realities.

So, a place off the line haul is pretty much relegated to resource harvesting, and even then there's the issue of getting it to market. Wyoming has great natural gas resources but the market prefers gas shipped from overseas since it gets to the distribution centers more cheaply than we can get ours there.

We are NOT the god-forsaken wilderness - people live here and have communities and families - but from other posters in this thread I'm starting to get the idea that maybe we're not 'small town' or 'rural' in the same sense others might be.

[crispini]

61. Okay, virtual I get you. I'll agree there.

But, like I said, with the price of gas the way it is, the "freeway on-ramp" is not so much anymore, IMO. My cousin had a good job an hour's drive away, but the cost of gas and the commute forced him to take a cheaper job closer to home; he actually came out ahead that way. A daily haul even 30 miles away -- which is nothing in that area -- can be pretty spendy nowadays. On the other hand they can get cable and broadband internet pretty easily.

I think there's another factor we're talking about here and that's "remote." And, I'll add, physical and virtual.

Edited to add -- but for the purposes of the original discussion, I think, which is whether or not people "get" the small town culture, hunting for food and suchlike, the offramp is not as much of a factor as the smallness and countryness of it, which I think everyone here is sort of getting.

[RichardRay]

65. Price of gas (diesel!) is important, but...

everything that comes into or out of my valley does so by truck. There is no rail closer than Idaho Falls, 110 miles away. I think that it's still true that the overwhelming bulk of the commericial transport in this country moves via truck on the interstate system. That may change as we are forced to return to and improve rail transport and isolate commercial activity near sea ports, but if that happens it will mean even a further reduction in the distribution of opportunity and options as more places become more isolated.

And so, more opportunities for communities to become 'bitter' and turn inward. Which is where I was going with all this, any way. I see Senator Obama's statement (the actual contextual meaning, not the sound bite excerpt) as just another example of his tendency to tell the truth and then have to defend against faux outrage driven by political expediency.

[MichiganVote]

44. Not so sure that is really definitive of a rural area

Rural areas seem to me to be settled places outside towns and cities. Population, links with public services or use of mass transportation are what I usually think of when distinguishing rural from urban. Nearness to agriculture or references to 'living in the countryside' also strike me as rural. Descriptions such as holler, outback, American Old West or wilderness may be what you're thinking of.

Today rural areas can also mean areas that are characterized by economies based on logging, mining, petroleum and natural gas exploration, wind or solar power or tourism. May also be used to market a particular locale separate and apart from any modern links or contrivances.

In the small towns that surround my home, there is a particular culture to each. But they are not isolated from each other or from larger cities. Yet in these areas inhabitants during the summer depend on local agriculture for many of their food items.

So I don't know....seems the nature of the word is changing even as the nature of the inhabitated areas are changing. Some states and municipalities more than others.

[ecstatic]

27. Nope. Never have, NEVER will.

Unless I'm forced to in a post-apocalypse world or something :)

[davsand]

31. Our town has maybe 200 people on a good day.

I go to the post office to get my mail and internet out here is either dial up or line of sight or a sat--DSL is just not in the plans. We have sat dish for our TV because the local cable is about ten channels of home shopping, ten God channels and FOX news. Forget about anything like IFC, CNN, MSNBC, Bravo, or even Discovery...

My kid goes to a school that has 25 kids in her 5th grade class, with that being divided into two classrooms. Our local kids' test scores are some of the highest in the state, and it is not just because they "teach to the test."

I can be on Lake Shore Drive in about 2.5 hours, and I can be in downtown Indianapolis, or downtown St Louis in about the same amount of time. I drive about 40 miles RT every day to my office in the county seat and we DO actually have paved roads to drive on.

We have an interstate to drive on, and we live in the same county as a Big Ten university. My family regularly goes to events at the university (today is Brain Day--the open house for the neuropsych dept, in fact) and we actually wear shoes and have indoor plumbing.

My husband and I have both been active in local politics and with Labor, and as a result we probably have a bit wider circle of contacts than some folks living out here do. (Our daughter was quite the hit when her Black History project last year included photos and news coverage of her with both Obama AND Michelle.)

I grew up here, left to go to college, and we chose to move back for the well being of our daughter. You can call us "hicks' if you dare.

Yeah, I know about small town life.



Laura

[cali]

35. sorry, the "freeway"

ramp thing is ridiculous. It kept me from voting in your poll. I live in a rural village in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom of about 200 people, on a dirt road. I live approximately 30 miles from the nearest Rt. 91 access. And the Kingdom is rural by any definition- except your bizarre one.

[bicentennial_baby]

36. Agreed

I spent most of my life in either a town with under 1000 people or under 20,000, both smack in the middle of a pretty rural area. Rt 91 runs through the latter, and is about 10 min from the former. That being said, I definitely understand small town life and people.

[cali]

39. I think it's a western thing

westerners who haven't been in Northern NY, VT, ME or NH, don't understand how really rural these places are- until they actually come here. There is no town in the Kingdom over 5,000 people. Hell, our capitol only has about 8,000.

[RichardRay]

47. I lived and worked in Vermont in the late 60's &early 70's

Currently:

Vermont has a population of about 609,000 people in 9,620 square miles for a density of about 66 people per square mile. It's 80 miles wide and 160 miles long.

Wyoming has a population of 523,000 in 97,818 square miles, 5 people per square mile. It's 280 miles wide and 360 miles long. We have lots of places where you can travel the same distance as the entire north south extent of Vermont and never see a building, a person, a car or an inch of paved road.

If Vermont had Wyoming's populatin density you'd have a state population about equal to the folks who live in Essex and Colchester and nobody else. If Wyoming had Vermont's population density we'd have a state of 6.5 million people.

So, if I give you rural and your town as small, what does that leave us? Godforsaken wilderness?

:-)

I think it's an Eastern thing; if you've never lived in the West you don't really know how far apart things can really be in this country.

[Blue_In_AK]

51. I'll go you one better...

Alaska has 1.2 people per square mile, and a lot of people in the state don't live near ANY road. You have to fly or travel by river to get to the thousands of Native villages in rural Alaska, as well as our capital, the major metropolis of Juneau, which has a population of 30,000.

Anchorage is the only "really" urban city in the whole state.

[cali]

52. oh, but I've travelled extensively in the west,, dear

Lived outside of Durango, CO for 4 months. I know rural. It's not about my town being small. It's about what people do here. Within a mile of my house, are several small dairy farms. There are more cows than people in my village. Lots of people who work in the woods. Just because you know Essex and Colchester- 2 hours from where I live- doesn't mean you have a clue. Rural life is not relegated to Wyoming. Some of the poorest rural areas in the country are still in Appalachia. But according to the all knowing you, they aren't really rural because they may be 40 miles or *gasp* closer to the highway. What a crock of shit.

[RichardRay]

38. BIzarre only for your situation...

I know that you feel isolated up there, but when was the last time you couldn't have gotten down to Boston for a week because of road closures? Not that you didn't want to do it, but when you just flat couldn't (at least without snowshoes or a sled)?

The freeway proximity thing is starting to show as a litmus test. Folks from the east who consider themselves 'rural' are more likely to have relatively easy access to urban opportunities and resources while western 'rural' tends to be more isolated. We still have teachers who live in with a family at a ranch house through the winter so the kids from the 75 mile radius around can board in and get an education. That's probably a bit extreme, but their parents haul them over and back on a sled twice the distance you are from Rt. 91.

So, if you're rural, what are they?

[cali]

42. western snobbery

no tony galleries here where I am. No supermarket chain store in a twenty mile radius. And there were at least 10 days this winter where I couldn't get out to the highway. My kid attended at one room school house for a year when I lived in an even remoter part of the Kingdom. I lived without electricity or running water for three years. Because there's more land out there doesn't make it more rural. Your silly litmus test isn't one that anyone else uses. You simply pulled it out of your ass.

As for the parents you speak of, they're rural too, but they aren't more rural, genius. I've been to your part of the country, so I know whereof I speak. Someone from Alaska could say that you don't really live in a rural area because they have to travel twice as far as YOU to get to a highway. Your specification is wholly arbitrary. I've been to rural communities in Hawaii and rural communities in NJ. There are very few states that don't have rural areas.

[RichardRay]

49. and I've wintered over in Antartica....

so if we want to play credentials here I think I'll win. If I was somehow coming across as attacking you in some way I apologize.

Isolation is a cultural issue. What I was trying to get at was the degree to which 'rural small town' means 'has different issues from issues areas with lots of people and businesses'. Since I think of a freeway as a conduit through which commerce and people can move I see having one as reducing isolation and being far away from one as likely contributing to isolation. When I feel threatened (econmomically, culturally, whatever) part of my reaction to that threat will depend on my sense of isolation; the more isolated I am the more likely I will be to turn inwards (to 'cling') while those living in a more widely connected community will be more able to reach out for safety.

As for Alaska, there are vast expanses up there that make no claim to 'rural', it's just plain unpopulated wilderness. Differnent issue; the folks who live there aren't part of a 'community' in the same sense I'm trying to get to.

[Blue_In_AK]

56. There are more people out there in the "unpopulated wilderness"

than you may think. There are little Native villages all up and down the major rivers up here. I've lived here for 35 years and every once in a while I'll run across the name of some village I've never heard of before...Utukakarvik? Paingakmeut? Chuathbaluk (that one's actually got an airport). :)

[RichardRay]

59. Totally agree

I paddled a kayak from Seattle to Juneau up the Inside Passage. I stopped in a lot of places that I'd put way outside of the 'rural' and 'small town' category. As far as airports go, my experience is that a really large number of Alaskans outside of the cities have an 'airport'; it's the strip of more or less flat ground or the piece of water where they land :-). There are some planes flying around in Alaska that look a lot like airborne versions of a lot of the cars in Wyoming. Thank god the pilots know what they're doing!

[Blue_In_AK]

63. You're so right about the pilots...

Duct tape is their friend. :) I know about those little landing strips. My brother lived over in Beluga for a while ... the airport over there was gravel bar with what looked like a coffee kiosk at one end.

[cali]

58. read trhe title of your thread.

You're actually saying that no one who doesn't live in a rural hamlet 100+ miles from a highway, can't understand rural life. And yes, your posts in this thread make it clear that that's what you're saying. That's patently absurd. I've been in rural areas of many states, and they all have more in common than not. It's just nonsense to claim that an area is only rural if it's a hundred miles from a highway. Find anything credible to back up your claim, and then we'll talk. I've never seen any definition of rural like the one you just made up.

[RichardRay]

60. The title of the thread says...

"I know..." by which I meant to suggest that the person selecting an option from the poll believed that he or she knows based on their (your) selection. In my case, yes, I believe I know something about it based on my residence. I was not trying to suggest that other's might not know something based on their own situation.

From there the discussion wandered into an attempt to analyze whiter my criteria were appropriated, especially the freeway on ramp part. I see access to the alternatives for culture and livelihood as being strongly influenced by ease of interaction with the outside world and I see most of that coming from the commerce that moves by roads - thus the freeway idea.

In any event, I seem to hav offended you. While I am perfectly willing to unapologetically offend people I prefer to do it on purpose rather than by accident. In this case it was accidental, and I beg your pardon for my offences!

Peace, namaste'.

[Blue_In_AK]

53. Hey, someone from Alaska DID just say that...

:rofl:

[kevsand]

50. davsand already explained most of our situation above.

We're only five miles from an interstate off ramp, but there are regularly about a half dozen days every winter when it is impossible for us to get out of the village without a snowmobile because the snow and/or ice has made the county and state roads impassible.

The interstate proximity is an independent variable that measures something altogether different from what you intended, I think. Perhaps what you are really looking for is the difference between rural areas and wilderness.

[Jed Dilligan]

46. Irrelevant categories

None of the places encompassed by your types have had industry since the nineteenth century, since none are on the railroad (apparently). When Obama says small towns he must be talking about places with up to 75,000 that are on the transportation grid.

[Blue_In_AK]

48. I lived on the west side of Marin County

off Highway 1 for a few years in the early '70s, so although it was close to SF, it seemed very isolated. I also lived in a tiny town in the lower Sierras, on a commune in Southern Oregon and in a tipi in the Panamint Mountains. I spent the first seven years of my life on a small farm in Southwest Ohio with no indoor plumbing. My uncles used to hunt squirrels and rabbits, and we ate them, and my mother "put up" vegetables from our garden. I don't remember us ever going to a grocery store when I was little.

Now I live in the big city of Anchorage, but there's lots of rural around here, for sure.

[JitterbugPerfume]

54. my hometown

has the most closeminded,prejudiced, fundy, gossipy "holier than thou" people on earth.

[bain_sidhe]

55. Can't vote because I don't agree with your definitions

I grew up in a small farming community. Pop. about 8000. But we were only about ten miles from the free way, and some of the people living there worked in one of the bigger towns, but most farmed. There were several other small towns around there too, all about the same population. It was small-town rural, it was farm country, but it doesn't fit your definitions.

An example of "small town" living: When I went to college, I made some friends from the big city of Detroit. I invited them to come up to visit for Sunday dinner once. They drove up, got turned around, and ended up in town (my folks live about ten miles out of town). This was before our town got the light at the main intersection that changes colors instead of blinking.

They stopped at the gas-station/frigidare dealer/insurance sales office (the only thing open), and asked for our address. The guy hemmed and hawed and scratched his head, then said "well, who are you looking for?" They told him my name, and he said, "Oh, yeah, Don's daughter. Well, you..." and proceded to give them directions to get to my folk's house.

THAT'S a small rural town. But, again, it doesn't fit any of your definitions.

[RichardRay]

62. I know what you mean...

in the local phone book there are people's addresses listed as 'the first right after the big boulder with the chunk of of the right side'.

I'm getting a lot of feedback that the access issue doesn't contribute to the 'rural' or 'small town' character of a place. I see it as an issue since without access to markets and resources the opportunity available in a community is limited. People who live in communities with limited opportunity are likely to get scared more quickly that those who can see ways out.

But, maybe I picked a bad variable to predict that. I know that where I live it's so, but maybe it's not generally applicable.

[bain_sidhe]

64. Exactly

Well, we didn't have the "first left after the boulder" But we had a "Rural Route 2" address at the post office for much of my childhood. But we were close enough to "big cities" (our town was about halfway between Flint and Saginaw) so that some people living there worked in the factories. But the bulk of the residents farmed or worked in local businesses. And "local" might be the next town over, rather than our own town.

At least in Michigan, the villages were dotted all over the mid-state area. Each was established about a days walk from the other, but of course, with cars, they were much closer. So, I and both my sisters worked in the next town over in summers.

So, yes, opportunities were limited, but not as much as you imply with your "access" variable.

[BlooInBloo]

66. Well the poll doesn't support your hypothesis...

.... But you're always free to claim that anonymous poll participants are largely lying. It's always good to have a backup claim that can be proven wrong.

[RichardRay]

67. Seems like it...

It would appear that the majority of participants in DU's primary discussions are rural folks or those with substantial rural background. It seems to me that a lot of the posts I've seen here on the 'bitterness' topic miss that reality of what I see as the experience of the people Senator Obama was talking about in S.F. I'd have guessed that GD:P was more urban/academic....

(Not what I'd have guessed, and I'm not certain I'm convinced by this sample, either!)

[BlooInBloo]

68. It's funny when ppl accept the results of THEIR OWN test only when it gives the result they wanted.

[RichardRay]

70. Did I say that?

I said I wasn't sure that the sample was valid, and that I would have expected more of DU to be urban and academic. I didn't say that I rejected the results of the question.

If you've got assumptions about who I am or what I believe I can almost guarantee that they're incorrect :-). Were there questions you wanted to ask?

[BlooInBloo]

72. Nope - you certainly did not use those exact words...

... One still wonders if your response would be equally skeptical about the poll, had the results *agreed* with your hypothesis. Naturally, I can't *prove* that it wouldn't have been.

[RichardRay]

74. No, it wouldn't have been as skeptical about the conclusion

because it would have agreed with my original hypothesis, so of course my prejudices would have come into play. I promise you, though, that I would have still been as skeptical as to the methodology and accuracy of the poll. I promise I'd have put no more credence in the poll's support of my original hypothesis than I do it it's lack thereof. Anybody who thinks that a poll taken at GD:P in which the questions were written in 10 minutes is anything other than a wild flail would certainly be fooling themselves. I don't do that.

Is there something you're trying to get at, here?

[BlooInBloo]

76. Nothing more than I already have - thanks!

[tokenlib]

69. I live in one of the poorest counties in Michigan--and guess what?

A lot of people take refuge in God and guns. I know people who have had to use their guns to supplement the food budget. There are no new jobs except the "Wal-Mart" type. Barack spoke the truth, though he expressed it rather clumsily.

Of course then again, some people are insulted by the truth being told about them. Especially when Hillary and others twist the words and lie--Hillary knows damn well Barack is not an "elitist." Barack needs to seize the bitterness and anger to let these people know that he is on their side. Like he did Friday night!

Damn the media and CNN for failing to show that clip.

[Kaleva]

71. So do I

The most common jobs around here are minimum wage types such as working at a gas station, Family Dollar store or something similiar. The big news in these parts is that a Pamida store is opening up and many people have applied for there for a job.

[RichardRay]

73. PAMIDA!?!

There were Pamida stores in Wyoming, but they closed the last jof them around here years ago. There might be some left, but I haven't see one that I can remember. Are they still around in Michigan? The rest of the mid-West? Are they competing successfully with WalMart, KMart, Target, etc.?

[tokenlib]

78. Pamida survives in small towns where the others haven't reached...n/t

[2rth2pwr]

77. Because Obama told me all about them.

[RichardRay]

80. One track much?

What's it like having an entire world view that revolves around looking for opportunities to score points in the game you're playing?

[2rth2pwr]

83. Typical white person.

[RichardRay]

85. I think I've finally figured out the high post count thing...

It has nothing to do with whether or not the posts counted have any content! Sheesh, I'm slow!

[2rth2pwr]

86. You sound bitter.

[NutmegYankee]

79. Bad Poll.

The entire Eastern half of Connecticut is considered rural, but is never more than 20 miles from a highway. The state is just too small. That said, there are countless small towns with the classic rural New England feel.

[crankychatter]

81. There are competing Grave Monument Engravers at the Main Intersection of Town

kitty corner from one another in abandoned car dealerships

This is a symbol to me...

even Walmart is fifty-five miles from here

Including the urban centers in Kansas, only 4% of the population is between the ages of 18 and 24... (someone told me that... don't quote me)

They finish school and they leave, never to return.

[Donna Zen]

84. Rural

Six hundred people...although I'm not sure if that count is year 'round residence. We lost our last manufacturing job in May when the remaining plant closed. The nearest town has 59 people. Technically we are classified as a frontier community. People where I live hate government and do not trust them at all. Last summer someone painted a two story "Jesus Tree" on a building along the main street.