Editor’s note: This piece is part of a series of Community Voices essays related to the urban-rural divide ahead of Lisa Pruitt’s speech at the Westminster Town Hall Forum on Tuesday, Oct. 25. Want to weigh in on the discussion? You can submit a Community Voices piece (instructions here) or fill out our form asking both Greater Minnesota and Twin Cities residents to share what’s driving their votes this election.
Election Day has always held wonders for me. I grew up in southern Minnesota going to our local township hall with my parents. I vividly remember the woodburning stove and wondering what was going on behind those pink curtains that were pulled shut for a few minutes at a time. All our neighbors were there, everyone was chatty, talking about the weather and the crops. We knew all our neighbors. We even knew who they would be voting for. There wasn’t much anonymity.
Fast forward 40 years to another Election Day, this time in Alexandria, Virginia, where work had brought me for several years. Again, I’m in line, waiting to cast my ballot in an election. I was curious. What would elections be like in a large urban area? Would it be exciting? Would there be conflict?
When I found the elementary school where I would be voting, I was greeted with a long, winding line. At first, I was annoyed with the wait, but then I put it in perspective: It was encouraging to see so many people wanting to cast their ballot and be involved in choosing our leaders. I had no clue who the people around me were, but they were my neighbors. It was the same excitement and positive energy I saw in Freedom Township. We were all happy to be there casting our ballots. Both rural and urban places exhibited community, but in different ways unique to their place.
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” – Dr. Stephen Covey, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
Yes, there are differences between rural and urban populations. But rural is not the opposite of urban.
In fact, both places have more in common than most people realize. The differences come in the details. As the CEO of the Center for Rural Policy & Development, my job is to help show that policies made for the Twin Cities suburb of Robbinsdale might not work in western Minnesota’s Redwood Falls and vice versa, and that’s because they’re different. Different demographics, population density, incomes, tax base, industries, the list goes on.
Take health care. We all want access to quality health care, but a person without a car in the suburb of Brooklyn Center might be trying to figure out how to use public transportation to get to a medical appointment, while in Askov that same carless individual is looking for a ride from a neighbor or friend. Uber doesn’t exist in a lot of rural areas yet, taxis are expensive, and public transit is hard to come by, especially when your appointment is 50 miles away.
Today, we’re all quick to judge one another without really seeking to understand a person or situation. We make quick generalizations and label the person with a different experience or different views as “bad.” I do it, too. It’s not something I’m proud of, and I try to work on it every day.
We need the desire to understand people from different lived experiences and points of view. We need to embrace the nuances and differences in our population. It’s the only way forward, in my mind.
[image_caption]Julie Tesch[/image_caption]Most people have not had the chance like I have to live and vote in both urban and rural areas. Having that lived experience, I can honestly say that there is not an urban-rural divide. There is an urban-rural misunderstanding. Rural residents can’t possibly know how policies will truly affect residents in Minneapolis when they have never lived there, just like Minneapolis residents can’t understand how policy will affect the people in my town of 200.
What do I wish voters in the Twin Cities understood about life in Greater Minnesota and the issues driving my voting choices? I wish that urban voters understood that life in Greater Minnesota is not wrong or bad, it’s unique. I also wish the same for my rural counterparts when understanding urban voters. One area is not right or wrong, it’s just made up of people with different lived experiences, and that affects our voting choices.
Having lived equal parts of my life in urban settings and rural settings makes me believe that we need to learn to understand one another. I’m not suggesting that rural people become experts in urban policy or vice versa, but let’s not take the easy road and just assume that anything or anyone different is wrong and that we have to live with some hopeless, impossible divide.
Let’s look for decision makers who are willing to put in the hard work to create policies that work for both urban and rural, so that this perceived urban-rural divide goes away. Both rural and urban are valuable, and both make a difference in Minnesota. Let’s do the hard work and learn to appreciate our nuances. We may not know each other, but we’re all neighbors.
Julie Tesch is the president and CEO of the Minnesota-based Center for Rural Policy and Development.
I think that many more urban/suburban voters DO understand what drives the votes of rural voters. Many of us grew up in rural areas (including myself and several other commenters here). The opposite may also be true, but to a much smaller extent.
Much of the divide is driven by rural voters, by the way, based on the choices they make in leadership. To be fair, people seeking positions of power prey on the emotions of rural voters to direct negative emotions towards urban voters.
Still, no one can MAKE you feel any certain way. The fact of the matter is that urban voters don’t look politicians who are going to stick it to rural voters (hell, most urban voters don’t give rural voters a thought, let alone spite them), but rural voters DO vote for politicians whose message is exactly that toward urban voters. As a result, those politicians have no incentive to actually get anything done – for anyone, including their own constituents. Because if no one has anything to be angry about, you can’t run on grievance. That didn’t used to be the case. Just because urban voters outnumber rural voters doesn’t mean that rural voters can’t benefit from decisions made in the capitol.
In fact, rural voters DO benefit disproportionately from the policies that urban politicians propose. For every dollar a rural voter sends to the state government in MN, they get more than a dollar back in services and infrastructure (services and infrastructure they would rather not do without, by the way). The opposite is true for urban voters. Paying state taxes is a money-losing game for us.
Yet, rural voters will tell you that I’ve got things mixed up. They believe that the cities are getting all their money, which is patently untrue. Yes, rural voters could use some infrastructure they don’t have (top of mind is reliable, high-speed internet – of course, I could use that too), but maybe they should be electing representatives who are interested in actually making that happen rather than just being contrarians.
But there are some things that rural voters are simply going to have to accept because of geography. If you don’t have a car in a rural area, you WILL have challenges that someone in an urban area won’t have because of where you live. On the other hand, if you live in an urban area without a car, while you might be able to get transportation, you are also more likely to have long term exposure to poor air quality – and the long term health consequences it brings – because of where you live.
Where you live might not always be a choice (though, it is a choice for many), but there are simply different challenges that must be addressed in different ways. I suspect that many urban voters would be in favor of using tax dollars to help fund a medical mobility service for those who need transportation to a doctor, but very few rural voters would support public funding of something similar in an urban area (let alone try to tackle the environmental issues surrounding ubiquitous car use that causes illness in a lot of urban residents).
Ultimately, the rural-urban divide is fabricated by politicians. But not out of nothing. Rural voters are open to making decisions to spite urban voters without actually holding their representatives accountable for not getting anything else done. Perhaps this is out of lack of exposure to “the other side” on their part. But don’t assume that the same holds true for urban voters. It really isn’t “both sides.” We are already electing leaders who aren’t running against rural residents.
Well-written and accurate depiction of a common problem that politicians use to their own advantage. It is probably surprising to many rural Minnesotans that you were right on the nose when you said, “most urban voters don’t give rural voters a thought, let alone spite them”. Most voters are only concerned with legislation that will impact them and spend little time considering how the same legislation might impact someone in a different situation.
This is a much better comment on the “urban-rural divide” than either of the columns you’re reponding to. Thanks.
So far the take away from this series is what? “Why can’t we just all get along?” How’s about someone actually dig into the real and gaping chasm of opinion between residents of rural and urban areas and not just pretend they’re just some artifice of perception? The rural/urban divide is real, not because people just want to argue, but because there are two competing visions of reality, one that is accurate, and one that is imaginary. Pretending that such an insurmountable divide can be papered over with polite words and Pollyannish optimism is demeaning, both to our intelligence, and as to the seriousness of the situation we face as a society.
I think someone miscalculated the response to this series, if the unusually quick shuffle of these articles off the main page is any indication.
For more than six years now, since Donald Trump began his reign over public opinion and his misreign over the United States government, those of us who see his words and actions as pernicious and anti-democratic (small “d”) have been told to “try to understand the rural [aka, the Trump] voter.” We are told we should not call them out as ignorant or biased or prone to violence; we should bow to their erstwhile authenticity and see them as good people who wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less a city-dweller who might be Black or Native American or Latino.
Those rural voters, who are for the most part today Trump voters and “election deniers” who claim falsely that Trump won in 2020, are never instructed to try to understand Americans who live in urban areas. The divide is caused by one side: the rural, who have become the right. City people don’t bash the rurals, as a general rule.
But right-wing rural voters routinely disdain and insult and argue against the very nature and existence of Americans who live in cities, all of whom rurals believe are either vicious criminals or victims of crime waves unimaginable in rural areas. Rural people tend to rant against cities–and they know they do.
They’re scared, of changes and losing status. That’s why they vote for right-wing politicians who play to their fears and prejudices. And a lot of this fear has been fed them–let’s remember that many rural people rightly saw their economic interests as more important than cultural issues, and they voted Democratic for their economic interests. Now they’re all frightened of LBGTQ people and of knowing our racial history and of women being autonomous beings who decide over their own bodies and health.
When rural people make sincere attempts to “try to understand the American city,” I’ll have more tolerance for PR and academic advocates for rural populations who are, somehow, so grossly misunderstood.
Well Constance, it appears you struck a tune: It seems we have not a rural vs urban but red vs blue, MAGA/conservative vs left divide. (I use left because many folks are not in that progressive ultra left world. And you strike at some of the key points, I have never heard lefties say they want to own the conservatives, have heard a lot of MAGA folks say they want to own the libs? I remember Pawlenty literally cursing about the tax and spend crazy liberals. To another point down the list here, We elected Arnie (a republican) with ~ 63% of the vote, not even endorsed as a standing governor by his own party, did they get the point that they may be drifting to radical? So to your point, the rural urban divide as other have stated for the most part, is a political creation getting worse as the right wing gets further (ultra right wing) from a changing world reality. This does not bode well for “We the people” and more than ever its looking more like we the sane people. Who is doing there best to “form a more perfect union”, who is doing there best to drive permanent hateful wedges?
https://www.thestranger.com/news/2004/11/11/19813/the-urban-archipelago
This is an oldie but a goodie, and at least as sensible.
I find these comments comically obtuse when the commentor claims the divide is all due to the rural side, and then proceed to exclaim the hicks are too stewpid to know whats good for them.
That, along with the assumption that the rural voter is one monolithic demographic demonstrates the utter lack of awareness
Going to UMD, and this was eons ago, however going there got me away from the Twin Cities where I grew up, and returned to.
I met many fine other students there from all around the state. However one thing in conversations ALWAYS stood out.
Whenever I talked with someone from the outstate area, those people who were not from the Twin Cities, – after graduation they DID NOT WANT TO GO BACK.
It did not matter if this was Baudette, Staples, Fergus Falls, Farmington, Wilmar, Rochester, Cambridge, or Salon Springs, WI. (Towns of girls I dated or guys I roomed with.)
They, all in concert, felt there was nothing there for them to return to.
At first I thought this was just youthful angst. However at times in conversations in study halls or over beers – No, they gave reasoned, thoughtful replies, there really was nothing there. One reason given was that all the decent jobs had been already claimed by nepotism. Or as a former cheerleader from one town told me – At 6 PM every day, someone locks up the town and no one knows where they put the key. However after 6 PM, it’s locked up for the night. She wanted more and knew there WAS more out there.
Some of the above were conservatives and in moments of honesty, related that there was no way the town folk in power would ever grant the self-imposed tax increases needed to change things. Or the girl from Staples who said that – They gave us a youth room, a big empty room with a ping pong table and a few folding chairs and told us we were supposed to be grateful. Then stated – And they wonder why we do drugs.
Or the girl from Spring Valley, whose folks wanted her to go to RCC (Rochester Community College). She told me how she told her folks there was nothing to do there at RCC after hours other than drink or have sex. Then told them that – And you know I don’t drink.
Now about four or five decades later things have changed a bit. Farmington is being absorbed into the metro. Rochester is thriving, and has night life. However these other towns?
Bars and casinos an answer? These were and are high school kids, that town’s future.
High speed internet? Well, it is a start.
For every story Minn Post publishes about someone moving to a small town and finding nirvana, there is a graduating high school class that feels otherwise. A couple of stories have been published so far about the urban/rural divide by authors with rural roots. Except where do these authors live now? I know what that tells me.
Until those things change, and these kids feel they have a future there, in their home town, nothing will change. And all the money these rural areas are given – will change nothing.
Even a clueless citidiot like me can see that.
Thanks, I think this is very interesting and insightful.
To pretend that the most obviously identifiable political divide (demonstrably present in every single state!) doesn’t actually exist is simply denying reality. A divide that has been getting more and more dysfunctional with every passing year of the disastrous 21st Century.
The other comments have already hit upon the reason and the one-sided nature of the problem; this is not a two-way street of disdain and disregard, sorry. And to act as though the racially pluralistic aspect of the cities and racially homogeneous nature of (white) rural America is irrelevant to the divide (and its resulting politics) is to be willfully blind.
Urban America won’t vote for far right “conservative” extremists, while rural America refuses to vote for the most moderate Dem, including Joe Biden. Explain that as a little “misunderstanding”…
Hell, rural voters are poised to vote en masse against re-electing a moderate Dem governor from rural MN who represented rural MN in Congress for a decade!
And why? Inflation? What’s Walz got to do with that? Rise in (urban) crime in MN? It’s risen in every city in America during and after the pandemic. And it rose especially during the pandemic when police brutality against non-white (urban) citizens was placed in the spotlight. Rural voters seem to have forgotten that little aspect of the (urban, not rural) problem.
They are angry at how Walz handled the first dangerous pandemic in a hundred years? Seriously? They think it’s some sort of failed leadership to have simply followed the guidance of the national and state public health officials? That we should have followed the daft ideas of conservative paradises like SD, ND, and Iowa and had many more deaths and hospitalized people? And they think that a crackpot MD who proudly went on rightwing television and argued against taking a safe and effective vaccine (for God’s sake!) would have provided (or will provide) more sensible “leadership” of the state in a serious crisis?
There is much, much more that has gone wrong here than some minor “misunderstandings” between “neighbors” in urban and rural America. That should be painfully obvious.
It is ironic that rural voters are so motivated by urban crime when they’ll tell you they never want to actually go to urban areas. Meanwhile the people who actually live in those urban areas are sending their LGA dollars to the rural areas so we can put more cops outstate instead of in the cities. Our response as a state to increasing urban crime is rural residents electing people to add cops in Willmar, Winona and Bemidji and to spend money on government services anywhere EXCEPT Minneapolis.
“Let’s look for decision makers who are willing to put in the hard work to create policies that work for both urban and rural, so that this perceived urban-rural divide goes away. Both rural and urban are valuable, and both make a difference in Minnesota.”
If we insist that policies must benefit both urban and rural areas with some degree of fairness and equality, nothing will ever get done at all. Ignoring differences isn’t necessarily a useful strategy for resolving them, particularly when many politicians have a strong interest in not resolving them.