I live in a town of about 25 or 30K people and it's very urban in parts. By that, I mean, we have a walkable downtown with lost of restaurants, and condos, apartments and houses within walking distance to it.
If all anybody means by "urban" is "has walkable parts", then sure. Most Americans live in urban areas.
How does one distinguish between the walkable parts of a town with <30K population and South Chicago? They're both urban areas.
According to the standard y'all just described.
Tom
I'll do my best to explain my perspective again. Forgive me if I make this post too long. I grew up about five miles outside of New York City, probably the most or one of the most urban places in the country. My town has a downtown that in some ways is like a mini New York City. By that, I mean, there is housing density, restaurants, businesses and government buildings all within a few blocks of each other, so it has a very urban feel to it. Due to voter apathy, we usually have a conservative mayor, but the results of the mayoral races have been getting very close.
And, it's not accurate to always assume that voters in urban areas are always liberal. Don't forget that Rudy Giuliani was the mayor of New York City for two terms and he was often referred to as America's Mayor. That Rudy was tough on crime and supported the stop and frisk project that was very unfair to Black men, who were often innocent of any crime....but I digress. Today's Rudy is a much worse character as I'm sure you all know.
The point is that even large urban areas sometimes vote for very conservative people. New Jersey has had it's share of both liberal Democratic governors as well as rather conservative governors. Chris Christie comes to mind. Most of New Jersey is very urban, or suburban. Northern Jersey, where I grew up, is one long string of congested small or medium size cities. In fact, you don't even know when you're leaving one town or city and entering the next one, unless you see the sign that tells you where you are. I always considered that we lived in the suburbs when I was growing up, but at the same time, I could see the New York City skyline from my bedroom window when I was a teenager. So, did I live in urban areas or suburban areas?
Does it matter if the urban area is confined to a few blocks or must it be endless miles of congestion like New York or Atlanta? I've also lived in San Antonio, Texas, Raleigh, NC and Greenville SC, as well as Destin, Florida. Destin is a small city that has become extremely congested with lots of high rise condos, big box stores, restaurants etc. It's the smallest city I've ever lived in, or it was very small at the time. Is it urban or what? That part of Florida is very conservative and extremely white, with the exception being the military base in the area. I guess my rambling post is trying to say that we can't stereotype how people vote based on their location, although statistically rural voters tend to be more conservative compared to urban voters. After reading the book, "Poor White Trash", I have a better understanding of why so many of the poor rural white residents have become Trump supporters. They feel they've been neglected and looked down on by the so called liberal elite, so they were easily manipulated by a man who pretended to care about them. Btw, that term originated in the 1600s by the British elite, but I've posted about it many times, already.
I cared for many rural residents during the early years of my work as a home health nurse. Most of them, were very caring people, who actually took very good care of their elders. In fact, I can only think of one exception, a man who abused and neglected his dependent wife. In my current racially mixed neighborhood, most of the white people are Republican while most or all of the Black people are Democrats. We haven't asked them all, so I'm going by which signs people had in their yards during the last presidential race. There is at least one county in a rural part of Georgia that is Black majority. I don't think that many of those rural residents voted for Trump. In fact, rural Georgia has a lot of Black residents, but do they vote? Is it sometimes hard for them to get to the polls or do they use the excuse that "my vote doesn't count" or I don't like any of the candidates, etc.?
Former poster Jobar has always lived in a rural or exurban area and he has always voted for Democrats, although most of his family vote for Republicans. Defining urban, suburban, exurban and rural is complicated imo. I briefly lived in what was considered a rural area. It was very inconvenient for us because we ate out a lot and had to drive too much for work etc. I didn't even know my neighbors. Rural life is not for me, although there are plenty of good people who live in rural areas. And, there are even plenty of Trump supporters who drank the Kool-Aide, but are otherwise good people. My neighbor across the street comes to mind. He is the most caring, kind neighbor I've ever had. He does things for other neighbors without expecting anything in return, but sadly, he votes Republican and he even told my husband that Obama was born in Kenya. Seriously. I think he's simply been indoctrinated by far right media, as were many of my former older patients. Social media. has put out lots of disinformation, lies etc. We have a mess on our hands and if voter turnout is poor next year, we may be screwed.
