Right, this doesn't sound like 'rural', this sounds like 'poor peri-Rust-Belt suburbs', which is exactly how you're describing it. These should be treated as different countries. People who live in towns and cities are awful people, of course.
If you really want to make a distinction here, then you're making the definition of rural pretty damn narrow. Like... most of my classmates in school didn't live in the town I described. They lived in the surrounding area of expansive farmland. School buses spent hours every morning collecting kids from all those farm houses. One of only a couple kids who would associate with me and not always be horrible was like 20 minutes drive away. He had a single neighbor on a farm across the street. Any other houses visible from his were on the horizon. The only other was just down the street from me, who did live in town, but spent most of his time working on the farms of his extended family in the area. I could ride my bike to the edge of town in 5 minutes in one direction / maybe 10 in the other, and see nothing but fields. If all these farmers are disqualified from being considered rural because they send their kids to a school located in the midst of a few dozen houses built somewhat close together, then I imagine there are actually very few rural people in the USA. And I imagine they'd disagree with you.
And again... I'm not saying my experience is universal. I'm just saying the more positive one isn't universal, either. I can visit my extended family in Wisconsin who still live on farms, or listen to my parent's stories about growing up around that, and know that good rural people/areas exist.
There's good and awful people everywhere, no matter what conditions they live in. The difference in my experience is that if you're a cultural outsider in a small town/rural area, then the awful people are guaranteed to make your life hell. You 100% will not be able to avoid notice and discrimination, and will have to face them. In suburbs/cities, you can be selective about who you associate with and avoid awful people, even if they're all around. You're not noticed/known by everyone and nobody cares about randos.
Even so, I do find the crowded atmosphere of suburbs/cities to be miserable, mostly due to the lack of nature. The lack of trees and expanses of concrete are suffocating to me. And they have their own cultural problems, too. I spend almost all of my time indoors because of it, whereas I spent most of my time outside when I was growing up in that small town. I'd prefer to live further out, either in a nicer area, or have a better chance of keeping to myself as an adult.
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Topic: AmeriPol thread (Read 4224353 times)