There are undoubtedly areas that fall into that mold. However, it does not apply in most of rural areas. I lived in
various urban and rural areas throughout the country as I progressed through military career. Most of the rural areas were working people....very few people with their hand out....never saw people sleeping in tents unless it was a planned camping trip. In rural areas individuals tend to take care of their own. However, I have never been in a big urban area without seeing people sleeping on sidewalks in tents, cardboard boxes, on park benches or bumming other people for money, etc. In short, you have poor and well-off in both places, but the urban areas are far worse. Oh, on the tax issue...most rural people would like to see less taxes for everyone...including the urban dwellers....and stay out of our pocket...we can go through churches to take care of societies needy and just cut the middle man (big government) out and not deal with all the red tape. Take care and good luck.
You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
There are a lot of reasons for your observations other than lack of poverty in rural areas. I've also lived around the country, in both urban and rural areas, mostly east of the Mississippi. The only real difference between between people in rural and urban areas is that they're packed closer together in urban areas. You don't SEE the tents in rural areas because people don't have to set them up in alleys, they set them up in the woods outside of town. As farming has become increasingly industrialized, and manufacturing continues to industrialize and disappear, rural areas have been losing population to urban areas because that's where the wok is moving. People who stay live with their parents, or get government assistance. You don't SEE them with their hand out because enough of them won't get refused for them to get together and protest. You don't SEE them on unemployment rolls either, because most of them have been unemployed too long to be counted. What I see mostly, especially in the midwest, are disability scams. Where I live in rural NY, they're tough on disability here, but everyone gets food and rent assistance, and help with winter heating bills. The highest rate of 'welfare' use in the country is in Owesley county, KY, not exactly an urban area. Take a drive around it, you'll see that it doesn't look anything like skid row.
I'll agree that the homeless tend to do better in rural areas than urban areas, again for a variety of reasons, aside from just better access to government services. Cost of living is significantly cheaper in rural areas, and space where a person can live without getting robbed, arrested, or worse is much easier to find. Even in rent-controlled and subsidized housing, you're less likely to get kicked out of a unit for letting your unemployed family members sleep on the couch in a rural area. Food is the biggest difference, finding a free meal in rural areas is usually pretty easy
People in cities pay taxes too, and would rather see taxes go down. Poor people do not want higher taxes. Even the ones who want higher taxes really just want a more fair distribution of corporate profits. You seem to be generally characterizing people in cities as lazy and people in the country as hard-working, just because you see people living in the streets in cities. Do you have any idea how much WORK it takes to be unemployed, and living in the street? As a military man, you might, but most Americans, INCLUDING military, that haven't lived it already, have absolutely no idea. You also seem to have some weird idea that people living in the streets are living off the government. Most of the time, if you see someone living in a tent or cardboard home, it's precisely because they are NOT getting any handouts.
Don't think that I'm saying that the government has the solution. I agree that if we let people keep their earnings, people will do a much better job of alleviating the suffering of other people. Government interference very seldom makes life better for anybody, just look at any of the countries we've 'democratized'. I just think that casually dismissing over HALF of the population of this country as 'cancerous cells' does more to exacerbate the problem than it does to alleviate it. Try to remember that most of those people fled to the cities because opportunity has been disappearing from the country. This exodus that has been happening since the 50's is the only reason things 'appear' to be better in rural areas.