In the course of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump clinched most of rural America’s votes, together with these in California. To elucidate Trump’s sustained electoral energy, many reached for the now-familiar narrative: Rural Individuals voted for Trump as a result of they’re poor, offended and really feel left behind by the political institution and educated city elites.
However our analysis of rural American life counters these pervasive “left behind” narratives. The truth is, many rural areas in California are doing nicely economically. Additionally, their vote for Trump is misunderstood. With Trump once more a viable presidential contender, politicians, policymakers and the general public ought to shift their lens upon rural areas. A extra nuanced strategy will higher handle voter considerations, form state and federal insurance policies and bridge the deepening urban-rural divide.
Moderately than dismissing rural Individuals and assuming their politics, we must take the time to know these advanced communities. Our nation’s future relies on it.
However what does “rural” imply? Most folk consider locations past the town limits, layered with farms, dust roads and humble essential streets. But there are dozens of definitions in use by researchers and authorities companies, reflecting consistently altering components like inhabitants density, land use and connections to city economies.
The character of those classifications signifies that California’s 13 rural counties are concentrated within the central Sierra, northern Sacramento Valley and Northern California areas, containing roughly 272,000 individuals, simply 0.69% of the whole state’s inhabitants. There’s not a single formally designated rural county in all of Southern California.
A lot of Fresno County could seem to Angelenos as rural with its expansive farmland. Nevertheless, Fresno has an city inhabitants of about 900,000, that means the county qualifies as a medium-sized metropolitan space in response to the U.S. Division of Agriculture requirements. Regardless of stereotypes, farms require cities to effectively course of and package deal crops, present transportation hubs, deal with administrative features and home and entertain the labor drive. The scale of Central Valley cities like Fresno, Bakersfield and Modesto displays a developed agricultural financial system. They could not appear to be San Francisco’s model of a metropolis, however few locations within the U.S. do.
As well as, “rural” doesn’t essentially signify poverty. Our evaluation of latest census information reveals that rural Californians are considerably extra possible than their city counterparts to personal their very own residence and be employed. Rural California’s unemployment price is 3% in contrast with 4.2% for metro areas. Towards the backdrop of a housing disaster, homeownership in rural California is greater than 70% whereas simply 55% for our cities. And contemplating the exorbitant price of metropolis residing, the median revenue for rural counties in all fairness on par with metro counties.
These findings of unusual rural vitality resemble the remainder of the U.S. Rural California diverges, nevertheless, by way of its range and schooling. Whereas rural California isn’t as various as its cities, that are among the many most racially various within the nation, our small cities are 21% Latino in contrast with simply 7% for all rural America. The proportion of rural Californians who’re of Asian descent is sort of 3 times as excessive as elsewhere in rural America. And though not astronomical, 21% of rural Californians possess a bachelor’s diploma or above, in contrast with 18% for the remainder of rural America.
Our misperception of rural areas can also be mirrored in political developments. Though Trump received 10 of California’s 13 rural counties in 2020, the info present that a few of these rural margins had been razor skinny. In Sierra County on the Nevada border, Trump’s margin of victory was simply 176 votes. In Northern California’s Trinity County, Trump received by simply 59 votes. In the meantime, there have been extra Trump voters in Los Angeles County — 1,145,530 — than there are individuals residing in California’s small cities and rural communities. Does this recommend that rural Individuals are an irate group who really feel economically, culturally and socially ignored of the system? Perhaps some. However this narrative doesn’t clarify the present political divide, nor does it describe most rural of us.
Over the course of the previous 5 years, considered one of us spoke to dozens of Individuals, discovering that not solely are rural Individuals not offended at liberal elites residing in cities however that they share lots of the similar values. When requested about democracy, equality, immigration and different necessary problems with our time, rural Individuals had been in step with what their city counterparts expressed. They conveyed, nevertheless, a wariness towards being informed what they need to assume and say.
In California, spatial polarization colours our id as a state. Our largest cities have reputations as ultra-progressive, various enclaves with massively productive economies. Because the narrative goes, our farms, mountains and deserts provide havens to hard-working, conservative Individuals who greater than something worth their freedom. Whereas an interesting narrative, this urban-rural divide obfuscates as a lot because it elucidates, severing the important ties between metropolis and nation.
Cities (particularly Los Angeles) want meals, water, power and uncooked supplies from our hinterlands to exist. Likewise, rural life is made doable by city markets and applied sciences, similar to Wi-Fi, air-con and vehicles. Whereas there’ll all the time be political pressure over the allocation of finite sources, Californians — and Individuals extra broadly — share the identical elementary wishes: to be revered, to really feel a way of belonging, to be assured that our opinions matter and are listened to, and to know that we and our cultural capital aren’t consistently being judged as inferior. These needs, inconveniently nebulous and laborious as they’re to understand, drive our affiliations, loyalties and in the end our votes, way over numbers alone can ever present.
Considering by these primary wants could present a path to know our rural communities and their politics each inside California and throughout America.
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett is a professor of public coverage at USC, and writer most lately of “The Ignored Individuals: The Resilience of Our Rural Cities and What It Means for Our Nation.” Marley Randazzo is a doctoral candidate at USC, finding out how digital applied sciences affect city growth and regional spatial construction. @marleyrandazzo
