General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This is infuriating. [View all]Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Also, living in close together with lots and lots of folks tends to make you appreciate Democratic ideas more, because you have to share public spaces with so many people. So you want good public transportation, schools, roads, police, libraries, sewers, lights, etc, etc, etc. Rural areas don't have the same tax bases, so they really don't have the population density to afford as many of the shared public goods and tend to be composed of people with their own septic systems, dirt or gravel roads connecting to the public highways, few or no streetlights unless they're paying the bill, etc. So they buy into the more libertarianish 'self-sufficiency', thinking of themselves as more alone against the world.
The greater the population density, the more Democratic, the less the population density, the more Republican. It may not hold everywhere, but it's a good rule of thumb.