urban vs rural

[bricolage]

My whole life has been structured by cities and large urban environments (*) and I’ve often been accused (quite fairly) (although not in these words) of being very london-centric and urban chauvinist. I love green spaces like large parks or forests but part of the attraction for me if being able to go and sit about in them but then head back into the city afterwards. What I am interested in though is whether there are any people here who live in, or prefer to live in, more rural environments? I can more understand the draw of this for older or retired people but I’m more interested in anyone younger who has similar views. I think it's also interesting to ask here are communist (and the rest politics) seem to (at least in the english speaking world from which the website draws the overwhelming amount of its posters) resonate more with those that live in cities or towns. Even if this isn't the case those who have those politics often, from my experience, end up moving to such places anyway. Anyway, what are you saying revleft?



* Undeniably my politics are also heavily influenced by this. My conception of the working class is largely urban and so are my conceptions of sites of revolt. Most definitely there is a lot of western/british arrogance attached to this but you can’t pretend that urbanisation isn’t a massive thing everywhere. I think it’s in planet of the slums that he talks about the point at which more people live in urban than rural places and how it’s continuing. Even outside of my eurocentric-tinged views it seems evident that the largely rural based peoples wars today cannot function as effectively as they could in the past, these countries, like all countries have clearly changed.

[manic expression]

I love cities, I think they're the physical culmination of the human experience. The city is the conglomeration of human activity, human creativity and humanity's contradictions; the city has a history and a story and encompasses a world onto itself. They can be bustling and busy or they can be more measured and ponderous, but they are everywhere an unrelentingly honest reflection of what we are, where we came from and who we hope to become.

Still, nature is endlessly gorgeous, and there's really nothing like going out far from the city and looking up at the stars as they explode across the heavens, and then waking up with the call of the roosters just as the sun's first rays break over the horizon.

If forced to make a single choice I'd choose cities, and that seems to be where my life is heading. However, I'll echo you're answer to this and say that one should appreciate both. Like you said, the attraction is to go to the countryside knowing you can go back to the city when you please, but I think that's entirely OK, and anyway I think we shouldn't ignore that in this dichotomy part of the attraction of living in a city is the knowledge that you can visit the countryside when you tire of the urban.

So yeah, I would suspect that most on RevLeft would be of the more urbanite variety. At the risk of a hopeless generalization, I think the instinct of a leftist is to be where the mass of humanity is, and that points us toward cities. Indeed, urbanization is going at an incredible rate right now, probably more than at any previous time in human history. And I agree that cities attract the young while the countryside holds a special draw for the old: cities have more possibilities than does a rural life.

Oh, and f*ck the suburbs.

[The Douche]

I like rural areas so much, that a lot of people on here might consider me a primitivist. I have also never lived in a city for an extended period of time, since I was very young. I have spent plenty of time in cities, I live within an hour or two of three major cities, and one minor city. The place I live is the largest city in my geographical area, but its more of a big town than a small city.

I don't really want to leave the place I live, because its developed enough to have bars and shit to do, but its not a big city, there are still lots of rivers and woods to go camping in, hiking, swimming etc, not bullshit like parks.

[Ostrinski]

I can't stand the rural area I live in. I'm moving to the city as soon as I can.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Having lived in both I can say that they both have positives and negatives. Part of my life in the most rural part of the USA and part in what is essentially the extended suburbs of New York City (Long Island, NY). Primitivist nature-worshipping hippies on one hand and urban-fetishist "pave the planet" nerds on the other hand both annoy the shit out of me, though.

[Franz Fanonipants]

i live in the desert and mountains, so all the nice, happy thoughts you guys have about pastoralism and romantic ideas about the countryside are pretty moot.

in fact, urban anglo ideas about what pastoralism should be like have pretty firmly fucked up the desert and will probably result in an ecological crisis if global warming persists.

rain, parks, and alfalfa fields are all ethnocentric.

[The Douche]

i live in the desert and mountains, so all the nice, happy thoughts you guys have about pastoralism and romantic ideas about the countryside are pretty moot.

in fact, urban anglo ideas about what pastoralism should be like have pretty firmly fucked up the desert and will probably result in an ecological crisis if global warming persists.

rain, parks, and alfalfa fields are all ethnocentric.

You're claiming that agriculture has had an adverse effect on the planet, but support urbanism, a concept which is dependent on agriculture...

[Franz Fanonipants]

You're claiming that agriculture has had an adverse effect on the planet, but support urbanism, a concept which is dependent on agriculture...

i'm not claiming agriculture has had an adverse effect on the planet at all.

i'm claiming that american agricultural practices have had an adverse effect on the arid west past the 100th meridian in north america.

i'm not a primitivist comrade.

[The Douche]

i'm not claiming agriculture has had an adverse effect on the planet at all.

i'm claiming that american agricultural practices have had an adverse effect on the arid west past the 100th meridian in north america.

i'm not a primitivist comrade.

Sounds borderline, I'll be keeping my eye on you...

[Franz Fanonipants]

Sounds borderline, I'll be keeping my eye on you...

we should all be eating each other i hate humans etc.

i actually lost a job over this shit, i was trying to work with the audobon society in my state writing an interpretive history for a reserve they were working on creating. the person from the audobon i was working with started going off about how damaging acequias a traditional southwestern form of gravity-driven irrigation were to river flow. i defended them, and asked her if she really felt that dirt-lined irrigation ditches that essentially widen riparian forest ecosystems were as much of a threat to river flow as industrial, concrete dams.

she never ever called me back. i think it was environmental practices racism.

[bricolage]

there are still lots of rivers and woods to go camping in, hiking, swimming etc, not bullshit like parks.
My girlfriend grew up in a pretty rural place so thinks parks are bullshit too, I personally quite like the good ones but I fully understand why people think they are weak and sure for a green space the actual countryside is a lot better. I liked living in Sheffield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield) because something like two thirds of it is in the Peak District (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_District) so you could head out there easily and as much as you liked but the actual city itself was too small for me. I think I just really like contrasts so massive parks in city centres appeal to me because you can be in the middle of one and just surrounded by trees and then walk ten minutes and be on a major road. It's kind of hard to explain because most people just think this is kind of dumb.

[Thirsty Crow]

I lived the better part of my life in a small town, a kind of a buffer zone between "urban" and "rural", before moving to the city.
In my opinion, and I guess you could accuse me of being an "urban chauvinist", I think urban areas are vastly preferrable, though that might come down to characteristics I associate with rural folks from my own experience (to cut the story short, spending time in the countryside can get very stifling).

If that were not the case, then I'd choose to live in a rural area, but one with decent public transport lines, and fairly close to the city.

[Pretty Flaco]

rural places are boring as shit

[Franz Fanonipants]

rural places are boring as shit

but none of them have the Colts so rural places > indianapolis

[brigadista]

rural best seen out the window of any form of transport as you travel through

[Pretty Flaco]

but none of them have the Colts so rural places > indianapolis

lol. i'm not from indy so that doesn't bother me. but travel 10-15 minutes outside of indy and everything gets rural.

[Franz Fanonipants]

lol. i'm not from indy so that doesn't bother me. but travel 10-15 minutes outside of indy and everything gets rural.

indiana is fucking terrible. so i think i understand.

is it true that those triple crosses along 70 are kkk symbols? someone told me that once.

[Pretty Flaco]

indiana is fucking terrible. so i think i understand.

is it true that those triple crosses along 70 are kkk symbols? someone told me that once.

i'm not sure about that, but it wouldn't surprise me. the kkk is pretty active in indiana.

[GoddessCleoLover]

What was it that Karl Marx wrote about the idiocy of rural life?

[PC LOAD LETTER]

I enjoy both rural and urban areas. Urban areas are boring if you're broke. Rural areas, you can still pick up and go camping or fishing or hunting or make a fire whatever. But then, I've made fires and hung out around them in the middle of the city, too.

I've lived in both. They can both be fun. If I had to pick one place that I would remain for the rest of my life, I couldn't really decide. Although, it would be nice to be off in a rural area on a small plot of land.

[Os Cangaceiros]

What was it that Karl Marx wrote about the idiocy of rural life?

I seem to remember reading that he wrote that because the Chartist movement was strongest in the cities and weakest in rural areas of England. Therefore rural people are stupid and complacent. Kind of a bigoted and highly debatable opinion if you ask me.

[Decolonize The Left]

It all depends on your intended lifestyle and, more importantly, your pace of life.

Big cities are humming with activity - there is always something to do, somewhere to go, money to spend, places to be, etc... It's great. You can get anything at 3am and can see anything with a trip on the bus/underground.

Rural areas are wonderful and grounding. There is nothing like the vast swaths of the sky in the middle of the the great plains, or the feeling of the pacific ocean during a storm, or the stillness of the mountains.

All depends on what you want. Ideally I'd live in a big city with the rural areas an hour away. San Francisco has the right idea on this front.

- August

[piet11111]

I live in a rural area with the forest right at my front door (ok across the road of it) with beaches dunes and small towns where everybody knows everyone.

Its a bit boring but we are glad we do not have any big city problems either.
Unfortunately with everybody knowing everyone its weird to ask someone out if you have their entire trackrecord of who they have been with and all of the drama that could potentially tail them.
Come to think of it i do not like any woman here enough to actually want to go out with them :(

[PC LOAD LETTER]

I live in a rural area with the forest right at my front door (ok across the road of it) with beaches dunes and small towns where everybody knows everyone.

Its a bit boring but we are glad we do not have any big city problems either.
Unfortunately with everybody knowing everyone its weird to ask someone out if you have their entire trackrecord of who they have been with and all of the drama that could potentially tail them.
Come to think of it i do not like any woman here enough to actually want to go out with them :(
Have you tried making an online dating profile?

[Prometeo liberado]

My take on it(not realy mine):

We ain't going to the town
We're going to the city
Gonna track this shit around
And make this place a heart
To be a part of

And we're gone

So baby make it with me in preparation for tonight
We've got so much to leave
That's not what makes this right
You've been building up steam
Ignited by this fight
So do this thing with me
Instead of tying on a tight one tonight

[piet11111]

Have you tried making an online dating profile?

Considered it but i would prefer to wait until i live on my own as currently i am making minimum wage and am forced to live with my parents because i can't afford a place of my own and the waiting list for a rental home is about 7-8 years.

[ellipsis]

City life=government in your life and general Babylon. Also =likeminded folks, different kinds of people, culture and bad ass dumpstering.

Rural life=liberty and free roaming and shooting guns where ever you want but also boredom and cultural isolation.

[Krano]

I live in rural countryside of Finland and i love it, hate big cities.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

City life=government in your life and general Babylon. Also =likeminded folks, different kinds of people, culture and bad ass dumpstering.

Rural life=liberty and free roaming and shooting guns where ever you want but also boredom and cultural isolation.
Don't even try to pretend that running around and shooting guns isn't an extremely gratifying activity ... You know you wanna

[ellipsis]

Don't even try to pretend that running around and shooting guns isn't an extremely gratifying activity ... You know you wanna

I wasn't trying to. I'm moving back to semi-rural new England for a reason.

Re: op

I was born and raised on a dirt road surrounded by Forest, and I wouldn't trade that upbringing for the world.

[bricolage]

I was born and raised on a dirt road surrounded by Forest, and I wouldn't trade that upbringing for the world.
fair enough, I was born in a big grey hospital overlooking the thames and raised next to an busy road and three train stations. I wouldn't trade it for the world either :)

but I think my views on urban and rural areas change massively based on my mood. when I wrote this thread I'd had a nice day hanging out in a neighbourhood I don't normally go to and was feeling pretty good, right now I'm pissed off and would like nothing more than to be in the woods or the mountains with nothing but space.

[Искра]

I was born in the town (100 000 population) and lived there whole life. Now I'm in the city (1 000 000 population, 1/4 of Croatia). TBH I like my hometown because it's more beautiful, it's smaller, you can walk everywhere and you don't need public transpotation (I hate public transpotation). On the other hand it was more depressing... mostly because of war and because there was just nothing for young people to do. Our fun was throwing stones into a minefield... or shooting guns in fucked up buildings... or making bombs... fighting behind hoods... or wasting our lives playing computer games... There was no gigs, you couldn't find a place to play with a band (because of conservative people) etc. But still, there wasn't so much violence as it is in city I'm now. Even there's fun in this city like gigs etc. even there's like a bunch of interesting people or places to be... there's just too much violence and people are fucking shit. Still... I have to admit that I like city better, because here I kind of feel free... I'm less depressed and more open.

[praxis1966]

As somebody (Menocchio?) already said, I grew up in a medium-ish sized town... sort of the buffer zone between rural and city life. I'll be damned if it didn't feel like rural life, though. Not to mention that in terms of growing up on the Gulf of Mexico, there's a unique sort of existence that isn't particularly common in the Western world.

On the one hand, I dealt with all the worst aspects of what people probably think of when they imagine the Southeastern US. Racism, hyper-exploitation, rampant homophobia, the works. My town was always 2 - 3 years behind the rest of the country in terms of music and cultural movements, and for some reason flip flops and visors are still haute coutore there. (Like the top of your head is that damned interesting; and nobody wants to see those feet, pal.)

Then again, there are things I miss. For instance, I was raised on beaches that were basically a poor man's Caribbean and there was decent camping and ground fed springs to swim in nearby, so I do miss that... All that being said, no way I'm going back. Last time I was there I started getting claustrophobic after like two days.

[Os Cangaceiros]

City life=government in your life and general Babylon. Also =likeminded folks, different kinds of people, culture and bad ass dumpstering.

Rural life=liberty and free roaming and shooting guns where ever you want but also boredom and cultural isolation.

I've always liked that aspect of rural life, the relative freedom it provides. Where I lived much of my life in hillbilly land, there was a good fifty miles of dirt (although it's been paved for the last six years or so) road between me and the nearest police station. My friends and I used to joke about how you could set off a nuclear bomb out there and no one would care...cops almost never go out there, although now that it's paved you'll sometimes see one make the drive. Still rare though.

We could make raging bonfires, blow up bombs, practice our graffiti skills on the abandoned WW2 bunkers near my house, fire all sorts of guns etc. It was great in that respect. Although some probably find it annoying...some years back when I was younger than I am now, like in 3rd grade or something, some drunk youngsters were throwing a party on a beach near my house. They were also firing automatic weapons which, since the beach is only about a third of a mile away from my house, was keeping my parents up, who called the state troopers to complain. The troopers told them to call back when bullets started flying through our house. (Seriously.)

[Os Cangaceiros]

The only time I've ever practiced making and throwing molotov cocktails (which happened before I became interested in politics, lol) was when I was living out there, too.

[the last donut of the night]

if i could i'd go back to paleolithic france and live my life in an egalitarian hunter-gatherer society

[ellipsis]

The only time I've ever practiced making and throwing molotov cocktails (which happened before I became interested in politics, lol) was when I was living out there, too.

This. Lol. Oh youth.

Of course now I know that constitutes a destructive device, aka bad news aka felony.

[CountryKid]

Rural comrade here.


Biggest city I lived in was 27000 people, and I felt trapped.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Rural comrade here.


Biggest city I lived in was 27000 people, and I felt trapped.

I envy you.... there isn't even that many people when I combine the next three towns and "cities" where I live.

[ellipsis]

I envy you.... there isn't even that many people when I combine the next three towns and "cities" where I live.

But i would venture that his town doesn't have anything nearly as cool as kittery trading post, amirite?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

But i would venture that his town doesn't have anything nearly as cool as kittery trading post, amirite?

I wouldn't know, never been to Kittery. Is kind of a "hike" from where I live.

[ellipsis]

I wouldn't know, never been to Kittery. Is kind of a "hike" from where I live.

Down east?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Down east?

South East.

[ellipsis]

isn't "downeast/ downeasters" a maine colloquialism?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

isn't "downeast/ downeasters" a maine colloquialism?

I suppose, I stay out of language discussions. :D

Kittery is roughly a two hour drive from where I live.

[Metacomet]

Kittery is cool!

I'd love to live in a city...................love the city. Just the atmosphere, makes me feel so much more alive.

Of course I like nature as well, but living in the sticks? No. I've had 23 years of it too much.