Census bureau: 80% of the population live in the 3% of the land that is urban.

[pnwmom]

Less than 20% of the population lives in the 97% of the land that is rural.

Yet we're constantly being told that not enough attention is being paid to the citizens in rural areas.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america.html#:~:targetText=Urban%20areas%20make%20up%20only,Census%20Bureau%20%2D%20Opens%20as%20PDF.

About 60 million people, or one in five Americans, live in rural America.

The term “rural” means different things to different people. For many, it evokes images of farmlands and pastoral landscapes. For our purposes, we define rural based on the official Census Bureau classification. What is urban and what is rural is defined after each decennial census using specific criteria related to population thresholds, density, distance and land use.

In general, rural areas are sparsely populated, have low housing density, and are far from urban centers. Urban areas make up only 3 percent of the entire land area of the country but are home to more than 80 percent of the population. Conversely, 97 percent of the country’s land mass is rural but only 19.3 percent of the population lives there.
SNIP


HOW RURAL AND URBAN ARE DEFINED:

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/acs/acsgeo-1.pdf

[Sogo]

1. Hence the need....

....for re-calibration of the EC, or elimination of it all together....

[customerserviceguy]

26. And the constitutional amendment that your wish would require

is unobtainable because of Constitutional structures put in place when the United States was primarily an agricultural economy, thus freezing things in place.

I doubt that as long as the US remains united that we will ever see a constitutional amendment pass ever again, we are now simply way too divided for that. The answer is to work with the system you've got, rather than waste time pining for something different. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama were all able to play by the current rules and win in a modern society where agriculture takes a back seat to manufacturing and service jobs.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

30. I agree with your subject line, 1st pph, and 1st sentence in pph 2.

I too expect the U.S. as it currently exists will never again be able to adopt a constitutional amendment of any significance. (A token one, maybe.)

I depart from the view some have, however, that there is nothing to be gained from discussing how grossly undemocratic the EC and the Senate are.

Heavy opposition to the EC improves the chances the interstate compact someday reaches the threshhold 270 state electors. It'll be tough to do, but it's much more feasible than an amendment.

And maybe the U.S. IS going to need to break up. When a pattern establishes in which the minority party loses the national Senate vote but still "wins" control of it, loses presidential elections while still "winning" the White House, and through the first two institutions (and dishonorable actions), despite being the minority retains control of SCOTUS, the 3rd branch as well, the majority of voters at SOME point are going to have to change things in a big way.

People... the majority of American voters... need to be highly aware of how badly they're being abused by the other side for them to be moved to take steps on the scale that may become needed. And to riff slightly on a (I think) Gloria Steinem line, yes the truth will set you free, but first it NEEDS to piss you off.

People aren't children, they can handle multiple issues at the same time. They don't need to be herded down a "do this, ignore that" path when both matters are as important as these.

[Progressive Jones]

33. Some states are working to more or less limit the EC.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

[customerserviceguy]

34. And that will work nicely

until the first time a state awards its electoral votes to someone who didn't win the popular vote in that state.

Imagine that such a thing was in place, and Trump managed to turn out his base in the boondocks like never before seen (it may well happen next year) and California or New York's electoral votes go to him. The compact would thereafter be torn to shreds.

In any case, the red states aren't joining in so far, my prediction is that they never will.

[Progressive Jones]

35. The Red ststes will never do anything sane when it comes to elections. nt

[customerserviceguy]

36. And all it takes

is thirteen of them to kill any constitutional amendment. We have to work around that.

[lunatica]

2. Very interesting data.

I wonder what the data is on Evangelical distribution. My guess, which is highly NON scientific, is that the percentages fall close to the same numbers, only in reverse communities.

[Mariana]

7. I don't believe the Census Bureau tracks religious affiliation. nt.

[Blue_true]

9. My guess is you are close to right. Evangelical affiliation would be the exact opposite of

the population density numbers, far more evangelicals in thinly populated places.

[Skidmore]

17. We don't see big box

churches or massive cathedrals with thousands of members in rural America. That's an urban thing.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

18. SUBurban

mostly.

[customerserviceguy]

27. Agreed

You have large numbers of fundies in suburbia that have way more assets than their rural cousins.

[customerserviceguy]

28. Agreed

You have large numbers of fundies in suburbia that have way more assets than their rural cousins.

[Blue_true]

29. Those big box churches are money change stations, from people's hand to the telepreacher.

The real chronic believers are in the rural areas. If you don't believe that, ask the next one that shows up at your door approximately where they live in the county.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. Another timely reminder to remember that this 80% who lives in urban areas, on 3% of the

land, currently buys 100% of the produce and goods produced by farmers, ranchers, etc. today in the US (w/ rump's stupid tariffs, produce and such isn't being sold overseas to former clients).

Maybe they'll start treating those of us in urban areas more better instead of knocking us or decrying the crime, decay, etc. and all of the other made up stuff I hear. I constantly hear of how evil the cities are, how high the crime is, etc., etc., etc. Ridiculous.

We urbanites are only living in urban areas because our jobs are here, our families are here, and we want to make a decent living, much like farmers and ranchers living in rural areas, trying too, to make a decent living).

Also, I wonder why isn't the 3% land area/80% of US Citizens making up 80% of all legislative bodies in the US? I'm willing to bet that this has been so warped, so skewed by crooked politicians (republicans of course) that fair and equal representation is out of the question. This seriously would be a good case to take to the US Supreme Court, to address the serious issue of gerrymandering and the concept of 1 person, 1 vote being equal no matter where you are in the US. Unfortunately with this stat, it isn't 1 person, 1 vote, it's literally 1 republican, 5 votes, 1 democrat, .5 vote.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

19. John Roberts recently decreed no federal judge has legal basis for ruling on gerrymandering.

Last edited Sun Dec 1, 2019, 10:58 PM - Edit history (1)

One more whopping gift to Republicans, flowing out of McConnell's treatment of Obama as having less than 3/5 of a white president's authority and his theft of Garland's seat.

[SWBTATTReg]

24. I know. Because he thinks it is solely a state issue. I seriously disagree, being that the ...

republicans have made it (the whole process of gerrymandering) nationwide, propagating the practice from state to state as they could, when they could, nationwide. Not on a solely state basis. Perhaps we need to continue to pepper the Supreme Court with cases that depict the nationwide nature of this issue, in order to demonstrate the nature of this issue being a nationwide issue, but they already know this, Roberts and them already know this.

The Supreme Court has been wrong before. A case will appear soon before them that clearly demonstrates gerrymandering concerns on a nationwide, and / or take away in more stark terms the concept of 1 person, 1 vote concept.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

25. And Citizens United legalized the concept of 1 billionaire, 5 million votes.

Another catastrophic blow to democracy from Roberts' court.

"Money equals speech" (and hey, go ahead and make that anonymous money while we're at it) must be overturned, or it alone over time can beat down our system of government so badly it might even eventually be able to kill our grand experiment in democracy off.

[smirkymonkey]

20. +1000

[gulliver]

4. Knowledge workers need close to full time WFH.

Internet is key to getting more people to stay and move to rural areas. I visit a small town every week to see an ailing relative. I would gladly live there rather than the suburbs, but WFH has not been prioritized high enough and made routine.

[pnwmom]

5. Health care is also key. Many rural areas have very limited health care options.

There's no 911 that can get you to a good hospital in 10 minutes.

[radius777]

6. Also consider that metro space is vertical.

The system as currently constructed (Electoral College, Senate, etc) favors 'retro' over metro, ie taxation without representation.

[Takket]

8. seems like a good time to remind everyone of this stupid fuckery........

Started by certifiable village idiot Lara drumpf and tweeted here by her racist traitor father-in-law

Link to tweet

?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1178989254309011456&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Ftrump-shares-misleading-impeach-this-map-1462319

[radius777]

13. A cartogram is a more accurate representation:

http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=5003

The population-centric perspective of this map shows that Trump’s success has largely been in the more rural areas, while Clinton won more of the votes in the urban areas that stand out in the cartogram. An analysis by the Economist showed that “80% of voters who have over one square mile (2.6 square km) of land to enjoy to themselves backed Mr Trump.” As also reflected in the geographic voting patterns in the cartogram, the more densely populated areas become (shown as the larger grid cells which are proportional to their total population), the more likely was Clinton’s success.

However, despite having received more votes from the electorate, Clinton is not the winner of this election. Since the president is not directly elected, but by an electoral college of electors that the voters technically vote for, the presidential election is an indirect one and the outcome of the popular vote does not always reflect the outcome of the election. In the electoral college Hillary Clinton received 228 electoral votes, while Donald Trump secured 290 of the electoral votes. This means that Donald Trump will become the next president of the USA, officially taking over office from Barack Obama on January 20, 2017.

[smirkymonkey]

22. Lara Trump is an idiot just like the rest of her inlaws.

Here is a more accurate depiction

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFyieIqXoAAo5dG?format=jpg&name=medium

[Garrett78]

31. More or less the same map was a big hit among Republicans after the 2000 election.

[PasadenaTrudy]

10. It feels like

all 80% live here in SoCal!

[Raine]

14. Yup, that was my thought

too. I'm in a burb of Los Angeles County it takes forever to get anywhere and it continues to get worse all the time.

[roamer65]

11. I can see it in the western Detroit burbs.

More traffic and general overcrowding. The more affluent ones near me are even worse for congestion.

[Garrett78]

12. Much can and should be done for rural folks without futilely...

...trying to persuade rural white Americans to vote a certain way. Over time, such moves could produce changes that we won't bring about through argumentation. This Brookings piece is worth reading: https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-rural-america-needs-cities/.

As for the heavy concentration of people in urban areas, I've repeatedly pointed out that this is a massive problem. Our tyranny of the minority political system will become increasingly disastrous. As has been reported, we're on track to have nearly 70% of the population represented by just 30% of the US Senate by 2040. That's utterly intolerable. The US is an anti-democracy.

[Kaleva]

15. And these rural areas are predominately white.

[Xolodno]

16. Jefferson was worried about the tyranny of the majority....

...bet he didn't see tyranny of the minority taking root.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

21. True. He had no way of foreseeing his free "yeoman farmers" becoming

the political base for America's first demagogue to successfully reach the White House.

[ancianita]

23. Amen. With 97% of land that's left brokered to foreign money, globalists got a new landbase.

Last edited Sun Dec 1, 2019, 12:46 PM - Edit history (1)

With a new landbase come new brokered "deals" with "rule of law," and the restructure of government to serve them.

Any hybrid warfare -- through cyber-rigged elections, database theft, black money running through banks, strong man richies suckering the 40% struggling to survive austerity economics, some "event" freezing citizens' rights, mobility and "rule of law"; then, say, a constitutional convention, keeping an electoral college but requiring supermajority congressional votes -- is a slow roll insurgency that will pretty much end the need for voters to ever get their interests represented again.

It's the minority rule plan for how democratic The West will go down.

[jmowreader]

32. One not-so-quick way to help solve the EC problem

It’s a two-step process.

First, divide California into two states, one centered on San Francisco and the other on Los Angeles. Because each one will have a huge metropolis, we can reliably expect two blue states.

And second, merge Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and both Dakotas into one state with three congressmen. This turns 16 electoral votes into five. Adding Nebraska and Iowa would also be good.