When I’ve traveled to there I grew up in rural New York from New York City I often feel as though I’ve traveled from one planet to another.
If your country had an urban/rural divide, what are some examples?
When I’ve traveled to there I grew up in rural New York from New York City I often feel as though I’ve traveled from one planet to another.
If your country had an urban/rural divide, what are some examples?
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I don’t think there is a country that doesn’t have that issue, except maybe Vatican City.
I have two sets of relatives from Luxembourg, one of them live in the city centre, the other in a small village. Their political and religious views couldn’t be any more different, and they live maybe 18km apart.
If such a tiny country can have a stark rural urban divide, I think most do. The Netherlands has for sure.
Yes, and it’s pretty big. There is a reason why people here often say “Bratislava is not Slovakia.”
Yes. in Poland there’s still a significant urban/rural divide, especially in the eastern part of the country. Still big differences in infrastructure and access to resources, differences in politics, differences in religiosity. There are definitely exceptions, but in general it can feel like two different countries
Yes, definitely. Travel to London and then to Devon or Cornwall afterwards, you’ll feel the whiplash.
The landscapes, the air, the food, the demographics, pace of life, lifestyle, people’s priorities, accents… all so different.
Best way I can describe the difference between London and Devon/Cornwall is as if you’ve gone from New York City to New Zealand. And the distance is only about 3-4 hours driving.
Yes, of course there is. Most of Spain’s interior is extremely depopulated, what is called the “España vaciada”. Some areas have one of the lowest population densities in the world
Well yes obviously. There is Paris vs the rest, but also big cities vs countryside. You can see the difference in voting patterns.
of course, it’s noticeable, but really only in Rīga/rest of the country. More than half of the people in the country live in Riga metropolitan area.
Outside of that area a lot of the country though is fairly rural and daily life is more or less connected to the nature at least in some way.
Yes, if it would up to Budapest the far right government never would have happened. Budapest is closer culturally Vienna, Prague or any European city than a small town 50 km from it.
Yes. I’m from the capital city and when I hear people from the the rest of my country speak go culture and how it was growing up (music, what we did on free time and so on) it’s like another place.
100%, lots of tension that the Government only cares about Dublin, and there is some truth to it. I’m originally from a rural area, and it’s lead to a lot of crazy right wing Trump people in rural Ireland. Strange but true!
In Sweden the divide is between people living in Stockholm and the rural peasants(everyone else).
Hardly. Ribbon development means you never quite know where one town ends and the next one begins. Often the only clue is a small sign next to the road.
Definitely, and in fact you could call it a coastal and inland divide as well. The largest urban centers are all around the coast, whereas the further inland the more rural the country is. Actually the same can be said about the Iberian Peninsula in general.
Bucharest (and Cluj and Timisoara) are more pro reform, anti corruption, and anti PSD/PNL (“the (pro) system parties” as we call them in romanian; the ones in favour of the status quo).
Rural people generally vote for whomever their local priest asks them to, regardless if they’re a “social democrat”, a liberal or adolf fucking hitler.
In the UK urban areas are often poorer than rural areas.
Yes. I live in the west of Ireland and I live 15km from a small town and we call the people who live in the townies and they call us Boggers . (The bog is a place where peat is that is cut to make turf that we use in the winter to heat out houses).
We also have culchies.. basically anyone who lives outside of Dublin. So I’m a proud Cluchie bogger!!!🤣
Yes
People in urban areas often vote for more liberal leaning parties(PNL,USR) while people in rural areas vote more right leaning parties or the one that will raise pensions(The Social Democratic Party)
Yes for Sweden.
It’s worth remembering that urbanization and active policies have increased the divide between urban and rural populations due to a increasingly economic divide. For example, the people in cities have benefited from increases in property values in a way that rural populations have not enjoyed. This doesn’t explain everything but it is worth remembering that the economic divide has increased at a staggering rate and it is partly due to political planing. The rural population in many western countries feels they have been left behind and in many cases they have can have every right to be angry.
Britain is very urbanised and while rural areas have their own issues and often a distinct pace of life the main divide in terms of economics and society tends to be between London & the wider Southeast vs the rest of the country. Worth noting that much of the Southeast is somewhat suburban/rural and the populations of Northern England, Scotland and Wales tend to be more concentrated in bigger cities with sparser rural hinterlands. These ‘leafy’ parts of the Southeast tend to score favourably on average wealth and overall desirability as places to live.
In Ireland, there is Dublin… and the country.
Everything outside of Dublin is fields.
Not really for Germany, yes you have rural areas, but you will be in the next town or city within 50 km, because Germany is so small and has so many inhabitants.
Their is a massive divide in rural Ireland and Urban Ireland.
Most rural Ireland burns fuel like timber or turf (peat from a bog cut into rectangular slabs called sods and dried) to heat their homes. Whereas the urban Irish use electrical heating or gas.
Rural Irish people tend to be more community oriented. Everyone knows each other and is happy to help each other. In Dublin, people wouldn’t even look at you.
Yeah in Ireland, Dublin people think they are living in some major metropolis rather than Bradford with a few tech jobs.