Searching for Middle Ground in the Urban-Rural Divide

It’s a formula played out in one state after the next. Rural areas hold political clout well beyond their numbers, winning regularly on the issues and in the division of tax dollars.

They triumph primarily by better holding their coalitions together — driven partly by the stubborn myth that they get the short stick from their big-city cousins — and because the drawing of legislative districts works in their favor.

The result leaves people in urban areas regularly outplayed at lawmaking. "We simply cannot count on the state government to help us,"

Aaron M. Renn

Full Story: http://www.urbanophile.com/2014/12/18/the-urban-vs-rural-wars-within-states/