Rural and Urban Political Landscape, Article Review Example

This is what the article is talking about. The article discusses how the areas thatpeople live in whether rural or urban, affect their political opinions. The deepening political schisms between the differing parties is said to partly arise from the differing experiences of their lives.

The author gives an example of a modern small town in America. This is a mostly white Christian town where people tend to know one another well.  These people tend to be republicans as well.  This is a stark contrast to the life of those within larger cities, with more minorities in the population and people who tend to vote more democratic.  This difference between the worlds of those in rural and urban areas has led to the divide in American politics.  While in the past, the numbers were more evenly distributed among the two parties, over the past twenty years, the numbers have become more and more polarized.

These divisions seem to have come about due to three important factors including the divisive issues of the civil rights movement, religion, and locations chosen by companies affecting the economic landscape.  The civil rights movement is cited as the point where the divide began to widen dramatically.  The issues that were faced, such as women’s and minorities rights, continue to be an issue between the parties to this day.  While younger people leave for the big city, older, more conservative people tend to stay in the small towns, which has been a factor in the divide.This is how America works and operates.

These facts are represented in the two charts given, A House Divided and Rural and Urban America.  They seem to give evidence for this argument.  A House Divided shows that rural America is increasingly conservative, while the democrats are gaining a slight advantage in Urban areas.  Furthermore, the second chart seems to indicate the relationship between the products that people purchase and the way that they vote. This is what the two charts mean to me.

A House Divided compares the changes in both rural and urban cities in relationship to how people are voting. The chart seems to indicate that the arguments given in the text are accurate.  This means that the amount of conservatism in the rural population has gone up.  What is interesting is that the urban liberal voting has only gone up somewhat.  This is probably due to the fact that urban populations are made up of a larger diversity of people, some of which are still conservative.  So while the rural areas are becoming more conservative, the urban areas are only making slight gains in liberalism.

The second chart is basically a comparison of the voting habits of people who shopped in a health food store.  While there were conservative shoppers, many more were democratic.  This is an indication of the relationship between the things people buy and the way that they shop.  The stance that a person has decided to take on an issue will affect the way they shop.  A person interested in animal’s rights would be more likely to shop at a store with products that didn’t use animal testing.  In this way, the cultural response to divisive issues plays an even greater role in shaping the economic and ethical landscape of a particular area.