Minnesota's urban-rural divide is no lie - Professor Jacobs in the strib [View all]

[question everything]

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With predictable academic stiffness, I pointed to my charts and maps as proof. Wrong, I was told. Middle- and lower-income voters in the two regions share the need for health care, housing, and an easing of economic inequality. What I am presenting, my critics insisted, is in fact evidence of failed DFL leadership rather than of a meaningful divide among voters. An able politician would bring urban and rural voters together in a coalition. Fair enough, to a point. Strong campaigns by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Gov. Tim Walz have won in rural areas where few Democrats succeed these days. On the other hand, the past dozen years of state legislative races reveal an unmistakable trend.

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When I talk to people in greater Minnesota, most report that it’s city/country economic disparities, rather than shared concerns, that dominate their thinking.... “We’re getting shafted,” reported a county commissioner from greater Minnesota. “Jobs are not here for long, but we still have to pay taxes while prices and taxes keep rising.” The common outstate conclusion that “no one cares about us” is reinforced by impressions of Minneapolis prosperity — “everywhere there are cranes and help-wanted signs for jobs that start at $15 per hour” says one observer, compared with aging Main Streets and fragile, lower-paying employment opportunities outside the metro area.

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This visceral sense of being “shafted” reveals itself in this mortifying pattern: Minnesota farmers and miners draw food and minerals from the earth, which then enrich processors and retailers in the Twin Cities. Most of the money made from agriculture was reaped in the Twin Cities even though the crops were grown in rural communities.

Meanwhile, a biting second divide emerges from the Minneapolis campaigns against “white privilege” or “privilege” of other kinds. Here’s a sample: A Minneapolis official accused residents who support retaining green spaces of engaging in “white pastoralism.” Cards announcing “Your homeowner privilege is showing” were distributed last year to owners of single-family homes who questioned the introduction of triplexes into low-density neighborhoods they may have lived in for decades and paid the heavy taxes to do so... Activists and the media have also tracked racial disparities in the conduct of the Minneapolis Police Department for some time... “The progressive left’s language of equity,” a prominent person of color explains, “alienates whites who don’t see themselves in the picture and [who] then move to the right.”

My conversations with county commissioners and others in greater Minnesota steamed with resentment. “There’s no white privilege,” I was frequently informed. “I’ve had to work for whatever I have.” Charges of white privilege, one rural researcher explained, are understood in rural Minnesota as “metro privilege — many people [here] are struggling to find and keep a job and make ends meet.” In short, the focus on racial identity in Minneapolis may be widening the urban/rural divide. Nearly everyone I spoke with in greater Minnesota let loose with the same exasperation: “Minneapolis is out of touch with reality.” Or, less politely: “You guys are nuts.” One well-placed state leader bluntly diagnosed the state’s political malady and its source: “The urban/rural divide is a serious problem, and Minneapolis is the cause.”

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http://www.startribune.com/minnesota-s-urban-rural-divide-is-no-lie/513267582/