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DIVIDED
AMERICA:
Town and
country
offer
differing
realities
By
NICHOLAS
RICCARDI
Associated
Press
ROCKY
FORD, CO
- From
where
Peggy
Sheahan
stands,
deep in
rural
Colorado,
the last
eight
years
were
abysmal.
Otero
County,
where
Sheahan
lives,
is
steadily
losing
population.
Middle-class
jobs
vanished
years
ago as
pickling
and
packing
plants
closed.
She's
had to
cut back
on her
business
repairing
broken
windshields
to help
nurse
her
husband
after a
series
of farm
accidents,
culminating
in his
breaking
his neck
falling
from a
bale of
hay. She
collects
newspaper
clippings
on
stabbings
and
killings
in the
area -
one
woman's
body was
found in
a field
near
Sheahan's
farm -
as
heroin
use
rises.
"We are
so worse
off,
it's
unbelievable,"
said
Sheahan,
65, a
staunch
conservative
who
plans to
vote for
Donald
Trump.
---
In
Denver,
175
miles to
the
northwest,
things
are
going
better
for
Andrea
Pacheco.
Thanks
to the
Supreme
Court,
the
36-year-old
could
finally
marry
her
partner,
Jen
Winters,
in June.
After
months
navigating
Denver's
superheated
housing
market,
they
snapped
up a
bungalow
at the
edge of
town.
Pacheco
supports
Hillary
Clinton
to build
on
President
Barack
Obama's
legacy.
"There's
a lot of
positive
things
that
happened
-
obviously
the
upswing
in the
economy,"
said
Pacheco,
a
36-year-old
fundraiser
for
nonprofits.
"We were
in a
pretty
rough
place
when he
started
out and
I don't
know
anyone
who
isn't
better
off
eight
years
later."
But
then,
she
doesn't
know
Peggy
Sheahan,
and that
makes
sense:
There
are few
divides
in the
United
States
greater
than
that
between
rural
and
urban
places.
Town and
country
represent
not just
the
poles of
the
nation's
two
political
parties,
but
different
economic
realities
that are
transforming
the 2016
presidential
election.
Cities
are
trending
Democratic
and are
on an
upward
economic
shift,
with
growing
populations
and
rising
property
values.
Rural
areas
are
increasingly
Republican,
steadily
shedding
population
for
decades,
and as
commodity
and
energy
prices
drop,
increasingly
suffering
economically.
The
political
divide
goes
even
deeper
than
simply
between
the two
parties.
In the
GOP
primary,
rural
areas
voted
reliably
for
Trump
and
Texas
Sen. Ted
Cruz,
whose
angrier
style of
politics
many
analysts
argued
were too
harsh
and
off-putting
to play
well
with a
broader
electorate.
Urban
and
suburban
Republicans
were
more
likely
to
support
candidates
widely
seen as
more
electable
like
Florida
Sen.
Marco
Rubio or
Ohio
Gov.
John
Kasich.
"The
urban-rural
split
this
year is
larger
than
anything
we've
ever
seen,"
said
Scott
Reed, a
political
strategist
for the
U.S.
Chamber
of
Commerce
who has
advised
previous
GOP
campaigns.
While
plenty
of
cities
still
struggle
with
endemic
poverty
and
joblessness,
a report
from the
Washington-based
Economic
Innovation
Group
found
that
half of
new
business
growth
in the
past
four
years
has been
concentrated
in 20
populous
counties.
"More
and more
economic
activity
is
happening
in
cities
as we
move to
higher-value
services
playing
a bigger
role in
the
economy,"
said
Ross
Devol,
chief
researcher
at the
Milken
Institute,
an
independent
economic
think
tank.
"As
economies
advance,
economic
activity
just
tends to
concentrate
in fewer
and
fewer
places."
That
concentration
has
brought
a whole
host of
new
urban
problems
- rising
inequality,
traffic
and
worries
that the
basics
of city
life are
increasingly
out of
the
reach of
the
middle
class.
Those
fears
inform
Democrats'
emphasis
on
income
inequality,
wages
and pay
equity
in
contrast
to the
general
anxiety
about
economic
collapse
that
comes
from
Republicans
who
represent
an
increasingly
desperate
rural
America.
Meanwhile,
rural
areas
have
been
especially
slow to
recover
from the
Great
Recession
that
began in
2008:
The most
recent
study by
the U.S.
Department
of
Agriculture
found
that, as
of 2014,
rural
areas
still
had not
regained
all the
jobs
lost in
the
recession
while
metropolitan
areas
had.
Three-quarters
of what
EIG
classifies
as the
nation's
economically
distressed
ZIP
codes
are in
rural
areas.
An
Associated
Press
analysis
of EIG
data
found
that the
economies
of
central
cities
suffer
slightly
less now
than in
2000,
while
those of
areas
that
house
the
majority
of the
nation's
rural
population
have
grown
worse.
"A lot
of these
communities
are
wondering
what are
we going
to do
and to
some
extent
Donald
Trump is
talking
to
that,"
said the
Milken
Institute's
Devol.
"They're
not part
of the
modern
global
economy.
They
feel
like
they've
been
left
behind
through
no fault
of their
own."
These
two
different
economic
worlds
are writ
large in
Colorado.
It is
among
the
states
with the
greatest
economic
gap
between
urban
and
rural
areas,
according
to an
Associated
Press
review
of EIG
data
(Virginia,
South
Carolina
and
Florida
are the
others).
The
state's
sprawling
metropolitan
areas
from
Denver
to
Colorado
Springs
is known
as the
Front
Range.
As it
has
grown to
include
nearly
90
percent
of the
state's
population,
it has
trended
Democratic.
Rural
areas,
which
have
become
more
Republican,
resent
Denver's
clout.
In 2013,
a rural
swath of
the
state
unsuccessfully
tried to
secede
to
create
its own
state of
Northern
Colorado
after
the
Democratic-controlled
statehouse
passed
new gun
control
measures
and
required
rural
areas to
use
renewably
generated
electricity.
"There's
a lack
of
interest
in both
parties
- in
urban,
rural
communities
- in
knowing
what the
others'
needs
are,"
said Jim
Rizzuto,
president
of Otero
Junior
College.
---
Bill
Hendren
certainly
feels
left
behind,
which is
why he's
a Trump
backer.
"I don't
ever see
a
president
caring
about
anyone
who's
living
paycheck
to
paycheck
- if
they did
they'd
have put
the
construction
people
back to
work,"
Hendren
said.
"Trump's
got the
elite
scared
because
he
doesn't
belong
to
them."
Hendren
is
effectively
homeless.
His
pickup
truck
was
stolen
18
months
ago. In
a city
this
would be
less of
a
problem
because
he could
get
around
by
public
transportation
or even
Uber,
but in
Otero
County
he can
no
longer
perform
the odd
jobs at
farms
and
houses
that had
supported
him for
years.
He's
living
temporarily
rent-free
in an
old
cottage
on a
small
rural
property
that
relies
on a
Franklin
stove
for
heat.
Piled up
in the
front
room are
carvings
of
dragons
from
downed
tree
limbs
that he
sells at
the
local
trading
post,
along
with
what he
calls
his
"redneck
signs" -
handcarved
posts
with
warnings
like "I
Call 911
After
the Gun
is
Empty."
He keeps
in a
pouch a
molar
that he
had to
pull out
himself
when it
started
to hurt
him last
winter,
and his
spare
change -
a little
over $4
- in a
clear
plastic
cup.
Hendren,
55, once
worked
in Texas
nightclubs
but
there's
nothing
comparable
in Otero
County,
where
the
largest
town has
a
population
of
6,900.
"There
ain't
nothing
here,"
he said.
"There's
nothing."
Otero
County
and
other
far-flung
rural
areas
face an
uphill
battle
against
geography.
Economic
development
officials
say
businesses
increasingly
relocate
to areas
close to
international
airports,
putting
far-flung
parts of
the
country
at a
natural
disadvantage.
For more
than a
generation,
young
people
have
streamed
out of
Otero
County
and the
rest of
rural
America
looking
for
higher
education,
upwardly
mobile
jobs and
excitement
in
cities.
Otero
economic
development
officials
have
lured
some
light
manufacturing
over the
years;
locals
are
excited
that
their
first
brewpub
will
open in
the
county
seat of
La
Junta,
while
others
in the
hamlet
of
Manzanola
are
rehabbing
downtown's
old,
stately
brick
buildings.
Still,
this
checkerboard
of
alfalfa
and
melon
fields
hugging
the
Arkansas
River as
it
tumbles
across
the high
plains
toward
Kansas
has lost
more
than a
quarter
of its
population
since
its peak
at
25,000
in 1950.
That
stands
in sharp
contrast
with the
rest of
Colorado,
which is
one of
the
fastest-growing
states
in the
nation.
Most of
the
population
growth
is
concentrated
in the
stretch
along
the
Rocky
Mountain
foothills
around
Denver.
Esther
Padilla
and her
family
used to
sell
their
fruit
there
more
than a
decade
ago and
would
gape at
the new
houses,
strip
malls
and
subdivisions
being
built.
"It's
grown
big
time,"
Padilla
said,
"but us,
we're
still in
the same
boat."
Nationally
the
picture
is the
same.
The
years
between
2010 and
2015
accounted
for the
first-ever
net
population
loss for
rural
America
- rural
areas
lost
33,000
residents
annually
until
last
year,
when
losses
slowed
to about
3,000,
according
to the
Department
of
Agriculture.
Meanwhile,
the U.S.
population
grew by
12
million
during
that
time,
largely
in
metropolitan
areas:
-New
York
City's
population
grew by
375,000
between
2010 and
2015
while
population
in the
largely
rural
areas
outside
the
city's
suburbs
shrank
by
14,000.
-In
Virginia,
the
northern
part of
the
state
that
serves
as
Washington
D.C.'s
commuter
suburb
accounts
for
three-fifths
the
state's
population
growth,
while
counties
in its
rural
southwestern
edges
are
shrinking.
-Half of
North
Carolina's
recent
population
growth
came
from the
counties
that
include
Charlotte
and
Raleigh-Durham
while 48
rural
counties
actually
lost
population
there.
Those
shifts
have put
North
Carolina,
Virginia
and
Colorado
in play
during
presidential
elections,
and
Democrats
see the
population
shift to
cities
as
helping
them
against
Trump.
While
the
majority
of
voters
live in
suburbs
and
exurbs
between
the
parties'
two
poles,
the
differing
economies
of town
and
country
are
helping
shape
the
election.
A common
complaint
across
rural
America
is that
big
cities
don't
understand
their
issues
and get
all the
resources
(though
political
scientists
Gerald
Gamm and
Thad
Kousser
published
a paper
in 2013
that
found
that
rural
representatives
had more
success
passing
bills in
state
legislatures
than did
their
city
colleagues).
"If we
had
one-tenth
of one
percent
of tax
revenue
that
went
down
that
railroad
track
out here
our
roads
would be
super
highways,
the
yellow
lines
would be
gold,"
said
Jimmy
Simpkins,
a
retired
coal
miner in
West
Virginia's
Mingo
County.
"The
politicians
took our
money
and took
it to
Charleston
and to
Washington
D.C. You
go up
there
and they
have the
finest
of
roads,
the
finest
of
everything."
Southeastern
Colorado's
precious
water is
often
diverted
to keep
green
the
lawns of
the
Front
Range's
mushrooming
suburbs,
limiting
the
amount
of
farming
in Otero
and its
neighboring
counties.
Residents
are
painfully
aware
that
they
lack the
numbers,
and
corresponding
political
clout,
of
Colorado's
urbanites.
Kevin
Karney,
an Otero
County
commissioner,
noted
that the
state
Department
of
Transportation
doesn't
plow
Otero's
roads in
the
winter
overnight,
because
its
crews
have
been
shifted
to keep
snow-free
the
interstate
running
from
Denver
to
Colorado's
ski
resorts.
"It's
like
rural
Colorado
doesn't
matter,"
Karney
said.
Eric Van
Dyk
feels
overlooked.
The
40-year-old
farms as
a labor
of love
- he
works
fields
of hay,
corn and
small
grains,
then
hustles
to the
town of
Rocky
Ford
where he
teaches
agriculture
at the
local
high
school
to pay
the
bills.
The
running
joke in
the
region
is that
farmers
have to
have a
day job
to
support
their
hobby.
"A new
tractor
is
$150,000
and up
and the
price of
corn is
still
what it
was in
the
1980s,"
Van Dyk
said.
Van Dyk
is happy
with his
rural
life -
its
quiet,
close
community
ties and
a
connection
with the
land
that an
urbanite
who
dines at
organic
restaurants
will
never
fathom.
But he's
aghast
at what
he sees
as a
rising
number
of
people
in his
county
relying
on food
stamps
rather
than
hard
work but
acknowledges
it's
tough to
make a
living
in Otero
County.
"A
four-year
degree
doesn't
guarantee
more
than
$28,000,"
he said.
To make
more
money,
people
head to
the city
---
Denver
is one
of the
fastest-growing
cities
in the
nation,
with a
3.3
percent
unemployment
rate and
a
housing
market
that has
risen 45
percent
since
2012.
Once
dependent
on the
energy
industry
for
jobs,
the city
has
diversified
its
economy
enough
that the
recent
downturn
in fuel
prices
has
barely
hampered
a
booming
economy
powered
by
technology
and
health
care
jobs.
"We have
become a
global
competitor,"
said Tom
Clark,
chief
executive
officer
of the
Metro
Denver
Economic
Development
Corp.
"Now
we're
competing
with
Dublin.
We're
competing
with
cities
in
Spain,
we're
competing
with
Japan."
Still,
Denver
and
cities
like it
around
the
country
grapple
with
economic
anxieties
that are
completely
different
from
those of
Otero
County
farmers.
Rafael
Espinoza
is an
architect
who was
elected
to
Denver's
city
council
last
year as
part of
a group
of
candidates
questioning
the
value of
Denver's
runaway
growth.
Espinoza
has seen
his
neighborhood
of
modest
bungalows
occupied
by
largely
Latino
families
abruptly
transformed
into a
collection
of
condominiums
housing
affluent
professionals.
He
worries
that the
character
of the
city has
changed.
"Money
just
drives
the
discussion.
In the
presidential,
Bernie
Sanders
was my
guy for
that one
reason,"
Espinoza
said.
All the
money
pouring
into
cities
is
creating
new
problems.
A
Brookings
Institute
study
last
year
found
the
nation's
largest
cities
have
higher
rates of
income
inequality
than the
nation
as a
whole.
Predominantly
city-based
Democratic
congressional
districts
have
higher
rates of
inequality
than
Republican
ones,
according
to a
review
of
Census
data.
Rising
rents
and
displacement
of
longtime
residents
is a
typical
urban
worry
from
Seattle
to
Miami.
Richard
Florida,
a
prominent
urban
theorist,
argues
that
living
in a
booming
city,
with its
high
cost of
living,
can be
tougher
than
living
in a
slowly
depopulating
rural
area.
"People
in urban
and
rural
areas
are
living
very
different
lives
and
experiencing
the
world
very
differently,"
Florida
said.
Rural
areas
have
their
occasionally
homeless,
like
Bill
Hendren,
but the
problem
has
soared
in
increasingly
expensive
cities
like
Denver.
Shelters
there
report a
sharp
rise in
population,
even
among
working
people
who
suddenly
can't
find a
place to
rent.
Robin
Sam, 62,
who has
lived on
disability
for
decades
after
being
injured
in
warehouse
work,
fell
through
the
widening
cracks
in the
rental
market
himself.
He'd
counted
on
leaving
his
previous
apartment
for one
in an
apartment
complex
built in
his old
neighborhood,
Denver's
historically
black
but
rapidly-gentrifying
five
points.
But the
complex
-
located
across
the
street
from a
library
named
after
Sam's
uncle -
told Sam
at the
last
minute
that
they
were
raising
the rent
on the
unit to
more
than the
$1,055
his
Section
8
voucher
would
permit
him to
pay.
Three
years
ago, the
last
time Sam
was
between
apartments,
it took
him two
weeks to
find a
new
place.
It's
been
more
than six
months
now.
"I feel
like I'm
being
pushed
out,"
said
Sam, who
is
black.
He
recalls
houses
and
apartments
being
barred
to
blacks
in his
youth
decades
ago, but
senses
something
else at
play
now.
"It's
money -
and
money
changes
everything,"
he said.
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