Real People

I've been thinking lately about the idea that rural or suburban people are "real," and city slickers aren't. Some of the neighborhood planning work that's going on at the Planning Bureau is indicating pretty strongly that people who live out in the more suburban parts of the city think that one of teh strengths of their neighborhoods is that the people are Real. The rest of us, apparently, aren't. The idea is also being relentlessly beaten to death by McCain and Palin, and it's driving me nuts - isn't is wrong to dismiss people based on where they live, no matter which side of the urban-rural divide you're on? Don't we all pretty much have the same concerns? When non-urban people consider themselves Real, are they contrasting themselves to the old idea of cities, full of poor, criminal non-white people, or to the new idea of gentrified cities full of arugula-eating, hybrid-driving rich white people?

Anyway, this post about the geographies of Palin and Obama pleases me - it's the first I've seen looking at all beneath the surface of what constitutes Real in the campaign.