[ctlby]

I put the word in quotes to indicate the tendentiousness of any potential definition. I personally don't think of any part of America as having "failed," but if you force me to pick, I'd choose any area that suffered from breakdown in law and order and severe de-population. NYC in the late 70s and Detroit's long-running (but hopefully interrupted?) decline especially come to mind. A number of other urban centers could potentially fit too.

[moate]

Fair enough, and I agree with your sentiment. I think I can point to some rural states economic downturns, criminal problems and terrible literacy rates and draw similar conclusions.

I think the best move here is to agree that either side (rural vs urban, left vs right, whatever vs it's opposite) could cherry pick items to point to and say "these bad things prove my point".

[anigbrowl]

Has it occurred to you that those examples are noticeable because the population of a city is concentrated rather than distributed?

Contrast research showing 24% of US counties are losing population and 91% of them are rural. The map in figure 3 infra makes this especially obvious. https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/rural-depopulation

[ctlby]

I'm not inclined to think that slow demographic decline constitutes failure. Even if you disagree with that, my preferred definition has the additional "law and order" requirement, and I've never seen a rural example of a "Bronx is burning"-type event.

[kasey_junk]

You are playing really fast and loose with definitions so it’s hard to know what you consider a failure case but rural areas now have higher crime rates than the national average.

Incarceration rates are also now led by rural areas[0]. Anyone who has spent time in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio or West Virginian rural areas have driven through areas that easily could be called ‘failed’. And that’s just from my personal experience.

I’d say your position that only progressive places have failed I’d just your bias showing and doesn’t have any basis in fact. And that’s before you dig into whether it was progressive policies that led to the 2 failures you do mention.

[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.governing.com/topics/public...

[ctlby]

I earlier acknowledged the difficulty of coming up with a reasonable definition of "failed." I will say that I don't think it's enough to be simply below-average in literacy or above-average in crime or whatever; you really want a multivariate outlier in the space of social pathologies. I suspect that most ways of operationalizing "failure" will capture primarily urban decay, like the examples I brought up.

Does rural West Virginia rise to that level? Having been there myself, I don't think so, though I could be convinced otherwise. Can you point to large-ish rural areas that match the dysfunction of, say, south-side Chicago? Preferably along with some (crude) quantitative comparisons. I'm genuinely curious here; not trying to pick on progressive policies.

[notacoward]

Have you considered that density itself is a contributing factor? That's hardly a stretch. Perhaps certain effects will be magnified in cities compared to rural areas or states containing both. And those cities might also tend more toward the Democrat end of the political spectrum. Correlation still does not equal causation. The whole "failed cities are X" trope doesn't suggest any useful policy either, unless you think emulating China's "Down to the Countryside" movement would be a great idea.

I contend that, adjusting for density, places like Mississippi or Appalachia stand as stark counterexamples to any theory that being "blue" leads to failure. In fact, a pretty strong argument could be made that "blue" policies around things like public vs. private goods, fossil vs. renewable energy, or respect for immigrants are the only reason urban failures haven't been worse or more widespread. Believe it or not, Detroit could be worse, and I believe would be worse if certain "heartland" attitudes were more prevalent there. Literal "smoking hole in the ground" worse.

To bring this back to the original topic, the inevitable trend toward greater urbanization therefore means it's even more important to address gerrymandering now instead of kicking the can down the road. Letting the rural few dictate to the urban many will surely lead to heartbreak and pain, no matter what other beliefs are involved.

[ctlby]

> doesn’t suggest any useful policy

All good points. Some blue cities do very well and some do very poorly. I have to conclude that the problems are mostly exogenous to policy.

> being “blue” leads to failure

To be clear, I was never suggesting that progressive policies lead inexorably to decline—the most successful parts of the county are blue.

> a pretty strong argument could be made

I’m more skeptical here. The policies you cite are neither necessary nor sufficient for vitality. Most pointedly, progressive values were nonexistent for most of America’s history, and yet it did quite well economically.

> literal “smoking hole in the ground” worse

But my whole point is that it was a smoking hole in the ground! I started this whole thread by responding to a claim about the inevitability of red states going “third world.” To my eye, such a thing has never happened to rural areas, but has happened to urban areas (I might add, with some frequency). Be it density or whatever—there’s something that needs to be explained.

> rural few dictate to the urban many

Agreed. I think it would be equally bad for the urban many to dictate to the rural few. Federal level policy is inappropriate for most things

[tptacek]

Another, simpler way to say "multivariate outlier in the space of social pathologies" is "special pleading".

[ctlby]

It's easy to change my mind on this: just provide me a decision rule that'll put rural decay data points on the "failure" side of the classification boundary while leaving urban decay on the other.

[pvg]

That's just the igon value.

[anigbrowl]

Malheur wildlife refuge occupation was quite recent.