The Rural-Urban Divide

James Poulos has a weird piece that doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to me, but one of the commenters to the story does, in my opinion, express very well the differences between Republican and Democratic appeals to the opposite sides of the the rural-urban divide.  Here's Marcotico:

I have a theory that conservatives view rights as emanating from the individual and flowing outwards until the boundary line of one's property. Whereas liberals view rights as collective rights that need to be constantly negotiated, and are inter-dependent. The first model is rural in nature, "I can do anything on my property as long as it doesn't infringe on my neighbor's property." Easy to enforce when you're property is measured in acres, but much more difficult when your property line is three dimensional, and your roof is someone's else's floor. The second is urban in nature, as in the city center resources are all shared, and so much space is public (parks, shopping districts, the street, the air, and the aural environment).
I think this difference is fundamental to the the two political idealogies, and also tracks with the expanded libertarian model that includes libertarian and statist idealogies. As other commenters have noted this difference is what produces the tension in the suburbs. Suburbanites share the rural value that their property line is sacrosanct, and that everything inside their property should be in their control, but unfortunately they have to deal with shared resources like water, sewage, education systems, and road capacity, not to mention the shared aspects of property values, noise, and air quality. So the individualist tendencies become a fantasy, but a comforting one.

I've opined that population density is the leading explanation for how someone will vote.  I mainly felt that how many people you have to put up with will define your feelings on how much government involvement you want in your life.  I also think the greater income disparity makes wealthy urban residents more supportive of government welfare programs.  I like what Marcotico says, as it is pretty informative about property rights and actions.   I think his explanation for the suburbs works very well, as somebody on their half acre lot may want to do what he wants on his property, but having two other people right next door doing something he doesn't like really brings the individual versus collective argument into perspective.

Well said Marcotico.  Less well said Mr. Poulos.