Rural-urban divide is oversimplified

For the past decade, the media has been obsessed with the idea of a growing divide between rural and urban areas, often portraying it as a deep chasm separating the nation's citizens.

A recent example of this coverage took it a step further. Not only are we portrayed as divided, but there are now suggestions that we should make it official through a divorce. Case in point: the Greater Idaho Movement, an effort by its supporters in eastern (rural) Oregon to secede from Oregon and join Idaho. The grounds for the divorce? The rural-urban political divide.

The narrative is over-simplified and make...