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Comment by rilezg | Hacker News Reader

>Boy, where do you get off?

My guess is that this attitude is where:

>In small town USA, the local culture usually is inferior.

Big cities often have people from many different cultures, including small towns, which is neat, and interesting things can happen when different perspectives collide, but, for the most part, cities just operate under the generic mass media American culture.

But, in my experience, people living in rural areas rely on their immediate neighbors for more than those living in larger developments. This is conducive to the development of a strong local culture, and outsiders who move in expecting the mass media American culture will likely not feel welcome.

Having lived a variety of places, I personally prefer the rural culture (at least here in Vermont), but I would not say big city culture is inferior...just different.

A tip: if you say a person's culture is inferior, they probably will not see you as worth listening to.

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> But, in my experience, people living in rural areas rely on their immediate neighbors for more than those living in larger developments. This is conducive to the development of a strong local culture, and outsiders who move in expecting the mass media American culture will likely not feel welcome.

This might be true for some people in large cities, especially the wealthier and the transplants from other places.

However, poor people in cities have a huge sense of community. They rely on their community a ton, and everyone works together to survive. The neighborhood is the community, and it is much like a close knit rural community, only compacted into a smaller city neighborhood.

Very true, and a good point. Strong culture and community is certainly not exclusive to rural areas. I imagine there are many neighborhoods in large cities where an outsider moving in expecting mass media American culture would not feel welcome (although it may be easier to travel to an area of the city with more generic culture where they do feel welcome than it would be living in a rural area).

> imagine there are many neighborhoods in large cities where an outsider moving in expecting mass media American culture would not feel welcome

I think they would find neighors very welcoming - even the toughest cities and neighborhoods are mostly friendly people - but the culture would be unfamiliar and the newcomer would have to adjust.

> it may be easier to travel to an area of the city with more generic culture where they do feel welcome

I'm not sure where that is in many cities, other than suburbs. You can't escape the richness of large cities.

>I think they would find neighbors very welcoming - even the toughest cities and neighborhoods are mostly friendly people - but the culture would be unfamiliar and the newcomer would have to adjust.

Sure, I agree, with emphasis on the newcomer adjusting.

>I'm not sure where that is in many cities, other than suburbs. You can't escape the richness of large cities.

To clarify, I just mean locations that attract people of a wide variety of backgrounds. That is not to say those locations are 'un-rich' or anything. I just mean that interactions there are governed more by mainstream American culture than by anything specific to that city or neighborhood or the people involved.

> cities just operate under the generic mass media American culture

I would say it's the opposite. Cities are their own worlds and cultures (many, many cultures per city); they have the critical mass to ignore mass media. Mass media doesn't understand or address the richness of life in cities; it's for the suburbs.

As a counterpoint, an outsize proportion of mass media is produced by relatively-not-poor people who live in cities, many of whom are transplants. As such, that is the dominant perspective.

But I certainly agree that mass media does not understand or address the richness of life in cities (or anywhere else).

> As a counterpoint, an outsize proportion of mass media is produced by relatively-not-poor people who live in cities, many of whom are transplants. As such, that is the dominant perspective.

Yes, I agree that many perspectives are omitted.

> mass media does not understand or address the richness of life in cities (or anywhere else).

It captures the suburbs pretty well, IMHO.

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