I'm just an opioid-addled country bumpkin from a rural locale in Canada, but it seems to me that the opioid crisis is
a pretty mixed bag, not a red-state or blue-state phenomenon.
Also, I know we country mice don't produce anything and aren't taxed on our income, but please consider
this analysis re urban vs. rural crime rates:
In order to examine the current relationship between population size and crime rates, Table 1 provides data on arrest rates per 100,000 population in 1996 for cities grouped according to their size, for a number of offenses. Murder rates are highest in cities with populations greater than 250,000 and decline for each decreasing city-size category, to a low of 3.0 per 100,000 for cities under 10,000. A similar pattern is seen for robbery, where arrest rates are over six times higher in the largest, as opposed to the smallest, cities. However, there are no clear differences in arrest rates across city size categories for the crime of larceny-theft. Although rural-urban distinctions based exclusively on size of place are not ideal, this pattern of a strong relationship between city size and violent crime rates and weaker relationships for property crimes generally holds for several different societies and in several different historical periods (Sacco et al.).
Similar relationships have been revealed in studies using victimization data. For example, Bachman analyzed data from the National Crime Victimization Survey for the years 1973 to 1990, and found generally that individuals living in central cities had the highest rates of criminal victimization for all types of crime, while those living in nonmetropolitan (rural) areas had the lowest rates. More specifically, on average, individuals residing in central areas experienced nearly twice as many crimes of violence as those living in nonmetropolitan areas, although Bachman noted that the gap in violent crime victimization had been decreasing over the 1973–1990 period.
The notable exception to the pattern of higher crime rates in urban as opposed to rural jurisdictions revealed in Table 1 is for the offense of driving under the influence of alcohol. For this offense, rates were lowest in cities with populations greater than 250,000, increasing to a rate of 833.4 per 100,000 in cities of less than 10,000. These differences are at least partially explained by the fact that alcohol use, particularly among young people, is more frequent in rural areas. This may pose a particular problem for rural dwellers who have to spend far more time on the road, traveling longer distances.
Looking at the
statistics, rural and urban America are otherwise pretty comparable. Rural America is slightly poorer, slightly more disabled, slightly more entrepreneurial, and has a slightly higher business survival rate. No reason for neighbours and fellow countrymen to hate on each other.