Planning the Next Great Migration

Finally, I hope you’ll forgive me for some remarks on Right Attitude in your new home, especially if that home is a small conservative town and you are a Blue urbanite. For some this will be very obvious and you may think I’m being condescending, but please believe me that some other people need advice. Lifelong city residents can be just as parochial as rural villagers in their own way. Everyone they know is from the city; they have never met a farmer. (Many urban children actually do not know where tomatoes or potatoes come from.) Better-educated urbanites often have friends and colleagues who are ethnically diverse, but all similarly well-educated; they may never socialize with anyone who isn’t, or have more than a brief conversation with them at the checkout counter or the tire shop. How can they know what behavior is appropriate in a small blue-collar town? Just like a rube going to the big city and unwittingly shaming himself by bristling or sneering at its diversity, city folk in small towns can look like arrogant fools without realizing it. If you get that reputation in your first months, it could take many years to shake it. At worst, if the rural vs. urban cold war turns hot, that could put you in real danger.