<story><title>Who&apos;s Missing from America&apos;s Colleges? Rural High School Graduates</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/15/581895659/whos-missing-from-america-s-colleges-rural-high-school-graduates</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>VectorLock</author><text>Why shouldn&amp;#x27;t the world focus on cities?  If you&amp;#x27;re choosing to live in an area where you&amp;#x27;re geographically separated from other people can you really complain that you&amp;#x27;re not receiving benefits from systems that are more optimal when people are clustered together?</text></item><item><author>nugi</author><text>The world continues to focus on cities, while the rest of the people are left behind. I notice a clear metropolitan bias on HN, often incredulous that 1st world citizens are still living in a unimproved state. Even an 30min from one of the 10 biggest cities on the USA, broadband is still unavailable to a majority, ambulance times are in hours, and school funding is increasingly disappearing. Please keep in your minds and hearts that there are millions people outside the expected social systems generally assumed available to city and suburb dwellers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Barrin92</author><text>&amp;gt;choosing to live in an area where you&amp;#x27;re geographically separated from other people&lt;p&gt;people aren&amp;#x27;t created out of a vacuum and randomly choose a place to live. What if your 70 year old mother is simply too frail to move to a city? What if you desperately need the monthly paycheck and cannot just go months without pay looking for a job because you care for your child? What if you simply do not want your community to rot away because every abled bodied person runs off to the city?&lt;p&gt;People aren&amp;#x27;t just amoeba in a lab experiment.</text></comment>
<story><title>Who&apos;s Missing from America&apos;s Colleges? Rural High School Graduates</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/15/581895659/whos-missing-from-america-s-colleges-rural-high-school-graduates</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>VectorLock</author><text>Why shouldn&amp;#x27;t the world focus on cities?  If you&amp;#x27;re choosing to live in an area where you&amp;#x27;re geographically separated from other people can you really complain that you&amp;#x27;re not receiving benefits from systems that are more optimal when people are clustered together?</text></item><item><author>nugi</author><text>The world continues to focus on cities, while the rest of the people are left behind. I notice a clear metropolitan bias on HN, often incredulous that 1st world citizens are still living in a unimproved state. Even an 30min from one of the 10 biggest cities on the USA, broadband is still unavailable to a majority, ambulance times are in hours, and school funding is increasingly disappearing. Please keep in your minds and hearts that there are millions people outside the expected social systems generally assumed available to city and suburb dwellers.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thomastjeffery</author><text>Why &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; the world focus on cities?&lt;p&gt;Those who are born and raised in rural areas can&amp;#x27;t just uproot their lives the moment they turn 18 and start to afford, or even enjoy city life.&lt;p&gt;Because the commute is closer? It&amp;#x27;s still at least as &lt;i&gt;slow&lt;/i&gt; in many places, because of traffic problems generated by tighter clusters of people.&lt;p&gt;The idea that cities are the most optimal is an idea, not a proven fact. Your experience may support the idea, but mine certainly does not.&lt;p&gt;The point here is that there are more people living in cities than in rural areas, simply because that has been true for a few generations, and people don&amp;#x27;t tend to change lifestyles.&lt;p&gt;People who grow up with one lifestyle realize the advantages it provides, and grow up with a bias toward that lifestyle. That bias coupled with the population difference is the real reason the majority of people don&amp;#x27;t care about rural areas. Personally, I think we should fight that bias.</text></comment>