I'm not sure it's "coastal vs interior" as much as "urban vs rural".
I think we're past the time period where water transport was hugely superior to land transport (and air didn't yet exist). It's not that much harder or more expensive to get a plane ticket or UPS package to the Midwest compared to California.
I think the election results by county support this. Even in red states, urban centers are blue, and in blue states, rural areas are red.
I'm not sure there's a sufficient segregating force to change this. Aside from election time and resulting legal frameworks that apply to both areas, the ease of transportation and also of moving information mean that there's little friction in being next door to or embedded within the other groups.
I think the rural vs urban dichotomy definitely needs to be talked about. In reality these are 2 completely different worlds.
This is a little hyperbolic, but by the time the rural factory worker has finished killing the chicken and plucking its feathers for dinner, the attorney at New York's finest law firm has just settled a class action lawsuit for $100,000,000.00
There is no question rural areas are getting the short end of the stick, but I have a hard time believing it's primarily because of any intervention on the part of special interests (though they almost certainly are not innocent). It's because on a global scale the smartest, most connected people in the world can literally move mountains relative to their blue collar counter parts.
I think we're past the time period where water transport was hugely superior to land transport (and air didn't yet exist). It's not that much harder or more expensive to get a plane ticket or UPS package to the Midwest compared to California.
I think the election results by county support this. Even in red states, urban centers are blue, and in blue states, rural areas are red.
I'm not sure there's a sufficient segregating force to change this. Aside from election time and resulting legal frameworks that apply to both areas, the ease of transportation and also of moving information mean that there's little friction in being next door to or embedded within the other groups.