I recently came across an interesting article by David Schultz in the Daily Yonder. For those unfamiliar with the Daily Yonder, which I’m assuming is more or less all of you, it’s a website with news and issues affecting rural areas. Not just farm commodity prices, in fact they don’t cover that in detail, but things like healthcare delivery in sparsely populated areas, who will produce our food when the average farmer is about 60 now, education, and so on.  They are pretty big on data centers. And rural culture. It’s a little different take on the world from, say, The New York Times.  Anyway, this article was about the rural-urban divide — the big differences between rural and urban America. We obviously see it at the ballot box nationally and also right here in Summit County where the voting patterns on the east and west sides of the county are almost mirror images.  Schultz used internet search data for a number of consumer products like food and clothing to see how just how different rural and urban areas really are. He compares the differences in consumer preferences to voting patterns and concludes that election results can be predicted from the grocery store.  His results come up with two very different worlds.  He said that differences in food preferences, as indicated by on line searches, were the most striking. The divide was greatest when comparing searches for pork rinds to searches for tofu.  There was a huge difference in the relative number of searches for gravy and pesto as well. And Velveeta and brie.   There’s nothing in that list that will ever make it on my grocery list. I don’t eat either pork rinds or tofu, Velveeta or brie, though I can imagine eating pork rinds with Velveeta more easily than eating tofu with gravy.  I’m not sure why anybody is searching Google for the nearest pork rinds or tofu. In Birkenstock country, every market will carry tofu. And in the cowboy boot world, pork rinds are everywhere. So there may be a quirk in his methodology, though I think the result is accurate. Other aspects of life split almost as cleanly. NASCAR fans were decidedly rural and NPR listeners on the urban side. That might partly be a reflection of where typically weak public radio signals can penetrate, KPCW excepted. Again, I’m not a big fan of either.  NASCAR seems like watching traffic, and I get enough of the real thing on S.R. 248 without buying a ticket to the track. And there’s a whole lot of NPR coverage that sends me reaching for the button to switch over to music on my phone. “Splendid Table” is a great bit of self-parody, and would never considered serving suggestions for pork rinds, Spam or any recipe involving Velveeta. Counties with a Whole Foods store overwhelmingly vote Democrat, and Shultz reported that only 2% of counties that voted for Trump had a Whole Foods in them at all. And we don’t even need to discuss voting patterns in counties with a Waffle House in them.  Huge national retailers spend millions of dollars studying where to build and how their product line matches up with the community. They are investing a ton of money based on their demographic analysis and proprietary formulas. They don’t drive consumer choices, but try to locate in communities that likely align with their products.  There are few ski shops on South Padre Island, or surf shops in Omaha. I don’t think we will be seeing a Cracker Barrel opening on Main Street any time soon. I am puzzled that the Culvers restaurant in Heber didn’t make it. That seemed like a pretty good fit.  I’m eagerly waiting to see what the retail tenants in the new Ritz Francis hotel turn out to be. Francis, like much of the east side of Summit County, is growing explosively, and is on the front line of our local rural-urban divide, ground zero in the gentrification splatter zone.  In a town that has struggled to support even a convenience store for years, the new hotel project includes a whole lot of nice-looking retail space. They will need a restaurant to serve hotel guests (Waffle House or Ruth’s Chris?), but what of the other spaces?  Will they be selling center pivot irrigation system parts and horse liniment? Probably not. With the big money flooding into places like Victory Ranch and Tuhay, maybe they will be rented to New York style delis and Breitling watch stores. High-end fly fishing gear? I hope we don’t get a Starbucks.  Where the tenant mix tilts on that pork rind-tofu balance, and how successful the stores are will be a real indication of the cultural shift happening. Would a shop there stock Wranglers or Levis? Ariat seems to be the current brand trend on the rodeo circuit.  Is Kamas Valley ready for a Lulu Lemon store? Or a place to buy your $3,000 cowboy hat? We already have a sizeable culture of influencer types milking their cows in white Ralph Lauren dresses.  Is it time to pack up and move to Tabiona? There’s no tofu there. Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986. The post More Dogs on Main: The pork rind-tofu scale appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less