I've been thinking about this a bit, lately. Australia is in the middle of a massive flooding crisis (again), which has mainly affected rural areas. Yet it has been extremely noticeable that, each time this has happened in the last year or so, the media has been far more concerned (to the point of it almost being comical) with flooding in the respective capital city impacted, rather than the much heavier hit rural areas...
Population size and density plays into this. I realise that. As does proximity, with media orgs and journalists mostly being based out of the capitals. But it is so blatant, when it gets to the point where even specific "regional networks" are more concerned with the city than the country, and when regional areas are almost completely ignored, even when people actually die in the flood.
So there's that. Which is nothing if not representative of a trend that we have seen in this country for at least a decade.
But there's more than that - when the journalists do get out to these country towns (varying in size from a few thousand people to literally 100K), and interview the people there, it is immediately apparent that they see the world in a completely different way, both to the journalist asking the questions, and to most... "Elite" city folk.
They're not worried about climate change. They don't view these floods as "apocalyptic", or "the worst we have ever seen". They're just going about their business, trying to survive and get by, and actually banding together to look after each other, and the vulnerable members of their community. It's actually remarkably wholesome to see (what we see of it, which is not much).
This, in complete contrast to the city/suburban folk who got flooded out, who have... Already literally turned on each other, and started apportioning blame. Despite the fact that they are the ones the government mostly focussed on, and they got the most support, before anyone else.
This, despite the fact that people in those "rural communities" are poorer, less "educated", and generally... With worse health outcomes than people in the city.
It was the same during Covid, of course, but I've never seen it to quite this extent before. These are "the forgotten people", whose votes are generally discounted (because rural electorates, which get swamped by city voters) and who are, I have to be honest, largely ignored, by not just the media, but by... "City folk" more broadly.
Obviously you see this trend even more clearly in the US, and arguably the UK. I think this phenomenon is pretty much part of most "human societies", for at least the last 200 years or so, but it's still... Really jarring when you see it. The level of disenfranchisement be real. And we should really do better.
Arguably, this was a big part of the Trump phenomenon, and Brexit. And perhaps Meloni, and the recent Swedish election, even, too. It's just... Stunning, frankly, that the "elites" continue down this same path, even here, and don't seem to have learned a single fucking thing from those examples...
So yeah. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I've been wanting to get that one out of my system, for days, since I really started to think about it, lol...
On the other points - completely, completely agree with all of it.
This has already happened with churches here (Anglican ones, mostly), and then banks, and then post offices. It is almost inevitable that this trend will eventually continue, as you say, to that point...
Though bear in mind that voting is compulsory here, at all levels now, so... If they did that, it would be a bit harder for them to revenue-raise by sending out all those warnings and fines to people who didn't vote, then, wouldn't it..?
Lol, I used to work for the electoral commission. In rural areas, sometimes (and also in super working class parts of the city I lived in). I can't tell you how quickly the smirk gets wiped off the face of city slickers like that when they count the ballot papers and realise it hasn't gone the way "they expected", lol... Especially in federal elections.