Historically, there has been a higher perceived and practical need for government in big cities. Sewer systems, for example, are a matter of life and death in cities where diseases spread rapidly through densely packed populations. In the country, outhouses worked fine for most people until septic tanks with indoor plumbing came along, and neither needed government involvement or assistance to install and use -- except in so far as they might require permission from local regulators, who were therefore resented.

Clean and healthful running water in cities likewise entailed major public works programs as well as taxation in some form. Water in the country was usually a matter of drilling a well and was therefore untaxed. Garbage disposal in cities, required to prevent all sort of unpleasantness including vermin infestation and disease, has almost always involved government. In the country, you could burn or bury.

Crime rates, despite Hollywood's slander of the American West, have also traditionally been a more serious problem in big cities. When you can see people coming from far away and tend to know all those around you, those already accustomed to handling weapons and hunting have a different take on crime prevention than those who live among high-density strangers.

The economics of the newspaper business is far more favorable to cities than to the countryside. The cost of news content production in cities, where populations are easily accessible, is much lower than it is in the countryside -- especially before the era of cheap and reliable telephones. Moreover, the cost of product distribution was dramatically less expensive in urban areas where paper boys often travel only yards, as opposed to miles in rural areas, to deliver a single, incremental newspaper.

As a result, big city newspapers thrived and the biggest city's newspaper, the New York Times, thrived most. That the journalists and editors who worked in the big city news business reflected the local political culture is not surprising. The sentiment that city folk are just a little bit smarter than country folk, or some equivalent chauvinism related to locational and team psychology, is not a conspiracy and probably couldn't have been prevented any more than you could get the majority of Green Bay Packers fans to root for New York, or vice versa.

“[...] for every journalist who contributed to George W. Bush’s campaign, another 93 contributed to Kerry’s campaign.”

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