My favorite dichotomy, (which would be a great name for a
Game show), is
Urban vs. Rural.
To quote from MW above, "opposed to each other by contradiction." That is certainly an apt description of my time spent in these separate parts of the United States.
Although people may move in and around the Suburbs, I think it is a non-vote on this issue. It is a loud "I abstain".
Most people I know are either Pro-city, which tends to be for People and stuff or,
for a rural life, the country, nature and simplicity.
What I enjoy about this dichotomy is that I like both and see pluses and minuses to both of these types of existence.
One of the great things about music and the internet is that I can "get" some of things I like about an urban lifestyle here, which is not urban.
Urban people like to think of themselves as urbane, but that is hardly the majority of folks I have known.
Rural people like to think of themselves as open-minded and peaceful. I would suggest that is one HUGE exageration.
Both sides tends to be scared and/or bothered with the other. They cannot fathom how anyone could chooseto live a life in "that kind of place "
People who like crowded restaurants and jazz often have a hard time relating to a simple picnic listening to country music.
These two groups: urban vs. rural do not have to be mutually exclusive, but the emptyness of the suburbs may have a lot to do with the fact that it was, and still, is the DMZ, the border, between these two factions.
Maybe the suburbs need to be bland and without character so as to separate these two disparate ways of looking at the world?
I have gone back and forth between these two worlds for years. It has never ceased to be a strange trip.
All I know for sure is this:
Mexico City is more like Los Angeles than Idaho and
Hong Kong is more like Chicago than Iowa.