American culture has long held an antiurban bias. To a great extent, what we value in rural settings is defined by what we suspect we have lost in the city. Some aspects of urban life are also appealing to us, and in some respects, they reflect the same values that we cherish in the countryside—community, family, work. But rural America has a greater appeal precisely because we know it only at a distance. The meanings that we have constructed for urban and rural areas help to legitimate an antiurban bias in American public policy.