SURVEY: Folks in rural parts of Pennsylvania may be more apt to wax poetic about the beauty of nature than people who live in cities, but a study has shown that attitudes among rural and urban residents are pretty similar.

In 2019, Penn State University researchers, with a grant from the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, conducted an attitudinal survey of rural and urban Pennsylvanians on a variety of issues. Here are some of the findings from both rural and urban residents:

Felt that most local community family and human services issues should receive the “same priority” or “higher priority” in the future.

“One key difference was that rural respondents identified the availability of jobs as the most important issue while urban respondents identified maintenance of roads and bridges as the most important issue,” stated the Center for Rural Pa.

There were differences in thought on addressing the opioid crisis, too. Rural residents wanted stricter support of criminal penalties, while urban respondents wanted more funding for treatment and addiction programs.