We could solve the urban-rural divide by eating berries. The "Big Sort" is more complicated.

I'm generally an optimist about our nation finding its political and social middle ground. Plus I like berries. But the culture wars nonsense causing the "sorting out" of America is damn baffling.

Now THAT’S urban: Getting your wedding photos taken on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, as we saw this couple doing when we visited two years ago. It’s a scene rural Oregonians might not be able to see themselves doing, but I’ll bet many recognize the charm of it.

When one of my former editors asked me to write about Oregon’s urban-rural divide earlier this summer, my first reaction was, “Why? What’s changed?” Because I’ve written about it multiple times and so have a bunch of other people. It didn’t seem like there was much new to say.

But I ended up writing an opinion piece that ran in The Other Oregon magazine (Which you should read if you live in Portland, Salem or Eugene.) I’ve posted the essay here on Substack as well.

The issues we all care about — health, housing, jobs, education, family, food, land and water — are layered with nuance and deserve intelligent discussion, not the instant outrage that flames too much of our public discourse. I believe urban and rural can find common ground and meet there to solve problems.

It’s not as simple as it should be. Nationally, we’re in what authors Bill Bishop and Robert G. Cushing called the "Big Sort," . They say we’re clustering into neighborhoods — or cities or even whole states — of people who think like we do. We’re sorting ourselves into pockets of red-blue and left-right in addition to the old standbys of white-not and wealth-not.

We’re settling into regions where most people live and think the same way, showing it most dramatically in their voting patterns. The authors argued that such polarization is tearing us apart; and that it’s resulted in a hardening of political and social views. Because of that, we ever more vehemently dismiss the dumbshits who think differently than us. I certainly have.

The Big Sort is a true thing. My neighborhood is in a voting precinct that went more than 80 percent for Obama both times. And you can guess how we voted on the vile buffoon against Hillary and against Joe. Drive across the county line, however, and you’ve got feverish right-wingers running for school board seats so they can ban library books they don’t approve of.

I’m an optimist — sometimes ranging into Marionberry pie-eyed territory, I’ll admit — but I think we can get past our differences. The people I spoke to for the urban-rural essay offered some solid guidelines: First, go see the city or the country for yourself. Then ask yourself “So what?” if people think or act differently than what you’re accustomed to. Ask yourself who benefits from the manufactured outrage. And slow down and listen.

I’ll add another one: Go eat some Oregon berries and think about who grows them and how they got to you. There’s a link there. Bear with me, so to speak.

The New York Times ran a story May 12 about the death of Bernadine Strik, an Oregon State University horticulture professor and berry crop researcher. The Capital Press in Salem, which covers Pacific Northwest agriculture, reported it first, of course. The Oregonian/OregonLive wrote about Bernadine, too, which was great. She was widely admired and deserved the coverage; I was glad to see it. I interviewed her a couple times when I was a reporter. I told my granddaughter once that if she ever needed to write about a scientist for a school assignment, I’d introduce her to Bernadine.

She was only 60 and died of ovarian cancer. I can tell you she was generous with her time, committed to public service and absolutely intelligent.

But it occurred to me a lot of people in urban Oregon, especially my fellow Portlanders, most likely hadn’t heard about her and probably wouldn’t grasp the significance of the news stories. And I wouldn’t necessarily expect them to. Many of the people whose work affects our lives, directly or indirectly, are out of sight and don’t come to mind. We’re all busy with what’s in front of us.

But I guess I’d ask urban people in particular to take a moment and recognize the blank spot between themselves and all things rural.

First, about Bernadine Strik: She helped improve the state’s blueberry and other berry crops with her rigorous work at OSU, often in partnership with fine berry researchers posted on campus by the federal Department of Agriculture, the USDA. It’s been a terrific partnership for decades.

Oregon blueberries have an annual production value of about $120 million. They are the 11th most valuable crop in Oregon, behind cherries and hazelnuts but above onions and Christmas trees.

Wine grapes, which are the most likely to spark favor, interest and tourism visits to the vineyards by city people, are the state’s eighth most valuable crop. Greenhouse and nursery plants are perennially number one, by the way, with an annual production value of more than $1 billion.

In regards to the urban-rural divide, it’s a fact that blueberries are grown by the few in rural Oregon and eaten by the many in urban Oregon — not to mention South Korea, Canada and elsewhere. It’s also a fact that the few who occupy Oregon’s square miles are at the political and economic mercy of the many who occupy the square blocks. What Portland, Salem and Eugene decide and decree can swamp the rest of the state.

More to the point, many people in rural Oregon make a living growing such things as blueberries, hops, wheat or grass seed. Some raise cattle and some grow mint for the oil that flavors your gum and toothpaste. They cut juniper timbers, catch fish and guide hunting trips. They maintain roads, care for the ill, clerk for the court, teach school and mind the mercantiles.

They raise families.

Now THAT’S rural: Exercising your horse at the start of the Wheeler County Fair in Fossil, Ore., a few years ago. A lot of city people would find such a scene completely alien, but I’ll bet more than a few would be envious.

In the process of reporting and writing the essay about the urban-rural divide, I got to revisit my favorite part of journalism: Talking to intelligent, informed, reasonable people and asking them to help me understand complicated topics.

When I interviewed people as a reporter, I often found myself telling them I was looking for information and informed opinion. Not rant, not overblown outrage, not simplistic slogans and certainly not bullshit.

It’s those conversations that caused me to stay optimistic about us working things out in the United States. There are a lot of cool, smart, capable people out there — urban and rural — who share common interests, especially in vibrant realm of food.

Clockwise from top left: Blueberries, wheat and flour, crackers made at a test kitchen in Portland, spring mix lettuce, moo, and my raspberries.

Lot of stuff there we can all chew on. Sorry.

But that’s why I think it was significant that The NY Times and The O — the epitome of mainstream media — ran stories about Bernadine Strik’s passing. In doing so they acknowledged not just the importance of her individual work, but the larger economic force that hangs on in much of rural America

That Big Sort is a tougher nut, to continue the food theme. I was out in one of Portland’s suburbs the other day and cringed the whole time. I had to pick up a prescription for an in-law, and the hospital complex and a bunch of other development was perched on a hill above Interstate 205, the broad beltway that jumps from Interstate 5 to Interstate 84 and curves around Portland and Vancouver to I-5 again.

I-205 saved a lot of time when it first opened. But it prompted hideous suburban development and now it’s clogged much of the time.

The development out there is built on broad boulevards and everybody has to drive everywhere. Usually alone and most often in a ridiculously outsized pickup or SUV. Waves of soulless starter mansions fill the hills and valleys beyond. They are red politically, those developments; purple at best. You can sense the anger in the torrents of motorists who emerge from them to drive somewhere so they can buy something or get to work or eat or to keep an appointment or deliver kids to school or to sports practice. Gun the engine roar up to the next red light.

I wouldn’t live there if you held an open-carry gun to my head.

WE, on the other hand, live in one of those century-old Portland neighborhoods that are filled with sturdy old houses, most relatively modest, on traditional 50x100 lots. Ours is 114 years old, with its original Doug fir siding. The neighborhood is completely walkable. Our doctor, dentist, vet, optometrist, movie house, swimming pool, hardware store, liquor store, three weed stores, several barbers, a Columbia outlet store, vintage stores and two grocery stores are within half a mile of our house. So are a dozen cafes, restaurants, coffee shops, brew pubs and bakeries. My seven-year-old car only has 56,000 miles on it, and the bulk of that was driving on vacation and to visit the kids’ college towns. From our house, we biked to work downtown nearly every day for five years, and now work from home. But a lot of people in the neighborhood don’t have to work, apparently. By world standards, we are rich, which is another element of the Big Sort.

THEY, on the other hand, think our houses are cramped and our streets are narrow, with parking spaces at a premium. They point out the dirty or desperate drifters who pick through our recycling on garbage night when the carts are at the curb, looking for returnable cans and bottles. The other night a homeless woman walked into the frozen yogurt store and started licking and fingering the toppings, the manager said when I walked down there. He was asking everybody to come back in 10 minutes while they cleaned up and replaced the toppings.

I think THEY wouldn’t visit my neighborhood without openly carrying.

I know that’s an exaggeration, but that’s kind of where we’re at.

I don’t know for sure how to fix it. I do think a presidential candidate who invited the country to meet in the middle would find receptive voters. Wouldn’t they?

We could bring some berries.