what does it mean to be rural?

The obvious answer would be "of or relating to the country, country people or life, or agriculture" (Merriam Webster). You could flesh this out with legal definitions (outside an incorporated city) or statistics (living in an area with population density less than x). Wikipedia's definition touches on a few different aspects.

But the reason I asked this question is that I want to know if there is a rural "way of life." An American political pundit would certainly say yes, and that "way of life" is related to the idea of being a "red state." County-by-county analyses would seem to support this -- Kerry and Bush won only a slight difference in population, but the counties Bush won take up five times as much land as Kerry's.

But still, what does rural mean, in this context? Those who believe in the red state myth would tell us that it means hard work, being close to the land, something like that. But it seems that especially in the 21st century United States, increasing unemployment would be one of the salient features of being "rural." I suppose you could make some sort of argument about being closer to the land (a hunting culture, for instance). Yet the idea of a unified "rural" space still bugs me, mostly for historical reasons. For most of human history, being "rural" meant that you were a peasant, sharecropper, serf or slave. I suppose the United States is the exception again here, since we like to think of ourselves as a nation of freeholders. This still seems to be skirting around the problem, though.

I suppose what I want to know is to what extent 21st century American rural life resembles either its earlier American version or rural life in other cultures. Maybe I need to turn to a sociologist, but I would like to know more about how rural life is actually lived -- not just one person's story about their farm, but structures of communities all across the country. In this sort of analysis, Wal-Mart should play just a much a role as the old farm (if it still exists, which seems doubtful). Local media and politics would be considered alongside "local traditions." I think that what we would find is that the actual way that rural life is lived hardly resembles any past definition of the word. But if this is true, what is the feature of rural areas that made Bush so attractive to them. And if it has nothing to do with population density or a relationship with the land, might it be that the "rural vs. urban" distinction in 2000 and 2004 is not as telling as we think?

If anyone has some books that could help with this, I'd appreciate it.