Oliver Bateman Does the WorkVerified account

the localism is even more extreme where i grew up. the gaps between star junction and perryopolis, between cokeburg and bentleyville...those are far greater than any separation between china and japan or russia and western europe.

where I live, for many folks a city of 20k is "THE city," and St. Louis is often talked about as though it were a cross between Iraq (violent, foreign) and Mars (impossibly far away)

i mean, there IS no st. louis, right? it is just a city of towns, correct? each with a population sign affixed to its exit?

lol I guess that may be technically true, but there is definitely a discursive St. Louis, and in certain parts of it "you" are likely to be murdered -- or so I am told