"The development gap between urban and rural areas and between regions is still large, and so are income disparities, " Hu said.

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The widening gap between urban and rural areas is to be narrowed.

ECONOMIST: China

Inequality between urban and rural areas has recently stabilised and that between regions has begun to fall slightly, but from an extraordinarily high level.

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Given the increasingly conspicuous inequalities emerging in China as a result of the country's embrace of capitalism, it suits Mr Hu to appear to pour cold water on the idea of laisser-faire economics, blamed for a growing gap between rich and poor, between regions and between urban and rural areas.

ECONOMIST: China

Mr Hogg added that he was looking at the "policing model" and the distribution of officers between rural, urban and coastal areas of the two counties and Isles of Scilly.

BBC: PCC Tony Hogg

Probably this worry derives from the difference in population density between urban and rural or small town areas, but there is a tacit implication that non-urban dwellers are more expendable than urban dwellers.

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But none of these policies will change the fundamental cause of inequality between rural and urban areas: massive underemployment in the countryside.

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There are differences between how people feel in urban areas and rural areas.

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The issue reflects the regionalization of America's deep partisan divide, with splits in many states between populous urban areas that tend to be more liberal and larger, less populated rural areas that generally are more conservative.

CNN: Some GOP-led states look at electoral vote changes