I’ll be pithy because I’m on the phone and don’t want to derail the thread, but I’d argue that the foundational collection of behaviors, values, and beliefs( the very definition of culture ) that people live here for - move here for, visit here for - is dominated by the rural. Even as Montana’s towns explode in population, those folks doing the exploding are dreaming largely of experiences found in the rural. They travel to the rural on weekends. They zip to the rural after work. They hope to retire to the rural. They want to raise their kids in a place with rural values… I’m of course oversimplifying a delineation between the urban and the rural, but I’ve lived here for 40 years and watched it change and I see it and I feel it and it exists and is similar to the delineation between the old and the new.
Of course there’s culture and a lot of good and a lot of community in the urban areas of Montana, but I think if you surveyed the ideals of those who visit here, live here, and have recently moved here, the experiences the majority of those folks did so and do so for - occur beyond the valley they bought their house in. The scaffolding that holds up the chief reasons they love this place exist in landscapes occupied by a small minority of human beings who disproportionately feel the impacts of the desires of those who don’t live there.
The effects of urban Montana on rural Montana are really a microcosm of the effects of the rest of America to Montana at large right now.