I read an article once about a guy who grew up in a poor rural area in the US that changed my opinion a bit. He talked about how progressive and left leaning people want to help the poor and uneducated, but typically only in major city centers.

I think I know the article you're talking about (although I'm having a hard time finding it again), but I don't think that's quite what it said.

It's more like progressives are perceived by rural people as not wanting to help them, because the type of help they offer is assistance in moving or retraining or otherwise changing in order for their lives to improve. This is because the progressives understand (correctly) that the jobs that used to sustain the small towns are never coming back, regardless of how much the rural people want them to.

The writer then pointed out (also correctly) that this "elitist" approach was not effective in solving the problem.

Unfortunately, I don't remember what the author's conclusion/recommendation of a better strategy was.