… As part of our first-of-its-kind CityView series, Suffolk University and USA TODAY have been collaborating to poll residents of large American cities about the issues facing them—with a focus on perception of race in America. Over the last several months, we’ve polled the residents of Milwaukee, Detroit, Los Angeles, […] Read more »
Why voters rejected plans to replace the Minneapolis Police Department – and what’s next for policing reform
Precincts around where George Floyd was killed voted in favor of disbanding the Minneapolis Police Department. Brandon Bell/Getty Images Michelle S. Phelps, University of Minnesota Voters in Minneapolis rejected a measure that would have transformed the city’s policing 18 months after the killing of George Floyd thrust the city into […] Read more »
What we learned about the urban/rural political divide in Washington
For years, the “Cascade Curtain” has been a favored way to describe Washington state politics — Republican on the dry side of the mountains, Democratic on the wet side. Within that framework the “suburban crescent” — the area surrounding Seattle — was an exception, the place in western Washington where […] Read more »
More Americans say they’d prefer the country over city or suburbs
Fewer than one in five Americans live in a rural area these days, but far more would like to. When asked what type of community they would prefer to live in if they could live any place they wished, nearly half of Americans pick the country — far ahead of […] Read more »
‘Breaking point’: Why the red state/blue city conflict is peaking over masks
Political and population trends are colliding as the steadily escalating tension between red states and their blue cities across the Sun Belt is reaching a breaking point over the volatile issue of school masking. For more than a decade, GOP governors and Republican-controlled legislatures in states from Florida and Georgia […] Read more »
As New Census Numbers Show, the Biggest Divide Isn’t North v. South Anymore—It’s Metro v. Rural
On Thursday, the Census Bureau released the 2020 census data for cities, counties, and other geographic subdivisions. Just as with the state-level numbers announced in April, there were some surprises. Many large metropolitan areas grew faster over the past decade than the Bureau had previously projected, with eight of the […] Read more »