For a generation, a procession of pundits, public relations aces and speculators have promoted the notion that our future lay in dense — and politically deep-blue — urban centers, largely on the coasts. … The new America emerging from this crisis clearly will not be dominated by woke, super-dense cities […] Read more »
The Urban-Rural Gulf in American Political Behavior
… Places commonly differ in terms of the composition of the people who reside there. No one is arguing about that fact. The question is whether composition is all there is, or whether place has an independent effect. Are two people, identical in their demographic profiles, likely to vary in […] Read more »
How Trump Turned the Pandemic Into Identity Politics
No one really knows where the arc of history is bending these days, but this weekend we got a good look at where the arc of conservative activism is heading. The death toll in the United States from the coronavirus has now topped 40,000 but, egged on by presidential tweets, […] Read more »
An Unprecedented Divide Between Red and Blue America
The coronavirus pandemic appears destined to widen the political divide between the nation’s big cities and the smaller places beyond them. And that could narrow Donald Trump’s possible pathways to reelection. In almost every state, the outbreak is spreading much more heavily in the largest metropolitan centers than in less […] Read more »
Tracking ICU beds reveals potential holes in treatment
So far New York City has been the focus of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, as the cases and casualties pile up in the five boroughs. But a look at some crucial numbers in the hospitals there raises serious concerns at what could be coming for the rest […] Read more »
Big Cities Won’t Snap Back to Normal
President Donald Trump’s promise to begin reopening the economy in the coming weeks faces an immovable obstacle: The big cities that drive America’s economic growth and innovation are the same places straining under the heaviest burden of the coronavirus outbreak. The counties confronting the largest number of cases are primarily […] Read more »