In a previous post, we looked at the research of Dante Chinni and James Gimpel, who have identified twelve distinct community types in the United States, and correlated these communities with voting preferences. These communities are scattered throughout the country and—with the possible exception of Mormons and Evangelicals– generally do not conform neatly to state or regional geographic areas. The question then arises as to whether or not the U.S.A. is too politically and culturally diverse to be governed efficiently as a single nation.
The researchers did find one unifying theme in all twelve communities. This was the feeling that things were somehow “different” in a post-Great Recession world. That is, one generally could not make predictions of the future based on past patterns, and expectations had to be adjusted downward. However, some of the downward trends had been going on for decades, even if not much attention was paid to them at the time. Between 1972 and 2007, worker productivity grew by 90% while wages declined by 11 percent. As the authors describe it, “The dominoes that began falling during the recession had been lined up for some time.”
The researchers then analyzed correlations between religious attendance, religious denomination, and voting patterns. To a certain extent there is a religious correlation with the red/blue divide, but this is not absolute. High church attendance was found in stereotypically “red” and rural Mormon Outposts, Tractor Country, and Evangelical Epicenters, but also in Emptying Nests and Immigrant communities. The researchers suggest that these differences can be attributed to both the homogeneity of religious membership (high in Evangelical and Mormon communities) as well as the integration of church into local culture and “the views from the pews.” Ironically, when asked about whether churches should stay out of politics, Mormons agreed with this at the highest rate (55%), followed by the more atheistic/agnostic Monied Burbs (52%). The researchers propose that the so-called “separation of church and state” goes both ways—that is, it serves to keep churches from being “infected” by worldly concerns as much as it does to keep religion out of politics.
The next analysis was the relationship between voting patterns and “cultural” factors. There was a “pretty decent correlation between voting patterns in the 2008 presidential election and gun-shop-to-bookstore” ratio. But the stereotypical relationship between guns and Republicans and books and Democrats is also not absolute. Democratic-leaning Industrial Metropolis communities had both fewer gun stores and fewer bookstores, while the Republican-leaning Tractor County—which, not surprisingly had the most gun stores—also had the fourth most bookstores.
Social media users tended to be negatively correlated with age and positively correlated with income. So, in places like Emptying Nests, which have both higher than average age and income, social media usage was low. But in Minority Central, where average age is younger but incomes are lower, social media usage is also low. The oldest communities (Tractor Country, Emptying Nests and Service Workers) use social media the least, while the younger Campus & Careers and Military Bastions use social media the most, followed by Boom Towns and Monied Burbs.
Private companies have much more detailed data about consumer preferences than political or public interest research organizations, which they use to make decisions about store locations. Retail stores such as Walmart and Starbucks will only make an appearance if the demographics are “right” according to corporate market research. While there is some argument that retail chains have homogenized national culture, the Patchwork Nation model makes the argument that the locations of certain stores—or the number of them—in certain communities tends to reinforce cultural differences. “You are what you buy” might be more accurately stated as “you are what you CAN buy.”
The researchers then constructed a “hardship index” which further parsed out community differences. This index was based on county-level data about unemployment rates, gas prices, changes in gas prices, changes in the percentage of household spending for gas and car maintenance, home foreclosures, and changes in home foreclosures, which were then converted to a single “hardship” score. Although Service Worker Centers and Tractor Country both have high majorities of white people, are less densely populated, and share incomes below the national average, Service Worker Centers consistently had the highest hardship index (followed by Minority communities), while hardship in Tractor Country was in second-lowest place—behind the Monied Burbs. The authors attribute this to two things: the low rate of debt in Tractor Country as well as their primary reliance on agriculture. That is, they enjoy a relatively self-contained economy, where the prosperity of Service Centers depends on the prosperity of the broader economy.
The researchers then propose that their “Patchwork Nation” framework provides an explanation for political polarization. This goes beyond the standard Republicans vs. Democrats, but suggests that actual policy proposals may appear to be either helpful or harmful, depending on the idiosyncracies of local economies. For example, extension of the 2008 home-buyers tax credit was welcome in areas like Boom Towns, who were hit hard by the housing market collapse, but viewed as an unnecessary waste by persons in areas where housing prices had stabilized and were even rising. The problem is that policy at the national level is based on aggregated data—that is, “averages” that miss the mark for many of the localized micro-economies.
Is America truly one nation or many? The researchers suggest that American communities may actually have been more different and “localized” before the days of instant communication and mass media. At the same time, society overall was simpler, so in spite of greater regional differences in some things (e.g., spoken accents, choice of entertainment, food availability, etc.), patterns of everyday life were not necessarily that much different. Today’s trends of “niche” or self-selective media offerings that are algorithmically tailored to specific preferences may aggravate cultural and political differences. However, the researchers also argue that the Civil Rights movement would not have been possible without a national media. Moreover, “not every difference in media consumption is about worldview,” as we have seen that use of technology is influenced as much by age and income.
One potentially unifying theme is Americans’ distrust of concentrated power. The percentage of persons who agreed with the statement, “The federal government should run ONLY those things that cannot be run at the local level” ranged from 26% (Industrial Metropolis) to 41% (Tractor Country), with an average of 31.6%. The percentage of persons who agreed with the statement “There is too much power concentrated in the hands of a few big companies” ranged from 32% (Military Bastions) to 40% (Minority Central), with a slightly higher average of 34.4%. Thus it appears that local control and devolution of “power to the people” are important issues for approximately one-third of people in all of the diverse community types. So, perhaps the one thing that unites us all as Americans is the distrust of centralized power and top-down decision-making—regardless of whether this power is political or economic. This might be where the hope of a unified country can be found.
