The Political Economy of the Urban-Rural Divide

Starting in the 1990s, the Democratic Party emerged as the champion of a new globalized, knowledge economy, whose centralizing tendencies concentrated the most sophisticated and profitable enterprises in metropolitan areas. As a result, the historic party of industrial workers morphed into the home of highly educated metropolitan professionals. Meanwhile, rural areas struggled to adapt to the global era, becoming a repository for slow growth sectors—manufacturing, retail, construction, agriculture, and gas and oil—that provided mostly low paying, unskilled jobs. The Republican Party capitalized on this decline, arguing that their economic agenda of low taxes, minimal government spending, and weak regulations was critical to the well-being of rural industries and their largely non-college educated employees.

By examining the emergence of the urban-rural divide in detail, we can see that the results of last week’s election were by no means inevitable. The Democratic Party’s collapse in the countryside was the predictable consequence of decisions to prioritize certain constituencies to the neglect of others. If the party is ever again to capture a sufficient governing majority to enact the social and economic agenda our country needs, it won’t be through eking out 2% higher turnout in the suburbs. It will be through transforming the Democratic Party into an organization that once again can compete in both urban and rural counties.