Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide

Political scientist Rodden (Hamilton’s Paradox), of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, argues in this insightful but dry work that the ways rural areas seem to control national elections are as old as the republic itself and didn’t start with recent gerrymandering. The winner-take-all system (rather than proportional representation), a relic of British colonial rule, and the persistence of two parties have exacerbated a power struggle between city and country that goes back to Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, producing a Democratic Party with a lock on urban centers and statewide offices in certain states, while the Republican Party carries the exurbs and rural areas which oftentimes translates into decisive control of other state legislatures and Congress. In Pennsylvania, Rodden’s main case study, Republicans have controlled the legislature for decades thanks to the clustering of Democrats in urban areas. Rather than focusing on the 2016 presidential election or the 2018 midterms, Rodden dives deeply into the historical context and patterns, concluding that ending underrepresentation of city dwellers will probably require redistricting or proportional representation. This polished and data-heavy examination will interest serious political enthusiasts, academics, and data geeks, but probably not the general reader. (June)