Patchworked Nation
James Gimpel came by McKeldin library at the University of Maryland College Park a couple of weeks back to give a talk. Part of the Speaking of Books... Conversations with Campus Authors series. Gimpel is a professor in the Government and Politics Department. This was the department I had my major in as an undergrad; though, that feels like a lifetime ago now. The occasion was the publication of the paperback edition of his book Our Patchwork Nation. The robust data and chart centric web site associated with the book Patchwork Nation is the best starting point for the whole concept. Ray Suarez has been featuring it in an ongoing series from around the country on the PBS Newshour so it had an as seen on TV quality to it.
I looked forward to going to this for a week, but ended up missing most of the talk. I work for a living and mastering the nuanced approach to work doesn't include disappearing from your desk for an hour. I caught the Q&A at the end (on break), and was able to buy the book and get it signed. A few weeks later I've now even read the book, except for the appendix on their methodology at the end. I wouldn't want to skip that so I'll look that over this next week.
This book seems to be a furthering of the concept of Gimpel's earlier book Patchwork nation : sectionalism and political change in American politics (2003) The present work being conceived as just one part of a larger project and being essentially a journalistic endeavor. In fact the lead author for this book is journalist Dante Chinni. Chinni is about the same age as his co-author, and is like Gimpel, I believe, a native midwesterner. The whole project is an analytic tool written on a grant to be used by a news consortium. To get beyond the red state / blue state map and discourse dichotomy. A point highlighted on back cover. The aim is to gain something of the granularity that marketers such as Claritas seem to have achieved. The organizers/participants of this project are the Jefferson Institute with the Christian Science Monitor, the PBS Newshour, WNYC Radio and others. Both authors maintain web blogs at the patchwork site: James Gimpel's blog | Patchwork Nation and Dante Chinni's blog | Patchwork Nation.
This project tells us all politics is local. The real America is found by community typing at county level. The concept is that communities are more alike within their types than with more geographically contingent communities around them. They ended up with a dozen types after initial data sorts. Some were statistically obvious, some clearer in counterpoint to others.
The twelve county types:
- Boom Towns
- Campus and Careers
- Emptying nests
- Evangelic epicenters
- Immigration Nation
- Industrial metropolis
- Military Bastions
- Minority Central
- Monied Burbs
- Mormon outposts
- Service worker centers
- Tractor country.
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The nine congr. district types (Patchwork.org only): - Established Wealth
- New Diversity
- Wired and Educated
- the Shifting Middle
- Young Exurbs
- Christian Conservative
- Booming Growth
- Old Diversity
- Small Town America
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The book's strategy is to pick a representational county from each and write up a case study like description. At congressional district level the web site (patchwork.org) offers the choice of nine community types, which are similar albeit in somewhat broader strokes. I'm unsure whether this represents a rethinking of their original community typing or an application of it to existing congressional district statistics. While this may make the political analysis more shelf ready there is the obvious problem of how mutable and gamed congressional districts are. They represent little more than a parties desire to build safe seats from they can serve entrenched interests.
Like most people I expect I ran a little validation exercise of the books concepts against the few communities I've encountered first hand as I read through it. My early childhood was in Plymouth (Plymouth co. MA - campus and careers). It was rural on the outskirts, still clinging to a shrinking lobster industry, but it had residential cachet and many nice homes along the ocean from downtown all the way around to Manomet. Mostly; though, I grew up in Holliston (Middlesex co. MA - Monied Burbs), a small town turned random Boston suburb. Like the surrounding towns that could afford to do so, it tightened zoning in a race to emerge as an upscale bedroom town. The most interesting place I lived in while in the Navy was Key West, (Monroe co. FL - Service Worker Center). It matched this category well, which covers tourist and vacation destinations. The military base and fishing industry then lending a seedy balance to an overabundance of preciousness. One thing about Key West which was not highlighted in the books description of this category is the role scarcity of resource can play in driving fortune in such places. Key West is an island like Martha's Vineyard, it was doing quite well, but the Conchs were definitely getting pushed up the Keys. My present apartment building straddles the Prince Georges | Montgomery county border in Maryland. My corner belongs to Prince Georges co. While both aggregate to Monied Burb, on the neighborhood level my area is mostly Hispanic with elements of Haitian and West African. This corresponds with the urban diversity of the industrial metropolis which is Prince Georges next best-fit category. The presence of the University of Maryland is not enough move it into College and Careers. I also am a little familiar with the Milton - Lewes, Sussex co. DE area which they mark as a Boom Town / Emptying Nest. The whole Cape Henlopen area is an example of a community of beach towns - a Service worker center - which became a regional retirement destination which attracted further attendant service influx and became a boomtown for that.
The purpose and value of such a working project is in the end its explanatory and predictive power. There was a question from the audience during the Q & A on whether this schema delivers better insight than looking at municipal level breakdowns of the red and blue map. I've seen this map so I knew what he was talking about. Even in the vast red midlands the map is dotted with blue in places where you have more than a couple of street lights together. That map gives you the fact of an urban-tolerant self selectivity. Without giving you reason or nuance to appeal to. Any worthwhile description set ought to have some use or relevance beyond elections. Elections arbitrarily organize political power, but they are snapshots of shifting and amorphous attitude and even winning politicians often find out they only mean so much.
Fostering an understanding that the different regions of the country, the differing communities with their individual histories and value systems, not only view particular events differently. They are often affected quite unevenly by the same events - such as the mortgage crisis for events writ large. But as well any event coming to the attention of the American people. Solutions as much as problems are experienced and viewed differently. Increasingly one of the most important activities for journalists, for any writer or story teller working in the American milieu as this short, but brilliant piece In the Land of No News exemplifies, is to use this insight of community difference and work towards explaining America to each other.
11:32:22 PM  ;;
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