CityLab Daily: So Much for the Urban-Rural Divide?
Also: Who owns LOVE? And reverse migration might turn Georgia blue.
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What We’re Following
Same diff: Pundits may have exhausted nearly every “urban-rural divide” explanation for the gulf revealed by the 2016 election. But a new survey by the Pew Research Center finds we might not be so different after all. While place can predict people’s political leanings, the everyday problems of urban dwellers and rural residents look a lot alike—from the opioid crisis to the economy.
What’s more surprising is how similarly people feel about where they live. No matter if respondents reside in a big city or a small town, they report the same tenuous connection to their community, the same unfamiliarity with their neighbors, and the same emo belief that they’re misunderstood. CityLab’s Tanvi Misra covers the brooding findings from this survey of a moody America: Rural and Urban America Have More In Common Than You Think
- From the archives: Why you should get to know your neighbors (It might just save your life)
More on CityLab
The Kids Are All Bike
It’s graduation season, and that means it’s time for senior pranks—dockless edition. In Rockford, Illinois, seniors graduating from East High School deployed dozens of LimeBikes under the cover of night to fill their school’s parking lot with the dockless shared bikes that launched in their city early this April. Assistant principal Matthew Bennett snapped photos of the stunt in the morning, tweeting “Class of 18 strikes again.” The scene, perhaps inadvertently, demonstrates just how much space cars take up versus other modes. CityLab context: Study up on the complete taxonomy of bikeshare… this will be on the final exam.
What We’re Reading
Why do Americans stay when their town has no future? (Bloomberg)
How suburban architecture may have encouraged the kids game “The Floor Is Lava” (Quartz)
Amazon has been generous to a Seattle homeless shelter. Why is its generosity such a pain? (Slate)
Trump made an immigration crackdown a priority. Jeff Sessions made it a reality (Vox)
Why would a conservative policy group get involved in a Chicago affordable housing dispute? (ProPublica)
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