People living in “places that don’t matter” have seen quality jobs disappear, public services eroded, and their economic prospects rapidly diminish. Seen in this light, today’s populist backlash is hardly surprising, especially when many politicians are part of the thriving urban elite.
CAMBRIDGE – As Western democracies become increasingly polarized, rural and small-town voters are regularly pitted against their counterparts in larger urban centers. While this is not a new phenomenon – and certainly not the only factor affecting voting patterns – the rural-urban divide is a significant driver of today’s culture wars. This dynamic, which economist Andrés Rodríguez-Pose evocatively described as the “revenge of the places that don’t matter,” suggests that the ongoing populist surge largely reflects geographic disparities.
How did the rural-urban divide come to dominate so many countries’ political discourse and development, and how can we address it? Part of the answer lies in structural economic shifts that have made urban living more lucrative. In today’s knowledge-based economy, where value is increasingly derived from intangible sources, gathering people in densely populated urban areas often results in positive spillovers, creating so-called “economies of agglomeration” that offset the inconveniences of city life. While cities have clusters of low-paid service jobs and pockets of severe poverty, they are magnets for highly paid professionals and university graduates.
The economic upheavals of the past 15 years – the Great Recession of 2008-09, fiscal austerity, the COVID-19 pandemic, the energy crisis, and the inflationary surge of 2022 – have accelerated this trend. People living in “places that don’t matter” have seen quality jobs disappear, public services eroded, and their economic prospects rapidly diminish. Seen in this light, today’s populist backlash is hardly surprising, especially when many politicians are part of the thriving urban elite.
CAMBRIDGE – As Western democracies become increasingly polarized, rural and small-town voters are regularly pitted against their counterparts in larger urban centers. While this is not a new phenomenon – and certainly not the only factor affecting voting patterns – the rural-urban divide is a significant driver of today’s culture wars. This dynamic, which economist Andrés Rodríguez-Pose evocatively described as the “revenge of the places that don’t matter,” suggests that the ongoing populist surge largely reflects geographic disparities.
How did the rural-urban divide come to dominate so many countries’ political discourse and development, and how can we address it? Part of the answer lies in structural economic shifts that have made urban living more lucrative. In today’s knowledge-based economy, where value is increasingly derived from intangible sources, gathering people in densely populated urban areas often results in positive spillovers, creating so-called “economies of agglomeration” that offset the inconveniences of city life. While cities have clusters of low-paid service jobs and pockets of severe poverty, they are magnets for highly paid professionals and university graduates.
The economic upheavals of the past 15 years – the Great Recession of 2008-09, fiscal austerity, the COVID-19 pandemic, the energy crisis, and the inflationary surge of 2022 – have accelerated this trend. People living in “places that don’t matter” have seen quality jobs disappear, public services eroded, and their economic prospects rapidly diminish. Seen in this light, today’s populist backlash is hardly surprising, especially when many politicians are part of the thriving urban elite.