Publishers Weekly
07/29/2019
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)
From the Publisher
"Why Cities Lose is a towering achievement in understanding the structural roots of partisan polarization in America and the critical role played by economic and political geography. Jonathan A. Rodden employs sophisticated historical, comparative, and data visualization techniques to shed light on the fateful consequences for political representation and policy of single-member, first-past-the-post legislative districts. It is certain to enrich scholarly and public debates."—Thomas E. Mann, coauthorof It's Even Worse Than It Looks
"The biggest problem facing America today is political polarization: Democrats command the superstar cities and tech hubs that drive the knowledge economy, while Republicans have a stronghold in suburban places and rural areas. In this important book, Jonathan A. Rodden draws on a trove of data spanning the twentieth century to show us in painstaking detail why cities continue to lose out to rural and suburban interests and what challenges this poses for our democracy."—Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis
"Why Cities Lose is a masterful explanation for the main axis of conflict in contemporary US politics, the rural vs. urban divide. With exemplary scholarship and an eye to global trends as well as surprisingly important details such as the placement of railroads, Rodden gives us a thorough understanding of the central political conflicts of our time."—Katherine J. Cramer,author of The Politics of Resentment
"This important book, which should reset our understanding of polarization in America and around the world, will comfort neither those on the left who see themselves as the vanguard of a victorious electoral future, nor those on the right who believe that voters are fundamentally conservative."—Andrew Gelman, author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State
"This astute and illuminating book will change how you think about electoral fairness and political representation in America. Why Cities Lose meticulously demonstrates how winner-take-all congressional districts systematically under-represent urban voters in legislatures and destructively polarize politics along urban-rural lines — not just in the United States, but also in Canada and the United Kingdom. The result is distorted representation in all winner-take-all democracies, even those with independent redistricting processes. At time when politics in America feels so unfair, this book clarifies how much our skewed electoral system is to blame. For anyone who wants to fix America's broken politics, this is absolutely essential reading."—Lee Drutman, author of The Business of America is Lobbying
Kirkus Reviews
2019-04-28
The enduring importance of geography in American politics.
Many argue that partisan gerrymandering causes cities to lose to rural areas in countywide, winner-take-all elections. That is too simple an explanation, writes Rodden (Political Science/Stanford Univ.; Hamilton's Paradox: The Promise and Peril of Fiscal Federalism, 2005). Much more important is the geographical location of a political party's base. In many states, urban areas are largely Democratic. The Democrats often win majorities there but fall short in pivotal districts outside the city that decide control of Congress and state legislatures. In this data-dense book, the author takes a deep look at the familiar urban-rural political divide, examines its implications for democracy (not good), and suggests ways to reduce polarization. He also shows how similar patterns affect elections in other Western democracies. In an intriguing section, he traces the roots of the American divide to the era of labor unrest before World War I, when left-leaning workers lived in urban working-class neighborhoods. In industrial Reading, Pennsylvania, they could win majorities in urban city council wards but found it harder to achieve victory in wards with more white-collar workers and business owners. Today, with the rise of the knowledge economy, this "pattern of political geography" continues even though city residents are now a far more heterogeneous collection of urban interest groups (working poor, immigrants, young progressives, etc.). Democrats cluster in "growing, affluent city centers like Seattle and San Francisco, as well as in smaller knowledge-economy hubs like Durham and Ann Arbor." They fight "a perpetual battle for the party's soul," pitting firebrands against those trying to soften the party's reputation to win rural votes. "A victory for the left is a victory not only for the urban poor…but also for universities, laboratory scientists, and social progressives," writes the author. As Rodden argues, only electoral reform—a switch to representation in proportion to overall vote share—or major demographic shifts can reduce the underrepresentation of urban interests.
Valuable for specialists and political journalists.
