Urban-Rural Divide

The Nation's Most Advanced Secessionist Movement
Legislation supporting the Greater Idaho Movement, which would annex over half of neighboring Oregon, has advanced in the Idaho legislature.

COVID and the Urban-Rural Divide
Researchers at the University of Iowa analyzed COVID-19 death data in rural and metropolitan counties and found that rural Americans have died at twice the rate as those living in more urbanized counties. The health divide will only widen.

Vaccination Disparities Between Urban and Rural America
The pandemic has largely been measured by case incidence, down significantly in recent weeks in most states. A new metric, the vaccination rate, may determine where the virus strikes next. The urban-rural divide is a major factor, says the CDC.

Partisan Clustering at the Neighborhood Level
Forget red state versus blue state: a new data analysis and mapping project by The New York Times shows that the political divides in the country can be mapped to the neighborhood level within metropolitan areas.

The Blue Beltway
Ronald Brownstein, a senior editor at The Atlantic, coins a new political-geographic term in the wake of the Georgia U.S. Senate runoff elections to describe a shift in the political alignment of nearly all large metropolitan areas in the nation.

Election Post-Mortem: Politics Trumps Public Health
An analysis by the Associated Press found that voters in counties that are disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus were far more likely to support President Trump's reelection than voters in less-impacted counties.

The U.S. Might Soon Be Surpassed in Coronavirus Infections
India could be on track to overtake the United States in the number of COVID-19 cases. The surge is explained by a sharp and growing urban-rural divide in the ability and willingness to follow public health measures.

Déjà Vu: Republican Legislators Flee From Capitol to Stall Climate Bill
Republican state lawmakers repeated a tactic they successfully deployed last summer to prevent the passage of a bill that would have made Oregon the second state, after California, to place a price on carbon emissions from most economic sectors.

Understanding North Carolina's Urban-Rural Divide
North Carolina cities are thriving, but rural counties are not experiencing the same level of growth. Still, residents in rural areas say the numbers do not necessarily capture the whole picture.

U.S. Economic Growth Shows Urban-Rural Divide
The economy is improving in places like Texas, but a closer look indicates that cities are taking off while rural areas are lagging behind.

Cities Lost Political Power in that 'Other' Supreme Court Ruling Last Month
On June 27, the Supreme Court didn't just rule on the Census Bureau's citizenship question. It also decided that it wasn't their business to consider how congressional districts are drawn, which will likely reduce the influence of cities.

What Went Wrong With Oregon's Climate Bill?
The Oregon Climate Action Program, which would have priced carbon emissions by establishing a cap-and-trade program similar to the one in California, was defeated on Saturday, the penultimate day of the 2019 legislative session.

When Cities Prosper, Rural Areas Are Better Off
The pitting of cities and rural communities against one another is the wrong approach. Instead, policies that help cities thrive will benefit rural areas in the long run.

President Macron Acquiesces to Yellow Vests' Demands on Fuel Tax Hike
Despite statements to the contrary just a week ago, Macron reversed position and caved to the demonstrators' demands that upcoming fuel tax hikes be suspended.

U.S. Life Expectancy Continues Downward Trend
Drug overdoses and suicides caused American life expectancy to drop in 2017 for the second consecutive year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most notable is the gap between the urban and rural suicide rate.

Minnesota Grants May Bolster Urban Farming's Legitimacy
For the first time, the state of Minnesota is offering money specifically for urban agriculture, in a win for urban farmers who want to challenge the notion that agriculture is necessarily a rural enterprise.

Colorado Tax Mandates Will Continue to Hurt Rural Areas
When home values rise, the state constitution requires cuts to residential tax rates that severely impact less-developed areas.
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research