66 | Will Wilkinson on Partisan Polarization and the Urban/Rural Divide

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: Sean Carroll and Will Wilkinson examine how urbanization, population density, and personality sorting have reshaped partisan politics. Wilkinson argues that city growth selectively attracts higher-openness, more educated, more socially liberal people, while lower-openness, more rooted populations remain outside cities. This creates the modern urban-rural political divide and helps explain populist backlash, Trump, Brexit, and the weakening prospects of rural America.

Main Topics: The density divide and partisan geography (Priority: 5/5): Wilkinson’s central claim is that population density strongly predicts voting behavior: dense urban areas are heavily Democratic, while suburbs and rural areas lean Republican. He frames this as a structural sorting process rather than a simple city-versus-country cultural preference. Urbanization as the dominant long-run social force (Priority: 5/5): The conversation emphasizes that global urbanization has transformed where people live, work, and interact. Cities act like economic magnets, drawing in people and concentrating innovation, productivity, and political liberalism. Personality traits, migration, and political ideology (Priority: 5/5): Wilkinson links the Big Five traits—especially openness to experience and conscientiousness—to both migration patterns and social politics. Higher openness predicts moving, diversity tolerance, and liberal social views; lower openness and higher conscientiousness align with rootedness and conservatism. Ethnicity, sorting, and residential clustering (Priority: 4/5): Using Schelling-style segregation logic, Wilkinson argues that weak in-group preferences can still produce strong urban clustering. Nonwhite populations and other minorities disproportionately concentrate in cities for safety, opportunity, and social proximity. Education, urban labor markets, and economic divergence (Priority: 4/5): College education both selects for and increases openness, while also pushing people toward large labor markets where their skills pay off. This reinforces urban concentration and leaves many rural regions with lower educational attainment and weaker growth. Populist backlash and Republican strategy (Priority: 5/5): Wilkinson connects rural economic stagnation and cultural dislocation to right-wing populism, Trump, Brexit, and anti-immigrant politics. He also argues that the Republican Party faces instability because it is increasingly tied to a shrinking, mostly white, nonurban base. Policy responses for struggling regions (Priority: 4/5): The discussion ends with proposals to support declining rural and small-town regions through social insurance, healthcare access, and regional development policy, while also strengthening midsize cities and secondary hubs.

Key Arguments: Population density is a powerful predictor of partisan identity: denser places are more Democratic, less dense places more Republican. Urbanization is not just migration; it is a sorting mechanism that selects for people with different personalities, values, and educational profiles. Higher openness to experience makes people more likely to migrate, enjoy diversity, and accept social change; higher conscientiousness favors stability, routine, and conservative social attitudes. Nonwhite and minority populations cluster in cities partly because even mild in-group preferences and safety-in-numbers dynamics lead to strong spatial concentration. College acts as both a selection effect and a treatment effect: open people are more likely to attend, and college itself makes people more open and socially liberal. Economic growth is increasingly concentrated in cities, amplifying inequality between high-productivity urban regions and stagnating rural areas. Rural and exurban populations are being left out of the gains from modern growth, which makes them receptive to nationalist, anti-elite, and anti-immigrant politics. The Republican Party’s current coalition is unstable because it depends on low-density white voters and increasingly relies on anti-democratic tactics rather than broadening its appeal. A healthier political equilibrium would require Republicans to broaden their coalition or else suffer an electoral defeat severe enough to force moderation. Regional policy should focus on mitigating decline in struggling areas, not pretending all small towns can be restored to their former economic role.

Data Points: New York City population in 1790: 33,000 - Used to illustrate how small early U.S. cities were compared with today’s urban scale. Marshalltown, Iowa population: just under 30,000 - Wilkinson compares his hometown to early New York City to show historical scale shifts. Urbanization threshold in partisan geography: about 1,000 people per square mile - Referenced when describing the rough geographic divide shaping Republican and Democratic coalitions. Big Five personality traits: 5 traits - Openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism (OCEAN). Heritability of openness: about 60% - Wilkinson notes that openness is partly genetic but still substantially shaped by environment. Republican presidential strategy after 2012: increase non-white vote share by 1–2 points per cycle - Described as a way Republicans thought they could remain competitive indefinitely. Population concentration trend: majority of population moves from lower to higher density - Wilkinson emphasizes that migration is overwhelmingly urbanizing. Economic pattern after recession: urban populations bounced back much quicker than rural populations - Used to support the idea of a geographic great divergence. Joel Osteen church size: 15,000 seats - Illustrates entrepreneurial, highly scaled U.S. evangelical religion. Timeframe for Niskanen Center: about 4 years - Wilkinson describes the think tank as a relatively new institution.

Pivotal Quotes: "there are no Republican cities anymore in the United States" — Sean Carroll: Sean introduces the central geographic claim motivating the discussion. "cities are like magnets" — Will Wilkinson: Wilkinson’s metaphor for how economic and social forces pull people into dense urban areas. "the whole political system really depends on there being a responsible governing right" — Will Wilkinson: He warns that democracy becomes unstable if one party abandons governing for permanent power-seeking.

Implications: The episode suggests that U.S. polarization is rooted in deep demographic and spatial sorting, not just ideology. Future stability depends on rebuilding regional opportunity, moderating the GOP, and reducing the economic and cultural isolation of nonurban America.