Different Places, Different People: The Redrawing of America’s Social Geography

Our topics in this chapter are how and to what extent geography – regions, urban versus rural, city versus suburb, and even neighborhood versus neighborhood – divided Americans in 2000 and whether those divisions widened or narrowed over the twentieth century. But first we consider whether geography itself remains important. Many commentators described the twentieth century as one in which new technologies, from telephones and cars in the early years to planes and the Internet in the later ones, erased geographical distinctions and the importance of physical location. Did location still matter in 2000?