Charts illustrate growing rural-urban political divide

Chart by Robert Cushing, based on Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections and data from the White House Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Census Bureau (from The Daily Yonder)

A series of charts illustrate how America's growing political divide is rooted in geography. Rural and urban votes have differed for more than a century, a trend that has accelerated since the 1970s, Robert Cushing reports for The Daily Yonder. Cushing is a retired sociology professor at the University of Texas Austin and coauthored, with the Yonder's Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart.

"Since the mid-1970s larger cities and their suburbs have grown steadily more Democratic. Meanwhile smaller cities, exurbs, suburbs of medium-sized metros and rural areas have grown steadily more Republican," Cushing reports. The trend has been "alive and well" for nearly 50 years, and shows no sign of slowing. He notes that the divide is not only one of politics, but also "a divide by ways of life."

Click here for more charts and analysis from Cushing on the phenomenon.