Last month, I argued here that the election of Donald Trump in America and the vote to leave the EU in Britain could be understood as rural revolts against “the city”. This is a subplot in the story of the cosmopolitan-communitarian culture war that is shaping up to be the defining political divide of our time.

I focused on the electoral politics of city versus countryside at the time and sort of skipped the question of why exactly there is so much discontent in the former.

Jonn Elledge answers that question in Britain’s New Statesman.

Put crudely, he argues the reason is that cities have won.

Under globalization, entire industries shipped overseas; and, with technological improvements, those that remain require far fewer workers. Towns that grew up to provide workers for a mine or a factory or the docks are now surplus to requirements. Their communities have, quite literally, lost their purpose.

Those trends have conspired with others, including the shift from manufacturing to services and a widening gap between college- and non-college-educated workers, to concentrate growth and opportunity in urban areas.

Cities have always been more liberal. But the influx of young, worldly university graduates — and the ease with which they move between cities — has sharpened the divide with the countryside. Read more “Rural Areas and Small Towns Feel Left Behind as Cities Grow”