Native American Lands – Page 4 – American Communities Project

Culture

How Crime Affects Americans Across Communities

by Ari Pinkus November 08, 2024

The state of the economy, democracy, immigration, and abortion. Those were the most important issues fueling voters in the 2024 presidential election, according to the exit polls. Crime was not at the top of the list.

That may be because violent crime in the U.S. dropped in 2023 after surging — and drawing much media attention — during the pandemic. Overall, the FBI reported a 3% decline in violent crime, with murders down 12%, rape 9%, and aggravated assault 3%, compared to 2022. Meanwhile, property crime in the country dropped 2%, with burglary down 8%, larceny 4%, but motor vehicle theft up 13%. In this time, the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act took effect, considered the most substantial gun violence prevention law in nearly 30 years that includes enhanced background checks and safe storage requirements.

While crime continues to be amplified in America’s different information ecosystems, it is very much felt at the community level and in some communities more than others, as shown in our survey findings of 4,712 Americans this year.

Violent Crime by a Stranger

Residents nationwide were generally not direct victims of violent crime, our recent ACP/Ipsos survey found. Just 2% said they were personally a victim of violent crime by a stranger in the last year. Most community types were at or below 2%. It ticked up slightly in communities considered more racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse. In the African American South, 4% said they were personally a victim of violent crime by a stranger; the figure was 3% in Military Posts and Hispanic Centers.

When factoring in one’s immediate family, extended family, close friends, acquaintances, and neighbors affected, residents in diverse rural and urban communities reported violent crime by a stranger at higher percentages than average in the past year. Nearly one-quarter of residents, 24%, in Big Cities said they were or knew someone affected by violent crime by a stranger. It may not be surprising as these communities encompass America’s 48 biggest counties, housing more than 81 million people of many backgrounds. Meanwhile, in the rural African American South and Hispanic Centers, 19% and 18% of residents said they were a victim or knew someone who was a victim of violent crime by a stranger. The national average was 17%.

Violent Crime by Someone Known

Across the country, 15% of Americans said in the past year they were a victim and/or had immediate family, extended family, close friends, acquaintances, and/or neighbors who were victims of violent crime perpetrated by someone they knew.

Again, racially and ethnically diverse communities reported more bad experiences. In the African American South, 23% of residents reported being directly affected or being close to someone who was a victim of violent crime by a person they knew. In Hispanic Centers, many near the U.S. border where tensions have been high, it was 18%. In Big Cities, College Towns, and Working Class Country, 17% of residents said they were or knew someone affected by violent crime perpetrated by someone they knew. Working Class Country may be somewhat surprising, being that these are rural, homogeneous, often close-knit communities, however, many are in the South where violent crime has been higher.

On the personal level, 2% nationwide reported being a victim of violent crime by someone known to them. Most community types were at or below the national level. The figures were slightly higher in Military Posts at 4% and the African American South at 3%.

Property Crime Incidences Higher

Property crime was much more prevalent across America in the past year, our survey respondents said. Nationally, 10% of Americans reported they were personally a victim of theft or personal property crime. Being a victim reached as high as 14% in the African American South and 13% in the LDS Enclaves, Mormon-dominated communities in the interior West. Big Cities, College Towns, Hispanic Centers, and Working Class Country were also above average at 11%.

Adding in immediate family, extended family, close friends, acquaintances, and neighbors, 39% nationwide said they were or knew someone who was a victim of theft or personal property crime. The 15-point range at the community-type level was notable, as it underscores the different day-to-day experiences of Americans regarding their safety and sense of disorder. Several communities stood above the national average: 46% of residents in Hispanic Centers, 44% in African American South, and 44% in Big Cities reported they were or knew someone affected by theft or personal property crime. The lowest percentages were in Rural Middle America at 33% and Middle Suburbs at 31%.

Similarly, business property crime was also a significant concern in the past year. Overall, 25% of Americans said they have been the victim or knew a victim of business property crime. It was much above the national average in Hispanic Centers at 32%. Big Cities came in next highest at 29%. It was as low as 16% in the Military Posts.

Police Brutality and Law Enforcement Abuse

Of all the kinds of crimes surveyed, police brutality or law enforcement abuse was generally not an issue faced personally or in one’s social circles. Nationally, 10% said they were or knew someone — immediate family, extended family, close friends, acquaintances, and neighbors — affected by police brutality or law enforcement abuse. Percentages were highest in the Big Cities at 15% and the African American South at 14%, where these crimes have been chronicled more in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

On the personal level, 3% in the Big Cities said they were a victim of police brutality or law enforcement abuse. In all other kinds of communities, 1% or 2% said they were personally a victim in the past year.

Where Crime Is a Top Local Issue

These figures track with the top local issues survey respondents cited. For example, 36% of residents in the African American South considered crime or gun violence a top-three local issue, the highest of the 15 types and more than double the national figure. Recall that many residents here said they or those they knew were affected by crime. (Last year's survey showed the figure in the African American South at 43%.) It was similar in the Big Cities, where 26% said crime or gun violence was a top local issue. In other communities where residents reported being close to crime, College Towns and Military Posts, 19% and 18% of residents respectively said crime or gun violence was a top-three local issue. The overall figure for the 15 community types was notably lower at 14%. (Last year, the national figure was 21%.) Our latest survey makes clear that residents’ lived experiences were connected to their attitudes on crime in their communities.

African American South Aging Farmlands Big Cities College Towns Evangelical Hubs Exurbs Graying America Hispanic Centers LDS Enclaves Middle Suburbs Military Posts Native American Lands Rural Middle America Urban Suburbs Working Class Country

Culture

Americans Across Communities Struggle to Discern Facts on Voting, Crime, Immigration, and Economic Issues

by Dante Chinni October 21, 2024

Ever since the day of the 2020 presidential race, rumors have circulated about illegal votes and cases of voter fraud. And for years now, those rumors have been knocked down as false with no real evidence to support them — again and again and again.

And yet…

In this year’s research survey from the American Communities Project, fewer than four in 10 respondents, 38%, knew those rumors were false. Even in communities that voted for President Joe Biden by large margins, fewer than 50% said they knew the following statement was incorrect: “There are tens of thousands of documented cases of voter fraud in the last election.”

As the 2024 campaign winds down, that incorrect understanding of the election facts is important to keep in mind, but it is by no means the only area where Americans struggle to discern fact from fiction. There were nine factual true/false statements on the survey, covering everything from the economy to immigration to crime. For most issues, a majority of respondents gave the incorrect response. And again, that was true across all types of communities — encompassing urban and rural, diverse and less so, lots and fewer college degrees.

The challenge of knocking down falsehoods has been apparent in recent months as outlandish and unfounded stories have spread about everything from government-controlled weather to immigrants eating pets.

But the results from the newest ACP survey show Americans’ struggles in this area extend beyond hot topics to a range of areas in society. Their responses suggest a deeper problem, a nation locked in a media environment where dis- and misinformation are increasingly difficult to control and combat — or even correct after inaccuracies are discovered.

There are numerous differences in the ACP’s 15 community types, but even in places where people have more education and broader knowledge bases, the inability to identify the correct answers is apparent.

Voting and Elections

The survey presented two statements around elections: One around voter fraud, seen in the opening of this piece (which, again, is false), and one that says the Supreme Court has found it is constitutional to require voters to show identification before they vote (which is true).

In every community type, fewer than 50% of respondents identified these statements correctly — and most community types were not even close to 50% correct on either one.

Some of the expected leanings and biases show in the responses. For instance, communities that tend to vote Democratic — the Big Cities and Urban Suburbs — were more likely to know the “tens of thousands of documented cases of voter fraud” statement was false. And places that lean Republican — Working Class Country, Military Posts, and Evangelical Hubs — were more likely to know that the Supreme Court has found it is OK to request identification from voters.

But in every community type, a majority did not know the correct answer to either of those statements.

The State of the Economy

There are few issues Americans have more direct contact with and knowledge of than the U.S. economy. They know whether they and their friends and neighbors have jobs. They know what they pay when they do their monthly bills or at the supermarket checkout.

And the answers to the statements about economics suggested a more informed group of respondents — at least on inflation.

More than 60% of the people in every community type knew that “inflation remains above historic averages”— something that was definitely true when this survey was conducted in June and July.

But when the statement turned to unemployment, the respondents across communities missed the correct response. Nationally, only 35% knew that the “U.S. unemployment rate was at or near historic lows.” A selection of county types — Urban Suburbs, Exurbs, College Towns, and Graying America — did a little better, with 40% identifying the statement as true. While the right-leaning Evangelical Hubs' “true” answer was much lower, at 24%.

Again, however, the correct answer did not register above 50% in any community type.

Immigration

The issue of immigration is the opposite of the economy. It’s a topic upon which many have opinions, but fewer have direct contact. And that showed in the true/false section of our survey. People seemed to understand the broad facts of the data, but were wrong on the numbers’ implications, at least around crime.

The one statement people answered correctly (true) was “migration across the U.S.-Mexico border is at or near historic highs.” That story has been front-and-center in the media and roughly six in 10 respondents, 61%, got the answer correct. In fact, in every type more than 50% answered correctly, though, again Democratic-leaning places were lower and Republican-leaning places were higher.

But on the immigration statement around crime, not a single community type had more than 50% giving the correct answer. In the Urban Suburbs, 50% correctly said the statement “undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit violent crimes than native born Americans” was false. But that was a rare exception to the larger trend, and it still wasn’t a majority among a group of people that tends to be well-educated and knowledgeable. Furthermore, it is for a statement in which their political leaning probably should have led them toward the right answer.

Crime

And, finally, the survey offered three true/false statements around crime and policing where no community types had a majority giving the right answer. The three statements here were pretty grim — rising rates of killings by police, rising murders in 2023, and an epidemic of child kidnappings. The statements are all false and none of the community types came close to 50% on the correct answer.

Frankly, this finding is something of a surprise. Considering the drastically different worlds these places embody on a variety of topics, the uniformity here is hard to explain. Again, the typical Democratic/Republican divides emerge on these statements: Big Cities were less likely to know that killings by police officers were not rising, and Evangelical Hubs were less likely to know the murder rate fell in 2023. However, the differences were muted — and that may raise a larger point about the country.

Dour Days

To be clear, not all these statements are connected to misinformation or disinformation. Some are simply about people’s general knowledge. But in a larger sense, these results suggest people are not feeling good about the country right now. And that feelings, not facts, seem uppermost in mind.

Consider the fact that eight of these nine statements (all but the Supreme Court prompt) gave the respondent a chance to give a positive or negative response. Is inflation high? Is murder up? Is unemployment low? In every case, the respondents chose the negative response. They believe inflation is high, murder is climbing, and the unemployment rate is not good.

In fact, the two statements where more than 50% gave correct responses in all the community types were also the negative responses. Inflation has been above historical norms and migrations across the U.S.-Mexico border are at or near historic highs. These are true trends, but they are also not good trends, and that may be the primary reason why respondents gave the correct responses on them. The negative views of the respondents aligned with the truth.

And along with an inability to beat down mis- and dis-information, that may be the real story in these responses: the larger pessimistic attitude Americans have about what’s happening in the country in 2024. Given the choice between a positive view and a negative view, Americans seem inclined to take the latter.

That disposition certainly flies in the face of the traditional view of the American psyche built on optimism. The bigger question going forward may be whether our survey presents a one-time finding, reflects a temporary mood, or signals a fundamental shift in the American perspective.

Culture

Understanding America in 2024: Hopes, Fears, and the Connections That Shape Community Perceptions

by Ari Pinkus and Dante Chinni October 10, 2024

As the 2024 campaign reaches its crescendo, Americans’ immediate and long-term hopes and fears are front and center. They are a visceral part of the story, heard in intimate conversations and seen in media coverage.

This summer, the American Communities Project delved deeper into understanding the drivers behind these complicated and often anxious views in our ongoing study of the fragmentation of American society, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The latest ACP/Ipsos survey of 5,000-plus Americans finds an overwhelming majority of residents across the Project’s 15 community types have hope for their personal future, but the percentages drop dramatically for the nation’s short- and long-term futures. Reasons for optimism and pessimism vary, but a lack of trust in leaders is a significant concern.

The survey examines the composition of Americans’ personal connections and finds their immediate social circles are complex and diverse across the community types. The survey specifically asks whether or not people of different political and ideological affiliations, income levels, religions, races/ethnicities, and sexual and gender identities are part of respondents’ social circles. In particular, it finds that most people’s circles have fewer scientists and government officials or workers, and only a tiny percent of journalists.

Most importantly, the survey finds these outlooks and personal connections play a large role in shaping Americans’ divergent worldviews including how they perceive inflation and immigration, two issues of sustained importance in American life that are dominating this campaign season. Taken together, the survey’s findings offer a map to better understand the different values and concerns that define the nation and suggest why finding common ground remains a vexing problem.

Four Key Takeaways

Four points stand out in this survey that center on Americans’ varying perceptions and experiences.

Across communities, optimism for the future is focused on one’s own vantage point: Your life is generally good, or your faith is strong. At the same time, pessimism comes from outside forces: The country seems to be falling apart, leaders never seem to be able to do the right thing, or there is a lot of crime and violence. However, community types are not a monolith. The African American South stands out for having a strong faith that gives hope despite struggles, economic hardship, and violent crime. To a much greater degree than average, Military Posts and Evangelical Hubs report that the country seems to be falling apart.

Most Americans say that they spend time with friends at least once a month and have immediate family/close friends on both sides of the political divide and up and down the economic ladder. Fewer Americans say they are closely connected to immigrants. This is particularly true in more rural, Southern, and Appalachian communities: Evangelical Hubs, the African American South, Rural Middle America, and Working Class Country. Generally speaking, these communities are less likely to be home to immigrant populations.

The differences in the community types lead to very different conclusions about where the nation is heading and how fast it is changing. There is something of an urban/rural split when it comes to opinions about what the nation is becoming, but the concerns are particularly acute in the Evangelical Hubs and the small towns of Rural Middle America. However, the data also suggest that the pace of change is not causing the same amount of angst in most communities. Some of the same communities that worry about what the nation is becoming — the Military Posts and LDS Enclaves — see double-digit drops when the question turns to the pace of change.

In terms of issues, inflation remains the top local and national topic of concern for Americans for the second year in a row. Higher costs, however, do not seem to be creating real economic hardship across communities — very few people say they “can’t make ends meet.” Meanwhile, immigration as a local issue has ratcheted up in importance from our previous survey. It moves up more in a mix of urban, suburban, and rural communities: Big Cities, Urban Suburbs, LDS Enclaves, and Evangelical Hubs.

Peruse the full slide deck here. ACP 2024 Survey Findings Presentation

Poll Methodology

This American Communities Project/Ipsos poll was conducted June 14–July 1, 2024, using Ipsos’ probability-based KnowledgePanel® and from June 27–July 6, 2024, using an RDD telephone sample. The poll was conducted among a sample of 5,312 Americans aged 18 or older, with 4,712 surveys completed online and 600 interviews conducted via telephone. For the online portion, the survey was conducted using the probability-based Ipsos KnowledgePanel® and fielded in both English and Spanish. The RDD Telephone portion was conducted in English in the Native American Lands and Aging Farmlands. The Native American Lands and Aging Farmlands were excluded from some questions because the RDD mode of questioning made the survey too long. The data were weighted to U.S. Census targets in each area segment and at the national level. A fuller methodology can be explored here: ACP Methodology Statement Oct 2024.

A note about how to read these data

The ACP’s community types were created by collecting and analyzing 36 different data points across all the 3,100-plus counties in the United States. The result is 15 different kinds of community spread across the United States. Some are regionally clustered, and others are scattered. You can see all the types mapped and explained below.

(Click type names to see more on each.)

African American South: Places with large African American populations. Lower incomes and higher unemployment.	Exurbs: Wealthy communities usually on the edge of metro areas, Largely white with lower crime rates.	Military Posts: Located around military installations. Younger, middle-income, diverse communities.
Aging Farmlands: Sparsely populated and overwhelmingly white. Low unemployment, agricultural economy.	Graying America: Places with large senior communities. Generally rural and less diverse, middle-income.	Native American Lands: Places with large Native American populations. Young communities with lower incomes.
Big Cities: Counties holding the nation's largest cities. Dense and diverse.	Hispanic Centers: Large Hispanic populations in mostly rural communities. Younger with lower incomes.	Rural Middle America: Largely rural and white communities. Middle income and average educational attainment.
College Towns: Urban and rural communities that are home to campuses and college students.	LDS Enclaves: Places dominated by Latter-day Saints adherents. Younger and middle-income.	Urban Suburbs: Educated and densely populated communities around major metros. Racially and economically diverse.
Evangelical Hubs: Places with above-average numbers for evangelical adherents. Largely Southern with fewer college grads.	Middle Suburbs: Middle-income, blue-collar communities mostly around metro areas.	Working Class Country: Rural, blue-collar communities. Low incomes and college graduation rates.

The differences between these types are apparent in a wide range of data, from age and race/ethnicity to income and education. Those differences in demographic data often go a long way toward explaining the differences in attitudes we see in this survey work. In this report, we sometimes reference those broader socioeconomic differences in the data, but users can explore the divides themselves using the ACP’s Data Clearinghouse, where scores of data sets can be visualized.

Hopeful for Personal Future, Not as Hopeful for the Nation

The latest ACP/Ipsos survey conveys how Americans maintain a hopeful mindset amid violent episodes and broader cultural change. Consistent with last year’s survey in which 87% of Americans said their life was going in the right direction, this year, an overwhelming majority of residents — 84% across the 15 community types — say they are very hopeful or somewhat hopeful about their own futures. Also, like last year, community types are largely aligned on their individual futures. The range runs just 9 percentage points, from 80% who say they are very hopeful or somewhat hopeful in the 280 Working Class Country counties of 10.8 million concentrated in Appalachia and the South, to 89% in the 45 Native American Lands containing under a million people mostly in the Plains, interior West, and Southwest. Notably, in both communities, the median household incomes are at the low end of the 15 types.

While Americans live in very different geographical terrains, subcultures, and socioeconomic circumstances, a significant majority, 76%, say they are very hopeful or somewhat hopeful about their community’s future. Hopefulness dips in more heterogeneous as well as younger communities, from 71% in Native American Lands and 71% in Big Cities, to 72% in College Towns and 73% in the African American South.

A smaller but still significant majority, 65%, say they are very hopeful or somewhat hopeful about the future of their children or the next generation. The percentage drops significantly to 56% in the 77 Military Posts, where the population of 9.8 million is younger, more African American, and more conservative than average. Working Class Country sees a similar pattern, with 58% saying they are very hopeful or somewhat hopeful about the next generation.

The figures drop significantly when it comes to the prospects for the nation at large. Yet even with the rancor and divisions, a bare majority of Americans, 52%, say they are very hopeful or somewhat hopeful about the country’s future over the next few years, while a slightly greater percentage, 55%, say they are very hopeful or somewhat hopeful about the country’s long-term future.

There’s less short-term hopefulness in some rural, conservative-leaning communities: 43% of residents in Rural Middle America’s 628 counties along America’s upper tier say they are very hopeful or somewhat hopeful. That’s also true of 45% of residents in the LDS Enclaves, 39 Mormon-dominated communities in the interior West, and 46% who live in Military Posts, located largely in rural locales.

There tends to be more of a hopeful outlook over the long term. The differential between long-term and short-term hopefulness is largest in the Urban Suburbs at 6 points (57% in the long term to 51% in the short term), Evangelical Hubs at 5 points (56% to 51%), and Exurbs at 5 points (58% to 53%).

Reasons for Optimism

Americans give a range of reasons for their optimism, but the personal tops the societal. At 54%, “your life is generally good” is the reason with the highest percentage nationally — and the only reason with a clear majority. Drilling down by community type, affluent Exurbs and middle-income Rural Middle America stand out in their agreement with this statement at 61% and 58%, respectively. On the other end of the spectrum are lower-income rural communities, the African American South at 49%, Working Class Country 48%, and Hispanic Centers 47%.

The next most popular reason, “your faith/religion gives you hope no matter what is happening,” comes in at 36% nationally. Here the lower-income, racially divided African American South, known for residents with strong faith backgrounds and practices, stands heads and shoulders above all other types at 54%. In other rural, lower- and middle-income, Christian-dominated communities, about half say the same about their faith/religion, including Working Class Country at 50%, Evangelical Hubs at 47%, and LDS Enclaves at 47%. Conversely, the percentages are more than 10 points lower in urban and suburban communities of varying diversity: Big Cities at 33%, Exurbs at 33%, and Urban Suburbs at 30%.

What may be most disheartening is that just 31% of Americans say they are optimistic about the future because “people are generally good.” Optimism in this area peaks at 49% in the LDS Enclaves where religious and social ties are strong — no other community type comes close. In more ethnically and racially diverse communities with middle and low incomes, being optimistic because “people are generally good” drops below the national average: the African American South at 24%, Hispanic Centers at 25%, Military Posts at 27%, and Working Class Country at 27%. More affluent communities, the Exurbs and Urban Suburbs, are slightly above the national average at 34% and 32%, respectively.

Notwithstanding the fervor around technological advancement, particularly AI, just 25% cite “technology and progress are creating new benefits for life” as a reason to feel optimistic about the future. In Big Cities and Urban Suburbs, where the information industries have proliferated, the percentages are among the highest at 28% and 27%, respectively. Also on the upper end are Hispanic Centers, agricultural bastions that have benefited from technological improvements in farming practices as well as from tech that lets residents stay in touch with people back home, at 27%.

“Your career is/was going well” is the one other reason above 20% nationally that people are optimistic about the future. Overall, 21% say they feel this way. Interestingly, 27% in middle-income Rural Middle America agree with this statement at a time when the nature of work continues shifting, as do the education, skills, and experience needed to succeed in a range of industries. Rural Middle America, known for its collection of small towns, has also felt a significant population decline since 2010. Other rural communities see things differently: 15% in mostly older, white Evangelical Hubs and 14% in young Hispanic Centers report being optimistic because of their career. Both are lower-income rural communities in the South and Southwest, but at opposite ends of the ethnic diversity and generational spectrums.

Other sources of optimism for the future with less than 15% nationally:

“Your children/the next generation have a bright future” at 14% (Hispanic Centers are notably higher at 18%),
“News coverage exaggerates the bad, and things are really ok” at 9%,
“You’re confident that leaders will ultimately do the right thing” at 7%,
“Bad things in the world don’t really impact your community” at 5%,
“Something else” at 3%, and
“I do not feel optimistic at all for the future” at 10%.

Note that none of these statements around optimism were asked of Aging Farmlands and Native American Lands because of time constraints.

Reasons for Pessimism

American pessimism largely stems from outside forces as opposed to one’s personal trajectory. For example, 55% of Americans say they are pessimistic about the future because “the country seems to be falling apart.” In some community types representing youth and elderly residents of conservative and liberal ideologies, the figures are much higher: 67% in Military Posts, 67% in Evangelical Hubs, 63% in LDS Enclaves, and 62% in College Towns.

In a similar vein, 46% of residents across the 15 types say they are pessimistic about the future because “leaders seem to never be able to do the right thing.” This is especially pronounced in the mostly white, Christian-dominated, conservative communities: the LDS Enclaves at 54% and Evangelical Hubs at 51%. But this pessimism also reaches 50% in the affluent Exurbs, senior-rich Graying America, and diverse Military Posts. Overall, military communities, LDS Enclaves, and Evangelical Hubs stand out for holding more pessimistic feelings about the country and its leadership.

Lack of safety is also a significant source of pessimism among Americans. Nationally, 40% of Americans say they are pessimistic about the future because “there is lots of crime and violence.” Note that this question did not ask about the respondents’ specific communities. When filtering results through the community types, 47% in the African American South feel this way. In response to a separate question, crime or gun violence continues to be seen as a top problem in this rural community type. “Lots of crime and violence” is also a heightened view in diverse, young Hispanic Centers at 45%. At the other end of the spectrum are Christian, conservative communities: the LDS Enclaves at 30% and Evangelical Hubs at 33%.

A third of Americans are generally pessimistic about the future because they believe that “your children/the next generation will have a harder time than you.” In LDS Enclaves, the figure reaches 42% of residents. In two older, rural community types, Rural Middle America and Graying America, 39% of residents hold the same view about the next generation.

Several sources of pessimism do not hit 15% nationally.

“Things are changing too fast” stands at 12%. (In Big Cities and Working Class Country, it’s 15%.)
“It is hard to find a rewarding job or career” is also at 12%.
“You no longer recognize the community you grew up in” comes in at 8%.
“Bad things have happened in your life” is at 8%.
“Something else” also comes in at 8%.
“I do not feel worried at all for the future” sits at 8%.

Again, none of these statements around pessimism were asked of the Aging Farmlands and Native American Lands because of time constraints.

Close Connections and Social Circles

Most Americans — 65% — say they spend time with friends in person at least once a month. The percentages are highest in the Aging Farmlands at 81% and Native American Lands at 76%. They are lowest in the African American South and Evangelical Hubs at 56% and Working Class Country at 58%.

In many ways, Americans’ family-and-friend circles reflect the diversity of the country, containing a robust mix of political, socioeconomic, religious, racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender identity backgrounds. For example, 68% say they have immediate family members/close friends who are Republicans or conservatives. At the community-type level, it reaches 88% in the Aging Farmlands and 80% in both Rural Middle America and LDS Enclaves, all three reliably Republican strongholds. Even in Big Cities, known as liberal centers, 56% say they have immediate family/close friends who are considered Republicans or conservatives. The lowest percentage, 51%, comes from the African American South, where the partisan vote has been more evenly divided in the past few presidential elections, and racial divides are evident in day-to-day dealings. The divide among community types on this statement reaches nearly 40 percentage points.

There are some similar elements on the other end of the political spectrum, though the gulf is not as wide. Across community types, 66% say they have immediate family members/close friends who are Democrats or liberals. Generally, residents in urban and suburban community types stand out for having close Democrat or liberal connections — 72% in Big Cities, 71% in Exurbs, and 70% in College Towns. Also, 71% in Aging Farmlands say they have immediate family/close friends who are Democrats or liberals. Even in highly conservative Evangelical Hubs and Working Class Country communities, the percentages are 58% and 59%, respectively. There is a 14-point divide among the community types on the question of having close family/friends who are considered Democrats or liberals.

For as much discussion as there is about Americans self-sorting into like-minded tribes, these partisan stats underscore the way residents across the country describe associating — and dining — with close relatives and friends who are of different political persuasions, based on our reporting and national news stories. At the same time, people also speak to us about being estranged from immediate family and close friends because of different partisan leanings.

Another indication of the complexity of American relationships is socioeconomic mixing across the community types. Nationally, 67% say they have immediate family/close friends who are “wealthier or more affluent than you.” The community type range is 15 percentage points. The number pops significantly higher to 76% in the sparsely populated, middle-income Aging Farmlands; affluent Exurbs; and middle-income LDS Enclaves; and to 74% in the low-income Native American Lands. In the lower-income Hispanic Centers and the African American South, 61% and 63% of residents respectively say they have immediate family/close friends who are “wealthier or more affluent than you.”

Nearly as many, 63%, say they have “immediate family/close friends who are poorer or less affluent than you.” The figures range nearly 20 points across communities. In Native American Lands, which have low median household incomes, 75% of residents say this is true. The figures are nearly as high in the Aging Farmlands and LDS Enclaves, with 74% and 72% of residents saying they have immediate family/close friends who are poorer than them. In the African American South, the figure is 56%. The percentages are marginally higher at 59% in both the Big Cities and Evangelical Hubs. Notably, income inequality — the ratio of household income at the 80th percentile to income at the 20th percentile — is highest in the African American South at 5.4, but also high in Evangelical Hubs and Big Cities at 4.7.

Nationally, 61% say they have “immediate family members/close friends who are members of a different religious group than your own.” The divide is as wide as 22 points when examining the community types. At one end of the scale are rural, heavily white, Christian communities: Evangelical Hubs at 54% and Working Class Country at 56%. At the other end are also rural, predominately white Aging Farmlands at 76%. Two rural youth-oriented communities, the Native American Lands and LDS Enclaves, come in close at 73%.

On the question of having “immediate family members/close friends who are members of a different racial/ethnic group than your own,” the percentage ticks down to 58% nationally. In the Native American Lands and Aging Farmlands, the figures are highest at 74% and 72%, respectively. College Towns hover around the average at 57%. Mostly white Evangelical Hubs and Rural Middle America are significantly lower at 49% and 51%, respectively. The difference comes to 25 points across the 15 types.

Wider acceptance of LGBTQ+ people is continuing. About half of the population — 49% — say they have immediate family members/close friends who identify as LGBTQ+. Twelve points separate the 15 types of communities. The highest percentages are in the Exurbs at 54%, Urban Suburbs at 52%, LDS Enclaves at 52%, Military Posts at 51%, and Aging Farmlands at 51%. Lowest are in the Evangelical Hubs and Working Class Country, both at 42%.

At the same time, immigration continues to be a fraught political and cultural issue as immigrants are bussed to communities far from the U.S. border. On a personal level, more than a third, 38%, of Americans nationwide say they have “immediate family members/close friends who are immigrants from another country.” There is a 30-point differential among the community types who identify with this social context. Interestingly, in the Urban Suburbs, known for their diversity and multiculturalism, just 44% say they have immediate family/close friends who are immigrants. The only other community types with higher percentages are Hispanic Centers at 51% and Big Cities at 48%. Both are known for large immigrant populations. A range of rural communities stands in contrast to these highs. Just 21% of Evangelical Hubs and 24% of residents in Rural Middle America, Working Class Country, and the African American South say they have immediate family members or close friends who are immigrants.

The percentage with scientists in their immediate family or among their close friends is significantly lower at 23% nationally. Not surprisingly, in College Towns, the percentage reaches the highest of the types but is still less than a third, at 29%. Also above the national average are the affluent Urban Suburbs and Exurbs at 27%. Big Cities are close behind, with 25% saying that they have immediate family members/close friends who are scientists. The lowest percentages are in Working Class Country at 10% and Evangelical Hubs at 13%, rural places where the education and income levels are significantly lower than the other types of communities.

The percentages are much less for other professions, including elected officials or people who work in government as well as journalists. Overall, 17% say they have immediate family members or close friends who are in government. Most community types circle around the mid to upper teens. In notable exceptions to this trend, the sparsely populated Native American Lands and Aging Farmlands are significantly higher at 35% and 34%, respectively. In these small communities, residents are often more personally connected to one another and wear many hats of service.

Amid anger and frustration with the press, only 7% of people say they have immediate family members or close friends who are journalists or work for a news organization. Most community types hover in the mid to low single digits. The lowest figures are in the African American South, Middle Suburbs, and Working Class Country at 4% and Rural Middle America at 3%. Again, the two exceptions are Aging Farmlands and Native American Lands at 15% and 10%, respectively.

Where the Nation Is Going

Those connections are just part of the larger story of what makes these communities different, of course. The 15 community types exist in different geographies. They revolve around different economies. And when adding it all together, there are sharp divides in how the communities feel about the country’s current path and broader impacts of societal change.

The survey gave respondents a list of statements and asked them to agree or disagree, and two statements in particular dealt with changes and the pace of changes in the United States: “More and more I don’t identify with what America has become,” and “society is changing too fast.”

Generally speaking, the nation’s most urban places, the Big Cities and Urban Suburbs, seem to be the least concerned about changes in the nation. Meanwhile, places with a conservative political leaning appear to be the most concerned, though there are exceptions to that larger trend. And some of the differences in responses to the two statements are revealing.

The first statement, “I don’t identify with what America has become,” can be read a lot of different ways. The idea of “what America has become” can vary greatly in the 15 community types, especially when one considers the country’s deeply divided nature along political lines. We know that from talking to people in different communities about whether the nation was on the “right track.”

But the fact that the lowest agree numbers come from the Big Cities and Urban Suburbs and the highest agree numbers come from the Evangelical Hubs and Rural Middle America suggests that the question may be a proxy for societal change — everything from growing racial and ethnic diversity to shifts in gender and gender roles. Those big urban communities tend to be the most socially liberal.

Even the Exurbs and Middle Suburbs, which tend to be more conservative but also more urban, are largely in line with the national figure of 54%.

The deeper divide appears along the lines of urban versus rural, but even that doesn’t tell the entire story. Note how the agree figure for the most sparsely populated places, the Aging Farmlands at 60%, is below the figures for the Evangelical Hubs, 67%, and Rural Middle America, 66%. That suggests there is another part of this story.

As we note in the section about connections above, the Aging Farmlands may be very rural, but because those communities are so small and because they are driven by agriculture, people living there tend to personally know more different kinds of people. There aren’t a lot of strangers in those places, which in some communities means residents may know one or two people quite different from themselves and perhaps feel more comfortable with the pace of change.

The higher agree numbers in the Evangelical Hubs and Rural Middle America, as well as the LDS Enclaves, may suggest that those small and rural communities are also more insular. They may be home to subpopulations within the dominant communities — “others” that people see but don’t really know well. In other words, they may be places where there are more people who feel different from the dominant culture who are “outsiders.” Religion can sometimes be a divider as well as a uniter, and that could be an issue in the Hubs and Enclaves. And Rural Middle America communities, with a median population of 28,400, often are big enough to be home to different groups of people who don’t know each other well.

But something very interesting happens in the data when the statement focuses on the speed of change in society. Overall, the agree figure falls by 6 points nationally to 48%, and across the types there are much bigger divides.

Note the sharp difference in the Urban Suburbs, where the agree figure falls to 41%. The Exurbs figure drops 8 points to 46%. The LDS Enclaves agree number is still above 50%, but it drops by 10 points. In fact, the figures for all the communities are down, with the exception of the Native American Lands, where the agree figure climbs 8 points to 68%, and the Big Cities, where the figure is flat at 46%.

But the biggest change comes in the Military Posts, where the agree number plummets 17 percentage points to 41% on the question of whether society is “changing too fast” compared to the statement on “what America has become.” On many questions in this survey the Military Posts stand out as different from other community types. This is a community type the ACP will explore in depth in the coming year.

The Evangelical Hubs are a bit of an outlier here. People in these places seem to believe both things — the change has not been good, and it is coming too fast. As we noted in last year’s reporting, those places tend to stand out in the data as a place apart.

On the whole, what do these differences suggest? In many communities, the biggest issue with the United States is not the pace of change, but rather the change itself. In many of them, people seem to believe that the United States has lost its way.

The overall figures here suggest that bringing the country back together is not going to be easy. For many communities, it seems that a majority of people not only would like to put on the brakes, but would like to make a U-turn.

Is there anything that unites the community types in these statements? Yes. Regardless of whether people in different communities think the country has changed for the worse or whether they think things are changing too fast, they can all agree that things are not getting better. They may express hope for their children’s futures, but in the broader context of the nation, feelings are less sunny.

The statement “our country is steadily improving” does not receive more than 20% agreement in any of the 15 community types. That 20% figure comes from the Big Cities, but the number bottoms out at 12% in the Evangelical Hubs, LDS Enclaves, Rural Middle America, and Working Class Country.

There are a few ways to read those figures.

Viewed one way, they are clearly troubling. The American ideal of always striving for something better, for a better life, for a “more perfect union,” feels a long way off from those figures.

But if the nation is going to move past this dour period, it is going to have to first bottom out. The numbers here suggest we may be near or at that point.

2024’s Big Issues in the ACP

The American Communities Project does not spend a lot of time focused explicitly on the political landscape. No political results or measures of partisanship went into the creation of the 15 types. But the demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural data that went into the typology sometimes align with the larger political picture, and, more importantly, the types can offer insights into the drivers of the nation’s political differences. (If you look at the individual pages for each of the community types, you will find a chart on the bottom right that shows the Democratic and Republican vote in each one since 2000.)

And the timing of this survey release as the nation is in the final stages of the 2024 presidential race offers an opportunity to see how two of the major issues of the campaign — inflation and immigration — are being felt at the local level. The two issues look different from each other in a long list of ways, but the biggest difference may be that every American who participates in commerce has dealt with inflation, while immigration, for many Americans, is an indirect experience and for most Americans seems like more of an abstract notion. The data suggest those differences matter.

Inflation

Since the Covid-19 pandemic has receded, inflation has been a major, even dominant, political and economic issue. The money that the federal government pumped into the U.S. economy did its job in terms of staving off a recession, but it also resulted in bloated bank accounts, pent-up demand, and a shortage of goods and labor.

Our first survey in 2023 found that inflation was the top issue locally and nationally in all the community types, from the Big Cities to the Aging Farmlands. We also found that communities ranked a wide variety of issues as their second most important.

And those trends continued this year. Every community type assigns inflation the top spot in terms of issues facing their community and the nation. The second most important issue, especially locally, varies from “crime and gun violence” in the African American South to “homelessness” in the Big Cities, College Towns, Hispanic Centers, and Military Posts, to “opioid and drug addiction” in the Evangelical Hubs and Working Class Country.

But there are also some signs that worries about inflation have softened in the past year in some communities in particular, even as concerns grew stronger in other places.

Overall, the percentage of Americans who rate inflation as a top concern in their local communities dropped by 2 percentage points. It dropped by a little more in the Evangelical Hubs and Military Posts (3-percent decreases) and dropped by a lot more in Working Class Country (a 7-point decrease).

At the same time, however, concerns about inflation grew slightly in the African American South and Exurbs and more sharply in the College Towns (5 percentage points), Rural Middle America (6 percentage points) and especially in the Middle Suburbs, where there is a 9-percentage point increase in respondents calling it an important issue facing their community.

It’s hard to know what is driving these worsening attitudes on inflation, and there probably are different concerns in different places. The change in the College Towns could be attributed to continually rising tuition costs, for instance. But the jump in the Middle Suburbs and Rural Middle America is harder to understand. The urban/rural split doesn’t seem to offer any clues. Both urban and rural communities, for instance, see declines in inflation concerns.

One possible reason may be that those communities are feeling a sharper economic pinch overall as people’s Covid recovery funds dwindle and prices rise. For instance, “taxes” see a big jump as an important issue in both the Middle Suburbs (a 10-percentage point increase) and Rural Middle America (a 13-point increase). And both those communities, while not struggling economically, are not especially well-off overall — both are under the national average for median household income.

You get a different understanding of attitudes on inflation when you ask people about their financial situation and whether they have the money they need to live the lives they want. It’s not a perfect measure. Inflation isn’t the only thing that impacts a person’s or a family’s lifestyle. But in a time of low unemployment, it’s a broad indicator of economic angst, which has largely been driven by inflation over the past few years.

The survey asked respondents to place their financial situation in one of five buckets:

“I/My family is unable to make ends meet.”
“I/My family can make ends meet, but do NOT have extra money to save or spend.”
“I/My family has some extra money, but are unable to do some of the things we want.”
“I/My family does not have major financial limitations.”
“I/My family has almost no financial limitations.”

The first and fifth statements — “unable to make ends meet” and “almost no financial limitations” — get the fewest responses. The first statement gets only 6% nationally and is between 3% and 8% in each of the types. The fifth statement gets only 8% nationally, with the individual community responses in the 4% to 12% range.

But among those middle three responses there are big differences among the types. (On the chart below, click any type in the key or any bar to highlight how that community type compares to others.)

On that chart, only one group, the Aging Farmlands, gives the highest percentage of its responses to the most economically challenged answer — 38% say they have no extra money to save and spend. That answer may reveal something about how increasing inflation over the past few years has hit the nation’s farming towns. Those communities rely heavily on agriculture.

Two groups, Graying America and the Military Posts, give the largest share of their responses to the much more positive characterization that they have no major financial limitations — those figures are 33% and 37%, respectively. That may make a certain amount of sense. Both are middle-income communities with large populations that receive federal money, Social Security checks, or military pay that was adjusted for inflation. Even if those increases don’t fully keep up in all cases and places, the active effort to try to keep up likely makes a difference for many people living in those communities.

For the other 12 community types, the most selected answer is the middle one, “I/My family has some extra money, but are unable to do some of the things we want.”

Those responses raise a question about how the economy is being perceived this election year.

As we note throughout this report, these communities look and feel very different. For instance, the median household income in Urban Suburbs is more than $87,000, while it is about $61,000 in Rural Middle America and about $47,000 in the Evangelical Hubs. People in these places live very different lives. Yet pluralities in all three communities say they are doing OK financially, just unable to do some of the things they want. Those things are likely to be very different — trips to Europe in some places versus nights out at restaurants in others. Lifestyle expectations almost certainly play a big role in this question.

But, with those expectations in mind, the data don’t show serious struggles in most places. In every community except the Aging Farmlands, more than 50% responded that they are not struggling and that they have extra money. In most of these communities, Americans describe their situations as “I have some extra money, but I wish I had more.” That’s not ideal, of course, but it’s not out of the ordinary, either. And it suggests that the commonly stated American fear of being “one emergency away” from serious financial hardship (a health scare, a big car repair bill) is very much part of life for people in many different kinds of communities.

None of this is to say that inflation is not a real concern for people in 2024. The “most important issue” responses clearly indicate it is. But these data also suggest that while higher costs at the pump or the checkout line may be creating angst, those costs are not causing deep hardship for most people in most communities, even those with lower incomes.

Immigration

Another of the top issues for the 2024 campaign where this survey provides some insight is immigration, and in some ways the data show the opposite trend that it did with inflation. There is not a single community where immigration is the top issue locally. The highest it gets is the third-ranked important issue in the Exurbs. It ranks lowest, number 11, in the African American South. In a lot of the types, it’s in the middle of the pack among the important issues, ranging from No. 6 to No. 9. It’s rated as the sixth most important issue in local communities overall.

But the percentage of people rating it as an important issue is up in nearly all of the ACP community types.

Overall, the number of people naming immigration as a top concern in their community climbed by 6 percentage points in 2024 compared to 2023. However, there are some big differences among the types. It grew as a top concern by 8 percentage points in the Big Cities and by 4 points in the Urban Suburbs, but the percentage of people seeing it as a top issue was flat in the Middle Suburbs.

The urban/rural divide doesn’t really help explain the differences. Immigration grew as a top local issue by 6 points in the Evangelical Hubs and 8 points in the LDS Enclaves, but the number was flat in rural Working Class Country.

Even with those increases, the survey finds that the percentage of Americans who personally know someone from another country (immediate family or close friend) is surprisingly low. Only 38% said they know someone from another country, with big differences at the community type level.

The highest percentage comes from the Hispanic Centers, 51%, with the Big Cities close behind at 48%. But the numbers are far lower in some community types — 24% in the African American South, Rural Middle America, and Working Class Country, and just 21% in the Evangelical Hubs.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean people in those communities have not seen or perhaps met someone from another country, but they do not know them well enough to call them a “close friend.” And that makes sense — those communities have very low numbers of Hispanics, the ethnic group that makes up the largest share of immigrants in the United States. Those communities all have median Hispanic populations of 4% or lower.

And the survey suggests that lack of connection to immigrant populations has meaning and can play a role in misunderstanding people and facts. As part of this questionnaire, the ACP gave people a series of statements and asked whether they were true or false. (We will release those results at a later date.) Included in those knowledge questions was this statement: “Undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit violent crimes than native born Americans.” The correct answer to that question is “false.” There is no evidence to support that claim.

Only 44% of people in the national survey got the answer correct (false). But compare the community type answers on that statement to the question about who knows an immigrant closely, and some correlations become apparent.

The four community types that were the least likely to get the undocumented immigrant and crime question correct were also the community types where people are least likely to know an immigrant from another country. Meanwhile, the three communities where people were most likely to say they knew an immigrant well, the Big Cities, Urban Suburbs, and Hispanic Centers, are also those most likely to answer the undocumented crime question correctly.

That’s not a definitive explanation of the correlation, of course. More work is needed to explore the connection. But at the very least, the data certainly suggest that who people know in their daily lives plays a role in how people see the world, even on an issue as charged as immigration.

Conclusion and Next Steps

That kind of finding goes to the heart of the work the ACP does. The people you talk to every day and the scenes you see on the street affect your understanding of reality. Add in the fact that these community types have different media consumption habits (something we will explore in more detail in the weeks ahead), and the evidence for different “bubble realities” only grows.

The goal of this year’s survey was to go deeper than we did in year one to try to find some of the underpinnings for the divides we chronicled in last year’s work. The differences on “hopes and fears” in the community types as well as the differences on what these places look like give the ACP a new set of places to visit and a new set of issues and ideas to explore. We will be doing that in the months ahead.

In presidential election years, there is always hope that arguments are settled at the ballot box — that after all the votes are tallied, the nation sets on a clear path. But history and the work of the ACP suggest that is a simplistic understanding of where the country is right now. There are very different deeply held beliefs in the 15 community types, and they aren’t going to be resolved after November 5th or whenever the results of this year’s results are known. Once the dust of this year’s big races has settled, the nation’s many discussions will only continue, and we will head out into the field to better understand them.

Culture

Listening to the Nation: Online Survey Results

by American Communities Project July 26, 2024

The American Communities Project is conducting an ongoing online survey about people’s associations to 25 important terms in American life today — the same ones we interviewed people about in the field. The bigger the words below, the more they have appeared in people’s responses to the terms. We occasionally clarify these word clouds with people’s full responses on an anonymous basis. We will keep the survey open and update this page periodically. (Participants did not always provide the county in which they live so these responses are not by county type.)

America

American Dream

Community

Conservative

Culture

Democracy

Diversity

Family

First Amendment

Freedom

Gender Identity

Government

Inequality

Justice

Liberal

Minority

From a respondent: “I heard it put best recently in an Atlantic piece on diversity trainings: ‘The analogy I used was a fish versus a scuba diver. Both could survive in the ocean, but the fish did so effortlessly as the environment was built around their needs and capabilities. The scuba diver needed an oxygen tank, wet suit, fins, and had to expend a fair amount of energy to just survive in the ocean, much less thrive. The scuba diver was constantly aware of his difference and how much conscious effort it took to navigate underwater, and it was exhausting. The fish didn’t even know what water was.'”

News Media

Personal responsibility

Public health

Race

Religion

Second Amendment

Social Media

Well-being

Work

Culture

On the Fragmentation in American Society

by American Communities Project July 16, 2024

It’s been a very difficult few months in the United States, but more than a year into our three-year study of the fragmentation in American society, our survey and field work shows that Americans in all kinds of communities do agree on some important ideas. Overall, they think their personal lives are going in the right direction while the country is on the wrong track. In addition, respondents think Americans have a lot more in common than is generally believed and hold similar views on key policy issues, including:

tax cuts — they don’t want them if it means cutting social programs,
the economic system — it’s rigged for the wealthy,
immigration — people are concerned, and
abortion — people want it to be legal.

Where the divides are wide is on culture. Across our 15 community types, people disagree on gender identity, guns, family structure, and religion. Community residents are also very divided on why the country is headed in the wrong direction and whether they feel like a stranger in their own country.

Our second survey, in progress now, focuses on Americans’ hopes and fears.

Below are snippets and links to our full pieces from year one. Peruse the full survey results here.

PDF of the full survey results from July 2023.

New Survey Breaks Down America’s Complicated Landscape

October 26, 2023

The media tends to explain the divides in United States in binary terms — red/blue, left/right, urban/rural. News stories discuss war between two conflicting “cultures” in the country. Sometimes included is a third option for “independents” or “centrists.” But look closer and the picture is far more complicated, marked by fault lines that can be hard to see.

The American Communities Project is exploring what those differences look like with a three-year project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This is the first of three large public opinion surveys conducted with Ipsos. This survey of more than 5,000 Americans spread through the ACP’s 15 community types shows a deeply complicated landscape across the country on many issues — from gun ownership to race. But it also shows some areas of commonality and potential for common ground.

Truly understanding the underlying drivers and finding ways to overcome them or coexist with them is a process. This is just the beginning of that work.

Community Pieces Based on ACP/Ipsos Survey

More in Common Than You Think

July 16, 2024

Predictably, social media swelled with allegations, flamewars, and pro- and anti-Trump memes in the days after a 20-year-old gunman apparently tried to kill the former president in Pennsylvania. The shooting became a kind of Rorschach test for a country keyed up by an approaching election. The national cleavages over the fitness for office of the two leading candidates seem with us every moment. Data, and conversations with citizens reveal a much less divided, and more interesting mindset.

There are few more interesting places to test the proposition than two neighboring counties in Washington State, Pierce and Yakima. They share a border in the Cascade Mountains. The peaks divide the state, east and west, culturally, politically, and in the popular imagination. The American Communities Project classifies Pierce as an Urban Suburb, and it well lives up to the name as the home of more than 900,000 people, 59th in population out of more than 3,100 counties in the US. Yakima is classified as a Hispanic Center in the ACP typology, with Latinos now about half its population of around 250,000.

Should We Cut Social Programs to Lower Taxes? A Roundtable Chat in Florida’s Graying America

April 9, 2024

Talking About Guns in Big City and Working Class Country Michigan

April 3, 2024

Voices in Urban and Rural New York Shed Light on America’s Crossroads

March 4, 2024

Among the most curious results in the American Communities Project/Ipsos survey of 5,000 Americans last year was the divide between how positively they felt about the direction of their lives and how negatively they felt about the direction of the country. The ACP interviewed residents in New York City’s Big City boroughs and residents in Chenango County, New York, part of Rural Middle America some 200 miles away, and asked a simple question: Why?

Missouri’s Evangelical Hubs: A Place Apart?

February 26, 2024

Again and again, people in the cluster of counties pushed up against the Missouri-Arkansas line remind the visitor, while they may think they live in a place apart, they are part of the American whole. Douglas and Ozark counties are Evangelical Hubs, as defined by the American Communities Project county models.

Data-Driven Articles Based on ACP/Ipsos Survey

Can People Be Trusted? Americans Across Communities Share Their Thoughts

June 26, 2024

The last few years in the United States have been tense. The Covid-19 pandemic led to a more solitary life for many. Political divides have made people edgy. And you can see the impacts in the results from the American Communities Project’s 2023 survey. In it, only 33% of Americans said, “Most people can be trusted,” while 66% said you “can’t be too careful in dealing with people.”

April 30, 2024

Last year, the American Communities Project and Ipsos asked 5,000 Americans their thoughts on the infrastructure in their own communities as part of a survey on the fragmentation of American society. Overall, 69% of Americans rated their community infrastructure as excellent or good. The survey outlined infrastructure broadly, including roads, bridges, water, sewer, and electrical systems. Drilling down by community type, the net excellent/good score ranged nearly 40 points. Ratings were highest in a variety of the nation’s affluent and middle-income communities and lowest in poorer communities of color.

What Are Shared Values in Community?

April 24, 2024

The American Communities Project delved into people’s values in its 2023 fragmentation survey. Respondents were asked whether a variety of institutions shared their values.

The big finding: A lot of agreement, but agreement that seems built on skepticism and disillusionment. Across all the 15 community types that the ACP studies, there is little belief that any of the nation’s big institutions — big business, entertainment, the news media, and the federal government — share their values.

What Do Americans Say Are The Biggest Factors for Success?

January 29, 2024

Hard work? Lucky breaks? Help from others? Support from society? The American Communities Project/Ipsos 2023 Survey asked more than 5,000 Americans to rank order these contributors to success in America. More than two-thirds of Americans, 68%, said hard work and grit was the No. 1 contributor to success. At least 59% in each of the 15 community types felt the same way.

Do Americans Want to Move? Probably Fewer Than You Think.

January 8, 2024

A survey from the American Communities Project finds that in most places, a majority of people are quite happy with where they live. And those most interested in finding new homes tend to be people who live in wealthier, more urban communities. Overall, the survey found 58% of Americans answered “no” to the question: “If your finances and circumstances allowed, would you want to move to a different neighborhood or a different community?”

Americans Across Communities Share Concerns About Their Public Schools

January 2, 2024

More than a third of Americans gave their public schools a fair or poor rating, according to the American Communities Project/Ipsos 2023 Survey. Ratings were worse in rural communities of color. Across all 15 community types, underfunding or underinvestment was the top concern voiced, followed by too much demand or strain, such as staff shortages.

How Americans Are Perceiving and Feeling Inflation

December 11, 2023

Americans are generally feeling negative about their economic futures. The driving element is the cost of things. Americans cited inflation as the top local concern. At least 40% in every community type singled out inflation, according to the American Communities Project’s survey.

But the survey went further on inflation with a series of questions about “serious problems” due to prices. These questions yielded a very different set of responses.

Supporting Community — a Way of Life Across America

November 27, 2023

America continues to be a nation teeming with helpers. Very rural county types have the highest helping rates. In both the young, more diverse Native American Lands and the older homogenous Aging Farmlands, 93% of residents said they helped a relative, neighbor, or friend in their community in the past year, according to the recent American Communities Project/Ipsos Study.

Understanding Gun Violence and Views by Community

November 20, 2023

American Communities Project homes in on the geographic distribution of mass shootings and how this intersects with issue importance and gun culture in America. The Northeast, Upper Midwest, South, and Southwest were more adversely affected than other areas in 2023, based on Gun Violence Archives data. Our analysis shows that more diverse communities had a greater number of mass shootings and made up a greater percentage of the total. Crime or gun violence ranks as a top issue for urban-oriented as well as diverse communities, including the African American South, Big Cities, Urban Suburbs, and College Towns, according to the recent American Communities Project/Ipsos Study.

How Top Issues Compare to Cable News Viewership

November 9, 2023

One of the biggest findings in the American Communities Project opinion survey was the stark differences between the top local and national issues, particularly in some community types. Issues that were viewed as crucial in local terms, faded nationally, and issues that were not big locally ranked much higher as national concerns.

One possible driver of those differences is how and where people get their news. The ACP, working with Comscore, has a way of measuring that in each of the 15 community types. For this analysis we looked at the ratings in each of the 15 types for four news channels: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and Newsmax.

Where Local News Is Scarce — and Why It Matters

November 2, 2023

Two-thirds of America’s 3,142 counties do not have a daily newspaper, according to Northwestern University’s report “The State of Local News in 2022.” And an American Communities Project analysis of the data finds the most rural county types are the most lacking.

An absence of local news is tied to lower voter participation as well as increases in corruption, misinformation, polarization, and distrust in media, according to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism report. The American Communities Project/Ipsos survey released in October indeed found that media distrust is very high among residents across the 15 community types.

Culture

Can People Be Trusted? Americans Across Communities Share Their Thoughts

by Dante Chinni and Ari Pinkus June 26, 2024

But under those national figures were a lot of differences among the ACP’s 15 different types of communities, with some climbing to nearly 50% on trust and others sitting closer to 20%. The findings raise some questions about the attitudes, beliefs, hopes, and fears in the ACP’s county groupings.

To be clear, no community stood out for being exemplary on “trust” in the survey of more than 5,000 adults conducted by Ipsos and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Even in the community type with the highest percentage saying, “most people can be trusted,” the LDS Enclaves, a higher percentage said you “can’t be too careful.” But the “trusted” numbers in those communities, 47%, was 14 points higher than the national figure.

There may be a lot of reasons for the higher numbers in those communities. Their populations are largely homogenous — many even attend the same church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And many of those communities are fairly small in size, meaning people are used to running into the same people frequently. A resident may not encounter as many strangers as in other places. This community type also has the second largest percentage of minors, with 28% under 18 years old, compared with 22% under 18 in the nation at large. LDS Enclaves are also seeing a growing child population, according to the 2020 census. Young families tend to be more involved in the community for many reasons, including school events and youth sports.

That kind of close-knit community feel may also help explain why the “trust” number is higher in the Aging Farmlands. Those tend to very small rural communities where people know their friends and neighbors well.

A number that’s a little harder to explain is the low “trust” number in the Evangelical Hubs. Those tend to be fairly rural communities with lots of churchgoers. It is worth noting that those communities tended to be more concerned about their place in the nation, according to the same survey. Indeed, 60% in the Evangelical Hubs said they “feel like a stranger in my own country.”

Another surprise was the relatively strong “trust” number in the ACP’s Big City counties. The 39% saying “most people can be trusted” was six points higher than the national figure, even though those communities are very diverse and often have higher crime rates. It may be that a high-density environment that involves regularly interacting with different kinds of people builds trust.

It’s worth noting that the three ACP community types that stand out for their large BIPOC populations — the African American South, Hispanic Centers, and Native American Lands — scored below the national figure on “trust.” These communities, while diverse, often tend to be racially and ethnically divided and separated in day-to-day life.

Economics

How a Native American Land Community Is Dealing with Drought and Poisoned Creeks

by Jule Banville June 04, 2024

Zortman, a community in Phillips County, Montana. Photos by Jule Banville.

If you ask Juanita Crasco about the historic and unrelenting drought where she and her husband live and ranch on the Fort Belknap Reservation in northern Montana, she’ll talk about her apple tree.

“See here? I have a picture ready. You see how it’s just loaded with apples?” She took that photo on her iPad in 2021 and then drove roughly four hours to see her daughter in Browning, Montana, on the Blackfeet Reservation. When she returned two days later, all those apples were gone, decimated by grasshoppers. “They were so bad that year,” she says. “We lost a hundred percent of our hay crop. A hundred percent.”

Grasshoppers can’t control their body temperature and they need heat to thrive and reproduce. They like wide-open, hot fields and that’s what they got that year at the Crasco Ranch, which sits on the land Jake Crasco’s family was allotted by the federal government. Jake, 70, is enrolled Assiniboine-Nakoda and the third generation to ranch here. Juanita and Jake wanted to celebrate reaching 100 years on the original Crasco allotment, but that was the same year they lost their hay, “and we were too busy dealing with everything,” says Juanita, who’s Aaniih-Gros Ventre and grew up in Fort Belknap Agency on the northern end of the reservation. Her family also ranched, but eventually quit after years of costs far exceeding profit. In the last 20 years, the Crascos have had to reduce their cattle from a high of 1,000 to about 150. They attribute a lot of their decisions and their losses to a lack of water, but they’re not giving up, even in so-called retirement. “We’re still here. We’re not going anywhere,” Juanita says.

Juanita and Jake Crasco at their ranch between Zortman and Lodge Pole, Montana, on the Fort Belknap Reservation.

Fort Belknap is about 675,000 acres in Phillips and Blaine counties reserved for the Nakoda and Aaniih nations. Recent grant-funded imaging and analysis by scientists working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, focused environmental earth observation data on areas also struggling economically — including Fort Belknap. The hope was to explore the connection between environmental issues and the larger challenges facing communities of color. In Montana, the researchers found distinct areas of deforestation attributed to both fires and disease. They identified streams and creeks likely polluted by now-closed off-reservation gold mines that used cyanide leaching. They measured air quality degraded by wildfire smoke and mapped new roads in what had been wilderness. But among the most drastic findings was a loss of surface water. The data show nearly 60% of it dried up between 2017 and 2022.

Juanita Crasco took a look at that and said, “That seems low.” That's because drought and its effects have been part of what’s happening at Crasco Ranch for decades. Jake says the drought that started in 2000 “got worse and worse. But in 2002, that’s the first time I’ve seen this creek dry up since I was a little kid.”

The creek is close to their house and during the spring runoff of 2024, a season which also included a decent amount of rain in Montana, it was running again. Through a system Jake designed, water lines from that creek feed Juanita’s many pots, gardens, and even a greenhouse — a huge source of joy and pride for her. But in the pastures, the Crascos have learned the only way to stay in business is to rely on the water underground.

When the surface water previous generations counted on to water cows is no longer reliable, modern ranchers living in drought have to develop wells. That means paying others to find where and how to tap aquifers, and it also means getting in line — well-developers are in high-demand in Fort Belknap and its surrounds. The Crascos have had to develop wells on their own property, and also on their “summer grass” property 25 miles away where their cattle grazed during warmer months. On that land, leased to them by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Crascos applied for emergency funding to put in three wells in 2022. “It was either that, or lose our cows,” Juanita says.

They paid about $40,000 for the work on land they didn’t own and say they were told by an officer with the USDA they’d likely be paid back 90%. Afterward, a letter they keep in organized files in their house shows they were denied any reimbursement, citing missing environmental impact assessments they say they were not told were required. Because they could prove the new wells went in where old wells had been developed in the 1970s, the Crascos appealed the denial, finally winning at the state level on their third try, their documents show. But two years later, they’re still waiting for the money.

John Grande, president of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, doesn’t know the Crascos, but he knows the counties where they’re trying to make ranching work. “I heard that people in that neighborhood, that there were people who had grazing land with all kinds of grass, but there was no water and so people either had to drill wells or haul water up to these areas. And that becomes extremely expensive.” Grande grew up and ranches about three hours south of the Crascos, in Martinsdale, Montana.

Developing wells has become common as the ag world deals with drought, he says. The entire country’s cattle herd is at the lowest point since the 1950s. The best he can estimate in Montana is a 20% decline.

“Usually, when there is drought and cattle numbers are way down, the prices go up and what that should mean is cattle numbers should go up,” Grande says. “That’s not what is happening.”

That’s because people don’t have the resources to recover and increase their stock. “Ranchers need to heal up and pay for wells they drilled or hay they shipped in during the drought,” says Grande.

When drought covers a significant area — or when grasshoppers do — that also means buying hay from farther away. During recent years, Montana ranchers have tried to get hay from as far away as Kentucky, “and it may be cheap there, but by the time you truck it here, it is incredibly expensive,” Grande adds.

The Crascos don’t want to pour more money into acres they lease, so they made the decision last year to drastically reduce their herd. By keeping it to about 150 cows, they can keep them on their own land year-round and water them with current wells or ones they can develop without jumping through governmental hoops.

And they are getting older. Juanita has fibromyalgia. Jake essentially broke his back in an ATV accident in 2022, though you can’t tell from the way he is still doing everything that needs to be done, including firing up the generator that runs the pump on his newest well. In the winter, he has to still get out to this pump house and make sure the water will flow to stock tanks. And he still has to chip out the ice until he can afford new insulated tanks. That’s what he plans to buy if and when his reimbursement from the state arrives.

Standing in his driveway, he says, “I’ll take a hard winter any day. At least you know it’ll end. With the drought, you’re just never sure.”

Poisoned Waters

Other findings from the NASA-funded grant, “Environmental Injustice and Deaths of Despair: Lessons from Montana’s Tribal Lands,” focused on streams and creeks flowing into Fort Belknap, some identified as polluted by gold mines that closed more than 25 years ago.

The Zortman and Landusky mines just south of the reservation’s boundaries were open-pit operations that essentially lobbed off the tops of low mountains and used a cyanide leach-pad method to dissolve rock surrounding precious metals. The company operating the mines, Pegasus Gold, ran them for 19 years, but closed them when it declared bankruptcy in 1998. Since then, the state has operated four treatment plants to mitigate water damage directly connected to the two mines. Taxpayer funding for those plants is well above $50 million so far.

The land the mines dug into was part of 30,000 acres the tribes were forced to cede because of discovery of gold in the Little Rocky Mountains, says Mitchell Healy, a water quality specialist who has worked for and represented the tribes on a multi-agency group monitoring damage from the mines for more than a decade. Healy, who’s enrolled Assiniboine, says the treatment plants at the mine sites are working, but they can’t account for spring runoff and other “high flow events.”

When those happen, he says, “it means untreated acid mine drainage water is bypassing the treatment plant and flowing onto the reservation, leading to years of iron oxide staining of bedrock, aquatic life and fish disappearing, the loss of beavers. And all of that impacts our culture.”

Part of his job on the working group is to identify these issues and help state agencies find solutions. “It seems hopeless at times,” says Healy, especially when he’s trying to explain to tribal leadership and others who never condoned the work of these mines that current science, technology and funding aren’t up to the job of stopping the problems at their source.

Wayne Jepson, also part of that working group, has been working on the damage from the Zortman-Landusky mines for decades as a hydrogeologist for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. He started evaluating what was happening at the mines in 1992, when they were still operating. The water treatment plants he helped design will need to operate and undergo updates for many generations to come. And still, he says, “from day one, I told people this isn’t the final solution. More improvements to water treatment systems may be needed. Pretty much every spring, we’ll get a major snowmelt or rain event, and the water may still carry dissolved iron downstream.”

Healy, Jepson, and others in the group continue to come up with possible fixes, most of them grant-funded. One recently approved will treat the acidity levels of high-flow water, raising it to neutral and allowing dissolved metals to drop out as sediment. It’s worth a try, “but until this project is done and used, we don’t know if it will be successful,” says Healy.

The constant, says both Healy and Jepson, remains dealing with a long-ago decision to allow for this kind of extraction in Montana. “The main issue is open-pit mining — it’s mountain-top removal,” says Jepson. “You go from having a mountain to having a hole in the ground. The amount of rock removed and that’s now exposed is enormous.”

Reporting contributed by Lee Banville. Both Jule Banville and Lee Banville are professors of journalism at the University of Montana.

Native American Lands

Technology

Across American Communities, Very Different Broadband Realities Abound

by Dante Chinni and David Kovach May 15, 2024

There are many ways to think of infrastructure in the United States — for example, roads, power lines, and water systems — but in 2024, broadband connectivity is also a crucial element of a community’s foundation. Now, a new analysis shows how uneven that tech infrastructure can look in the American Communities Project’s 15 county types, with rural communities seeing deep challenges.

The biggest concern may be the speed at which communities are connected. In a world where home internet connections have become important for everything from work and education to news and entertainment, the ability to tap into multiple streams on multiple devices is fast becoming a necessity.

And the analysis, conducted by Alex Kent, an Analytical Lead on the Google Elections team in conjunction with the American Communities Project (ACP), shows some urban communities have median speeds three and four times faster than rural locales.

Broadband Penetration

For years, rural advocates have argued that official broadband penetration rates from the federal government are not wholly accurate. And to be fair, measuring broadband connectivity rates can be difficult because they can vary dramatically by location. The percentage of homes with access in one corner of a county can look very different from the figures elsewhere in the same locale.

Kent’s analysis of penetration figures using the ACP community types looked very similar to the official measurements from the Federal Communications Commission, but provides important nuanced insight. Looking at the median figures for each type, Kent found numbers that were slightly higher than the federal figures.

Overall, in 11 of the 15 ACP community types, the median access rate was above 80%. That’s far from complete coverage and some community types in particular face challenges (the Native American Lands is only at 70% access), but the figures look like a decent baseline.

Speed and The Lack Thereof

Kent’s numbers look very different, however, when one looks at the speed of those connections using the standard measure of megabits per second or mbps.

The most urban types in the ACP, the Big Cities and Urban Suburbs, see median mbps rates of around 120. But the numbers then drop fairly sharply. The Middle Suburbs and Exurbs, in and around metro areas, are close to 100.

But the figures for rural places are much lower. In the Native American Lands, the median mbps rate is only 24. In the Aging Farmlands, the figure is 27. In the African American South and Working Class Country, the median mbps is 30.

These differences are about more than the ability to stream your favorite movie in HD or 4K resolution. They can have real repercussions in how lives are lived and could even impact things like population growth.

Larger Impacts

Mbps sounds like abstraction until you put numbers around it. What kind of broadband speed does one need to live a usefully connected life in 2024? The answer, of course, is it depends, but Consumer Reports magazine built a tool for measuring “How Much Internet Speed Do You Need?” and it provides some broad outlines.

For instance, according to the Consumer Reports guide, a home with two devices browsing the Web and sending emails, one device on a Zoom call and one streaming video needs 26 mbps. Add a third device, streaming video, and it goes up to 36 mbps. That’s already more than the median speed in seven community types (Native American Lands, Aging Farmlands, African American South, LDS Enclaves, Working Class Country, Hispanic Centers, and Graying America) and at the very edge of the speed for an eighth (Evangelical Hubs).

Throw in a fourth device, streaming 4K video, and the needed speed jumps to 61 mbps.

Now consider that Comscore data shows there is an average of 12 devices per household in the US (January 2024). The devices range from tablets and PCs to phones and set top boxes.

Source: Comscore CTVi January 2024

These data points are about more than simple creature comforts. In a time when working from home, online classes and telehealth appointments are becoming more and more common, low broadband speeds can block paths to economic growth and better lives for citizens.

Consider, for example, how limitations on a reliable internet connection could impact the quality of, or even the ability to tune-in to, our daily news programming of choice? In 2023, the American Communities Project published “How Top Issues Compare to Cable News Viewership,” which discussed the noteworthy differences in the ways that audiences from various community types are consuming different news programming.

In that analysis, we used Comscore data, which captures direct viewing from an average of 1-in-3 homes nationwide, to derive insights about where those communities go for cable news.

Today we can take a more focused look at those relying on internet connectivity for their Connected TV (“CTV”) viewing, with new insights from Comscore suggesting overlaps between broadband-impaired communities and those most reliant on CTV for their news and other content viewing.

The Comscore Congressional District CTV Index surfaces the reach of traditional television and the index of people who view via a connected TV device to get a better understanding of viewership trends.

Consider the snapshot (below) from the reporting, which reflects CTV viewership by audiences in Nebraska’s most rural Congressional District, the Third, over-indexes significantly as compared to Nebraska’s more populated First and Second Congressional Districts.

Comscore, Congressional District CTV Index report, as of January 2024.

Particularly since the pandemic, there has been a lot of discussion about the ability people have to change their lives by moving to different places because they can “work from anywhere.” Part of that conversation was about a new chance for rural communities to add population with people looking to get away from the city life.

The data here show a missing part of that equation. Increasingly, the ability to live a full, modern life involves being connected with the world from wherever one is. These figures show that ability varies greatly depending on where one lives with some places being at a decided disadvantage.

Dante Chinni is Director and Founder of the American Communities Project. David Kovach is Head of Market Innovation at Comscore.

Economics

How Americans View Infrastructure in Their Community

by Ari Pinkus April 30, 2024

The horrific collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore this spring renewed the nation’s focus on its infrastructure, more than two years after the infrastructure and jobs act was made law and new projects get underway.

Last year, the American Communities Project and Ipsos asked 5,000 Americans their thoughts on the infrastructure in their own communities as part of a survey on the fragmentation of American society. Overall, 60% of Americans rated their community infrastructure as excellent or good. The survey outlined infrastructure broadly, including roads, bridges, water, sewer, and electrical systems. Drilling down by community type, the net excellent/good score ranged nearly 40 points. Ratings were highest in a variety of the nation’s affluent and middle-income communities and lowest in poorer communities of color.

Between 70% and 76% of residents in the affluent, multicultural Urban Suburbs and the rural, Western, Mormon LDS Enclaves rated their neighborhood infrastructure as excellent or good. In Rural Middle America, along the country’s upper tier, and Military Posts, the figures were closer to the average, at 67% and 66% respectively.

Excellent and good percentages were lowest in the Native American Lands at 37% and the African American South at 44%. Not far behind were low-income Working Class Country communities, concentrated in Appalachia, at 48%.

New Infrastructure Projects

Underinvestment has long been a challenge in these places, particularly in Native American communities. As the White House website noted, “For too long, the Federal government has underinvested in the estimated 145,000 miles of roads passing through Tribal lands. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law seeks to rectify these historical wrongs and rebuild our roads and bridges.”

Since the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was enacted in November 2021, 51,000-plus projects have been announced in all 50 states. More than $13.7 billion are going to tribal communities, including for roads, bridges, public transit, water, and sanitation.

Major projects and sums across communities include:

$25 million to build a bicycle and pedestrian bridge across the Rio Salado River, linking South Phoenix (Big City) to transportation, housing, education, and job opportunities
More than $75 million for new pipes and facilities for the Lewis & Clark Rural Water System serving South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota. (Rural Middle America, Aging Farmlands, and Native American Lands are the dominant county types here.)
$146 million to build drinking water infrastructure for rural north-central Montana. (County types covered include Native American Lands and Graying America.)
$150 million to replace the I-10 Calcasieu River Bridge in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana (Military Post)
$292 million to Amtrak for Hudson Yards Concrete Casing to support the new passenger rail tunnel under the Hudson River (Big City)
More than $1.6 billion in Cincinnati, Ohio (Urban Suburb) and Covington, Kentucky (Middle Suburb) to upgrade the Brent Spence Bridge and construct a new bridge to improve traffic along I-71/I-75, a vital freight route from Canada to Florida

In Poor Condition

Of all the concerns about community infrastructure — underfunding, too much strain, poor condition, not enough access or inconvenience, and environmental hazards — poor condition was the top concern cited among the 13 community types where this question was asked. Nationally, 34% of Americans said infrastructure was poorly maintained or in poor condition. Communities in the South and Midwest stood out for highlighting this problem: Evangelical Hubs at 41%, the African American South at 42%, Middle Suburbs at 44%, and Working Class Country at 44%. It’s worth noting that Middle Suburbs in the Rust Belt have been stagnating since the 2000s with unions and industry moving out.

Underfunding

Underfunding was the next highest problem: 26% of Americans reported this as a significant concern. At the community level, the African American South, Evangelical Hubs, and Working Class Country popped noticeably higher at 32% and 34%, echoing the ratings above. Underfunding was much less of an issue in the middle-income LDS Enclaves at 18% and the upper-middle-income Exurbs at 20%. Both areas are growing with young families, according to the 2020 Census.

Too Much Strain

Eighteen percent of Americans said too much demand or strain (heavy traffic, not enough trains/buses, too many users, etc.) was a significant concern. At 26%, the LDS Enclaves stood out for having too much strain on community infrastructure. Perhaps not surprising, the dense Big Cities came in six points above the national average. Graying America was also above the national average, as people have relocated to these more rural areas in recent years. Last fall, our writer laid out this challenge unfolding at the Georgia-North Carolina border.

Not Enough Access

Not having enough access or being inconveniently located to infrastructure rated very low as a concern, never hitting 10% among Americans. The issue reached 9% in the stratified Big Cities. A mix of communities known for a range of incomes, education levels, races, and geographies — the African American South, Urban Suburbs, Exurbs, Evangelical Hubs, and Military Posts — posted an 8% figure.

Environmental Hazards

Environmental hazards or danger to public health was also not considered a significant problem to Americans, coming in at just 6% nationally. This concern was highest in the dense and stratified Big Cities at 10%. It stood at 8% in other more diverse suburbs and lower-income rural communities: the Urban Suburbs, African American South, and Evangelical Hubs. Most community types sat at 5% or below.

None of the Above

Forty percent of Americans reported none of these issues was a concern. In the LDS Enclaves, nearly half of residents, 49%, said none of these issues and in Rural Middle America, 47% said so.

What Are Shared Values in Community?

by Dante Chinni April 24, 2024

As the nation navigates another tense election year, polls suggest the biggest issues before voters center on culture. Questions around abortion, immigration, and even trade really focus on what kind of nation voters want to live in — what do they value?

The American Communities Project delved into this question in its 2023 fragmentation survey with Ipsos, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Respondents were asked whether a variety of institutions shared their values.

That’s a problematic finding in any survey. It suggests a lot of distrust. But considering the stark differences in the Project’s types (from small-town Rural Middle America to the dense Big Cities), it’s a surprising finding as well.

The same survey showed those 15 community types had markedly different opinions on issues such as guns, families, and faith — dissimilarities that clearly indicate different values. Yet, when people in those same communities looked at the nation’s big powerful institutions, the level of disapproval was surprisingly uniform.

What’s going on in the data? What we’re seeing may be akin to the uniform responses on the question of whether the nation is headed in right direction or off on the wrong track. That is, when people are asked about these big, complicated institutions, they focus on the things they do not like about them and disapprove of their values. (For instance, “federal government” may be heard as “Republicans” by some respondents and as “Democrats” by others.)

Regardless, the numbers are remarkable.

For all the groups and institutions below, the essential question was, “Do you think that the people who lead the following institutions or groups mostly share your values and views, or do they mostly have different values and views from you?”

The Entertainment Industry

Hollywood and the larger entertainment industry has long been a source of political controversy. Artists and filmmakers can sometimes push boundaries and lawmakers often push back. We saw a fight like this last year in Florida between Disney and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who accused the company of being too “woke.”

But the entertainment and movie industries don’t have huge support in the poll. In every one of the Project’s 15 community types, the number of people saying those industries “mostly have different values” far outweighs the number saying the industries “mostly share your values.”

The most urban and left-leaning types, the Big Cities and Urban Suburbs, are the most likely to see shared values, but the number for each is still below 30%. In nine of the 15 types, 50% or more say the entertainment and music industries mostly have different values.

The News Media

At this point, the news media are a well-known target of derision across the United States. Even as people increasingly burrow in with sources they trust, those same people tend to be critical of news outlets they feel represent “the other side.” Think of the partisan viewing differences between, say, Fox News and MSNBC.

Those attitudes certainly feel like the animus behind the “shared values” figures here.

Only one community type, the Big Cities, is above 20% on the idea of “mostly share your values.” And every community type is 50% or higher on “mostly have different values.”

The Federal Government

The shorthand for understanding the nation’s two big political parties is often described this way: One party favors using government power and policy, and one tries to limit the use of government. But again, on the question of shared values, it’s hard to find a lot of support for the federal government.

The Big Cities, which tend to vote heavily Democratic, are the most likely to have voters who say the federal government mostly shares their values, at 20%, but that’s a pretty low number. And 55% in Big Cities say the federal government mostly has different values. In 14 of the 15 types, 60% or more of respondents hold that view.

Big Business

What about the other side of the great American political divide — big business? The numbers are no better.

For decades, much of the rhetoric around American politics focused on business and taxes. The private sector has often been hailed as the source of “job creators” and, of course, as the economic engine of the nation. People on the political right, in particular, have been seen as allies of big business. Yet, the “shared values” numbers across the board in the ACP community types are quite low on big business.

The highest “shared values” number in any type is just 13% and that number shows up in the Big Cities and Urban Suburbs, communities that tend to vote Democratic, but also urban communities that tend to be the home of big businesses and their workers. It’s also worth noting that some of the most solidly Republican voting community types, the Evangelical Hubs and Working Class Country, have some of the highest numbers for “mostly have different values” when it comes to big business: 70% or higher.

Bright Spots?

That’s a lot of dour feelings across many kinds of places. Is there any institution or group with whom people feel they share values? Yes, across the 15 community types, people say they feel a sense of shared values with small or local business. (Note, the survey only asked this question in 13 of the 15 types because of time limitations.)

The responses on small and local business are the mirror image of the others. At least 50% in every community type say those business mostly share their values. While fewer than 20% say small or local businesses mostly have different values.

Again, that’s a pretty impressive amount of agreement, and it likely seems to be driven by one factor, proximity.

Most of the groups or institutions on the 2023 survey are big, faceless entities. What is the “entertainment industry” or “big business”? Those phrases can lead people to think about a lot of people, places, and things, many entities people may not support.

When respondents hear the phrase “local business” they may have a certain business or business owner in mind — people they know and with whom they have spent some time.

And that really gets to the heart of what the Project is measuring on this question and others. Ultimately, the ACP is exploring the realities people live in and how it can be hard to see outside our own bubbles, realities we have reinforced with choices about where we live and what media we consume.

“Local businesses” are entities that live within our respective bubbles, so shared values are easier to find. Outside our bubbles, trust is harder. And in a nation of 330 million people, that can be a problem. Personal and community bubbles can feel comfortable and safe, but they are not all-encompassing.

Violent Crime by a Stranger

Violent Crime by Someone Known

Property Crime Incidences Higher

Police Brutality and Law Enforcement Abuse

Where Crime Is a Top Local Issue

On Americans’ Hopes, Fears, Perceptions, and Lived Experiences

Comedy Scenes in a Fragmented America

Deaths of Despair Across America

Voting and Elections

The State of the Economy

Immigration

Crime

Dour Days

On Americans’ Hopes, Fears, Perceptions, and Lived Experiences

Comedy Scenes in a Fragmented America

Deaths of Despair Across America

Four Key Takeaways

Poll Methodology

(Click type names to see more on each.)

Hopeful for Personal Future, Not as Hopeful for the Nation

Reasons for Optimism

Reasons for Pessimism

Close Connections and Social Circles

Where the Nation Is Going

2024’s Big Issues in the ACP

Conclusion and Next Steps

On Americans’ Hopes, Fears, Perceptions, and Lived Experiences

Comedy Scenes in a Fragmented America

Deaths of Despair Across America

America

American Dream

Community

Conservative

Culture

Democracy

Diversity

Family

First Amendment

Freedom

Gender Identity

Government

Inequality

Justice

Liberal

Minority

News Media

Personal responsibility

Public health

Race

Religion

Second Amendment

Social Media

Well-being

Work

On Americans’ Hopes, Fears, Perceptions, and Lived Experiences

Comedy Scenes in a Fragmented America

Deaths of Despair Across America

Community Pieces Based on ACP/Ipsos Survey

Data-Driven Articles Based on ACP/Ipsos Survey

On Americans’ Hopes, Fears, Perceptions, and Lived Experiences

Comedy Scenes in a Fragmented America

Deaths of Despair Across America

On Americans’ Hopes, Fears, Perceptions, and Lived Experiences

Comedy Scenes in a Fragmented America

Deaths of Despair Across America

Poisoned Waters

Unemployment Climbs in August With Surprising Communities Leading the Way

The Struggles Farming Counties Are Facing Now

Deaths of Despair Across America

Broadband Penetration

Speed and The Lack Thereof

Larger Impacts

Probing Americans’ Complicated Relationship with Technology and Privacy

Breaking Barriers to Connectivity in a Michigan College Town

Deaths of Despair Across America

New Infrastructure Projects

In Poor Condition

Underfunding

Too Much Strain

Not Enough Access