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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
$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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. This signals Americans largely continue to believe the American Dream of working hard to get ahead operates today.
Hard Work and Grit
But geographical variations are evident, and the divide between the most urban and the most rural communities is glaring. In the most sparsely populated areas — Aging Farmlands and Native American Lands — nearly 80% said hard work and grit was the No. 1 contributor to success. Other rural areas, including Rural Middle America and Evangelical Hubs, 73% shared this view. In Big Cities, 59% said hard work was No. 1, and in Urban Suburbs and College Towns, 63% said so. In Urban Suburbs, multicultural, affluent communities teeming with young professionals, many have expressed that working hard is not enough to get ahead. In College Towns, many are weighed down by student loans and employment challenges after graduation.
Support from Society and Institutions
On the flip side, 16% of College Town residents said support from society and institutions was the No. 1 contributor to success — the most of all the county types. This may be because they experience institutional support daily. Diversified, stratified Big Cities were close behind at 15%. In the rural African American South, where the median Black population is 43%, 14% of residents felt society and institutional support was the No. 1 contributor to success. Compare that to rural Aging Farmlands and Evangelical Hubs, where 4% and 6% of residents said support from society and institutions was No. 1.
What may seem most unusual is the small percentage of Military Post residents, 6%, who said that support from society and institutions was the No. 1 factor for success, considering that many residents are employees of a prominent governmental institution, some for many years. However, the military has been beleaguered by two decades of war, and the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have been under scrutiny at various points for not attending to the social and health challenges military personnel face.
Help from Others
Help from others as the No. 1 contributor to success was lower across the board, at 8%, but notably popped higher in Working Class Country at 14%. These less-diverse communities concentrated in Appalachia are known for a close-knit, helping culture. Native American Lands are also known for their helpful habits in community, but just 4% of residents here said help from others was the No. 1 contributor to success, the lowest of the 15 community types. These communities have long been underserved and riven with health, socioeconomic, and educational inequities over generations.
Lucky Breaks or Circumstances
Ten percent of Americans said lucky breaks or circumstances was the No. 1 contributor to success. Military Posts were highest at 14%, followed closely by Urban Suburbs and Big Cities at 13% each. Notably all three are known for their particularly diverse populations among American communities. At the other end of the spectrum, just 5% of residents in Native American Lands said lucky breaks or circumstances was No. 1.
The freedom to move and find a better life has long been a core tenet of the promise of the United States, a key component in the ability to remake oneself and find success.
Yet, 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.
The findings come from the ACP’s massive 2023 survey of 5,000 adults spread across all the project’s 15 community types. The work, conducted by Ipsos with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, sheds light on the nature of communities and tribalism in the United States as the 2024 election approaches.
Who Doesn’t Want to Move
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?”
First, for the most part, they are not hot spots for real estate. They are generally not growing very fast. The exception here are the LDS Enclaves, which are seeing population increases, but in part because of high birth rates. Some types are struggling economically. The median household income in each of them is below the national figure by $6,000 or more. (You can explore these data and other sets in the ACP’s Data Clearinghouse.)
Second, those six community types are among the most supportive of former President Donald Trump. He won all of them with at least 58% of the vote in 2020.
As the nation has grown more politically and culturally divided, much of the national conversation has turned to questions of tribalism. Indeed, those divisions are at the heart of the ACP’s work as we study American fragmentation. The numbers here suggest that most people in these community types are not looking to move out to wealthier, more urban environs. They like where they live and, one presumes, their communities’ cultures and views.
That set of types is more complicated. The African American South counties tend to be marked by fairly stark racial divides and lower incomes. The Big Cities are densely populated, diverse, and known for deep socioeconomic divides. The Urban Suburbs and Exurbs, on the other hand, tend to be affluent and well-educated.
The desire to move in these different communities (and the desire is still not especially intense) may be the result of different factors. In some places, such as the African American South, it may come from a craving for a better life or set of circumstances. In others, such as the Exurbs and Urban Suburbs, it may result from greater comfort with the idea of moving in general. Many of those communities are full of transplants. And in the case of the Big Cities, which are a mix of rich and poor, it may be some of both.
Regardless of the reason, however, people in those communities seem to have weaker ties to the place they live, as evidenced by their populations’ desire to move. But, on the whole, regardless of the kind of place they live, people do not express a compelling need to find a new home.
The Big Sort
In 2008, journalist Bill Bishop wrote The Big Sort, a book that explored the idea of how the nation overall was becoming more diverse than it ever had been, but at the local level we were increasingly living around like-minded souls. The ACP has found similar trends in its work.
One big question in those findings was what was driving the sorting. Was it driven by groups of people who had the ability to move, while others could not?
These data suggest the forces driving the shifts are not that simple. They indicate we are living near people who see the world the way we do — something we saw evidence for in the main release of this survey data — and, for the most part, we like the places we have chosen to live. People haven’t been left behind; they like their friends and neighbors. For the most part, they like the bubbles in which they live.
That suggests that getting beyond them and finding compromise may be a serious challenge.
From pandemic woes to social challenges to culture clashes to educator shortages, public schools have been working under extreme stress these past four years. This is showing up in the way Americans perceive their neighborhood public-school system, according to the American Communities Project/Ipsos 2023 Survey. More than a third of Americans gave their public schools a fair or poor rating. 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.
Parsing Grim Perspectives in Rural Communities
Nationally, 25% of Americans gave their public-school system the rating “only fair,” and 10% rated it “poor.” On the positive end, 14% of Americans said their system was “excellent” and 44% said it was “good,” according to the survey.
Chronically underinvested communities of color in the rural Plains, South, Southwest, and Alaska — the Native American Lands and the African American South — were the most dissatisfied with their public-school system: Just 42% of Native American Lands said it was excellent or good; 43% of African American South communities said the same.
At the same time, both community types had the largest shares of residents who said their neighborhood public-school systems were poor. In the young Native American Lands, 22% called their school system poor. In the African American South, 17% said so. Working Class Country, mostly white, low-income communities concentrated in Appalachia, was close behind, with 16% of residents rating their public-school system as poor.
Comparatively, in Hispanic Centers, filled with residents under 18 and often in underserved rural areas, 51% said their system was excellent or good, while 29% said it was only fair and 13% said it was poor.
Top Concerns About School System: Funding and Staffing
As cultural clashes in public schools routinely grabbed the news headlines, Americans across communities were most worried about underfunding or underinvestment of their public-school system. Overall, 37% of Americans cited this as a significant concern, according to the American Communities Project/Ipsos 2023 Survey.
Several community types of diverse geographies and demographics reached above the average. In the African American South, 42% of residents were concerned their public schools are underfunded. LDS Enclaves, middle-income, young, Mormon strongholds in the interior West, came in the highest at 46%. Utah has four of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S., and 28 of the 29 counties in Utah are classified as LDS Enclaves. Economically stratified Big Cities and lower-income Working Class Country were tied at 41%. Middle Suburbs, often stagnating communities around Rust Belt cities, as well as more transient College Towns and Military Posts came in at 38%.
In the related question of whether there’s too much demand or strain (not available when you need it, staff/worker shortages, etc.), 27% of Americans said this was a significant concern. Again, some community types surpassed this average. Highest were the LDS Enclaves at 38%; Military Posts, with many government employees and transient residents, and diverse Big Cities were tied at 31%.
Inexperience or insufficient training, which has drawn more attention in the churning, post-pandemic environment, was a significant concern among residents in the Evangelical Hubs at 25% and the African American South at 24%. These areas in the South and Midwest are also known for lower educator salaries and poor infrastructure. The national average stood at 18%. Most community types hovered around the average. The exception was Rural Middle America, middle-income, homogeneous communities across the country’s upper tier, where 10% of residents said inexperience was a significant concern.
Not Significant Concerns: Racial and Gender Discrimination
Notwithstanding the national media's focus on racial and gender bias or discrimination in public schools, just 10% of Americans said racial bias or discrimination in their neighborhood public schools was a significant concern. In the African American South and Big Cities, home to larger populations of Black residents, 16% and 14% residents held this view. Gender bias or discrimination was less of a concern, with 7% of Americans citing the issue as significant. In the affluent Exurbs and lower-income Evangelical Hubs, two less racially diverse community types where there have been some intense cultural battles, 9% of residents said gender bias or discrimination was a significant concern.
It’s also worth noting that 39% of Americans said none of the issues above — underfunding, strain, inexperience, racial discrimination, or gender discrimination — was a significant concern in their neighborhood public-school system. For a mix of suburban and rural communities — the Urban Suburbs, Rural Middle America, and Exurbs — at least 44% of residents held this view.
As 2024 approaches, the U.S. economy has become a complicated story with one dominant plotline: inflation. But a closer look at data from the recent American Communities Project/Ipsos Survey suggests a more generalized anxiety around prices than a serious hardship, at least for now.
Through several key metrics — GDP growth, unemployment, the Dow Jones Industrial Average — the current state of the economy looks solid to very good, but 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 recent survey of 5,000 Americans across all 15 types.
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.
Serious Financial Problems
On the broadest measure of economic pain: “In the last year, have you experienced serious financial problems caused by recent price increases?”, the numbers indicate some challenges, particularly in some communities. But the figure lags far behind the feelings about inflation as a community concern.
There’s a range to those numbers, but it’s not massive. On one end, 23% in the African American South say they have experienced “serious financial problems.” On the other end, 37% say the same in Working Class Country.
To be clear, anyone experiencing serious problems due to inflation is noteworthy. It helps explain some of the nation’s economic angst. And the 37% figure shows real challenges in Working Class Country communities. On average, those communities have higher unemployment rates and lower incomes than most communities.
At first blush, the “serious problem” numbers don’t seem to align with larger concerns about inflation. The “serious problem” figures in both the African American South and Working Class Country are 20 percentage points below the “most important issue” numbers in those communities. But the differences between those figures may show the difference between what people are personally experiencing (serious pain) and what people see around them (top community issue).
In other words, if 37% of people in a community have experienced serious problems with rising costs over the last year, it may make sense that 58% of the people in that community see inflation as the biggest issue of concern.
What’s Causing the Pain?
A mix of issues is behind the serious problems those communities are experiencing, according to the survey.
If there is one relative bright spot in the data, it may be that rising costs have not impacted housing as much as other aspects of living. Having a hard time making ends meet is never a good thing, but when it affects whether you have a roof over your head, the problems can shatter a household or a community.
Nationally, only 13% of Americans said rising costs led to serious problems paying their rent or mortgage. One might argue than any number is too high, but that’s still 14 points lower than the overall national serious problem figure. And while the number is still highest in Working Class Country, at 21%, the figure is still 16 points lower than the overall serious problem number of 37%.
People in most communities said being able to buy food and gas and other household needs was more of a challenge, however.
Nationally, 22% of those surveyed said they had “serious problems” buying those needs. On this particular question, the Evangelical Hubs stood out with 31% saying they had a hard time affording those necessities. Working Class Country was close behind at 27%.
The largely prosperous Exurbs were the lowest on this question, with only 17% saying they had serious problems. That might be something of a surprise considering how there is generally more driving in those far-flung suburban locales. But the Exurbs tend to have more residents with college degrees and perhaps more employees who can “work from home” in the post-pandemic world.
Credit card bills and loans are another big source of inflation pain in the ACP types.
Nationally, 21% those surveyed said those types of bills were sources of serious financial problems. Working Class Country again stood out on the high-end respondents, with 30% saying they experienced serious problems paying those bills.
On the low end were the College Towns, Graying America, and Middle Suburbs, all with 18% saying they had serious problems with those bills. College Town residents may not yet be paying back student loans they took out. Residents of Graying America may be past the most acquisitive times in their lives. And Middle Suburb communities tend to be more truly middle-class and less free-spending than other places.
A Political Meaning?
As in any survey, there is also the question of respondent bias. Increasingly, polls show that people’s views on the economy are tied to their political views. Democrats tend to hold a bleaker view of the economy when there is a Republican in the White House and vice versa. There may be some of that in these data.
On most of these questions, Working Class Country and the Evangelical Hubs say they are feeling the most pain, and those communities tend to vote heavily Republican. That’s not to say people in those communities are experiencing serious financial problems related to inflation. But the fact that they are consistently high on every issue is noteworthy.
For instance, it’s interesting that respondents in Working Class Country say they have experienced more serious financial problems around housing than respondents in Big Cities, urban places notorious for high rents and real estate prices.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping,’” Fred Rogers once told his “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” audience.
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.
This helping question was asked slightly differently for the other county types. Among the 13 remaining types, 73% of Americans helped a relative, friend, or neighbor in their community with a small task in the past year, and 48% helped with a large task in the same period.
In the LDS Enclaves, Mormon strongholds in Utah and Idaho, 66% said they helped with a large task, with 28% saying they did so in the past month. In another strongly religiously affiliated county type, Evangelical Hubs, composed of 375 counties in the South and Midwest with large numbers of Evangelical Christians, 52% said they helped a relative, friend, or neighbor in their community with a large task, with about 30% saying they did so in the past month. It was the same in Rural Middle America and Graying America, rural, older, middle-income, and less diverse county types.
A clear majority helped members of their community with smaller tasks. More than 60% of residents in every single community type said they helped a relative, friend, or neighbor with a small task in the past year. In Big Cities and Urban Suburbs, where people of many different backgrounds interact daily, 65% and 69% of residents said they helped with a small task. In the Big Cities, 35% helped in the past month, and in Urban Suburbs, 42% helped in the same period.
Other less diverse suburbs had higher percentages of small helpers. For the middle-income Middle Suburbs, it was 77%, with 42% helping in the past month. For more affluent Exurbs, it was 71%, with 41% helping in the past month. In College Towns, full of transient residents of varying ages, 76% said they helped a relative, friend, or neighbor with a small task, and 42% of them said they helped in the past month.
Volunteering
Nationwide, about 50% of Americans said they volunteered for a church/religious center or a non-religious charity in the past year, according to the recent American Communities Project/Ipsos Study.
Outpacing the national average were very rural county types concentrated in the Plains, the Southwest, and Alaska. In lower-income Native American Lands, 62% said they volunteered for a church, religious center, or non-religious charity activity. In middle-income Aging Farmlands, 59% said the same.
For the 13 remaining county types, the survey measured church and non-church volunteering separately. Volunteering for religious entities was highest in rural types of various geographies, races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. In the LDS Enclaves, where church missionary work is woven into daily life, 44% said they volunteered at church or a religious center, with 28% reporting they did so in the past month. In the lower-income African American South, where churches are pillars and church-going is central, 30% said they volunteered at church or a religious center, 20% in the past month. It’s a similar pattern in the middle-income communities of Rural Middle America across the country’s upper tier: 29% of residents said they volunteered at church or a religious center, with 14% doing so in the past month.
In non-church charity activities, the LDS Enclaves still came out on top. Here, 31% of residents said they volunteered for non-church charities in the past year. Just behind these Mormon-heavy communities were the Middle Suburbs in the industrial Midwest at 29%, and 10% of Middle Suburbanites volunteered in the past month. Volunteering at non-church charities, the multicultural, affluent Urban Suburbs came in tied with older, more homogeneous Rural Middle America at 28%.
Donating
Overall, more than 50% of Americans said they donated to a church or charitable organization in the past year. Percentages were highest in the most rural county types: Aging Farmlands at 79% and Native American Lands at 75%, according to the American Communities Project/Ipsos Survey. These county types have different socioeconomic conditions. For example, in the Aging Farmlands, the median household income is $56,623. In the Native American Lands, it’s $47,266. The national average is $69,717. Child poverty stands at 16% in the Aging Farmlands and 30% in the Native American Lands.
Several notches above the national average were LDS Enclaves and Rural Middle America, with 60% saying they donated in the past year. In the LDS Enclaves, where the median household income is $63,576 and contributing can be part of church expectations, 38% of residents donated in the past month. In Rural Middle America, 35% did. In these 628 counties, the median household income is $61,285.
A variety of county types were situated in the mid-50 percent range, showing how donating is part of the American experience, irrespective of geography, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic circumstance.
In lower-income Evangelical Hubs, where the median household income is $47,083, a formidable 57% donated in the past year, with 36% of residents contributing in the past month.
Middle-income Graying America, too, clocked in at 57% in the past 12 months.
In the Middle Suburbs and College Towns, 56% of residents donated to a church or charitable organization in the past year.
In the African American South, where the median household income is $42,212, 54% of residents said they donated in the past year. It was the same percentage in the Exurbs, where the median household income is almost double at $80,286.
