On Americans’ Hopes, Fears, Perceptions, and Lived Experiences
In the second year of the American Communities Project’s study of fragmentation in society, we focused on understanding Americans’ hopes and fears, and found that some communities, including Military Posts, Working Class Country, LDS Enclaves, Rural Middle America, Aging Farmlands, and College Towns, expressed less hope about the country’s future than the nation as a whole. We talked to many residents on the ground to learn more, as seen in the pieces below.
In our survey and field work this past year, we also probed Americans’ lived experiences — from their connections with family and friends, to what contributes to a good life, to crime happening to them and their networks, to why they choose to move, to the media they consume. Responses show that personal, proximate experiences shape people’s views of the important issues in their communities. Furthermore, we asked Americans nine knowledge questions on voting, immigration, crime, and economic issues nationwide, and found that community types of all education and income levels have difficulty discerning facts from falsehoods today.
Below are snippets and links to our full pieces from year two. Peruse the full survey results here.
PDF of the full survey results from August 2024.
Understanding America in 2024: Hopes, Fears, and the Connections That Shape Community Perceptions
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.
Read more
COMMUNITY PIECES BASED ON SECOND ACP/IPSOS SURVEY
Comedy Scenes in a Fragmented America
June 24, 2025
A sense of fragmented reality has churned up intense emotions in public and private spaces across America. In this heated climate, where it seems hard to find humor, who’s going out to see comedy in their community? How are comedians performing in different places?
At the American Communities Project, we sought to understand what live comedy feels and sounds like in America, how comedians are tackling hot-button cultural issues on stage, and how various audiences are responding to their acts.
In our quest, writers around the country chronicled their experiences at comedy shows within or near their home counties, from the west to east coasts.
Read more
In Key Michigan College Town, Student Spill Feelings About Future of America
June 2, 2025
Read more
Texas Hispanic Centers on the Border of Change
May 13, 2025
In the matrix used by the American Communities Project to define the nation’s counties, the jurisdictions hugging the Rio Grande are almost all “Hispanic Centers,” places where self-identified Latinos make up the largest share of the population, on average 53%. In the case of Starr and Hidalgo counties, the share is above 90%, making these some of the most uniformly Latino counties in the country. In the 2020 census, rural Starr stood at 97%, more urban Hidalgo at 91.9%.
There’s a bustling border crossing in Starr County’s seat, Rio Grande City. You could easily walk to the border from the domed government building in Rio Grande (pop. 15,317). The city manager, Gilbert Millan, told me Rio Grande City has worked hard to attract retail outlets that appeal to shoppers on both sides of the border, and it shows on his balance sheets. “We have had a historic tax collection year. Last year, we did over a half a million. This year, we’re close to 800,000. I’m sure you saw on the way in…we didn’t have Starbucks, or Chick-Fil-A three years ago. We are just booming!”
Read more
In Virginia Beach Military Post, Probing Residents’ Hopes and Fears
May 6, 2025
DATA-DRIVEN ARTICLES BASED ON SECOND ACP/IPSOS SURVEY
Americans’ Double Vision on Immigration: Through Local and National Lenses
June 12, 2025
As the American Communities Project has explored divisions in the nation these last few years, immigration has stood out as an especially complex issue. People see it differently depending upon whether it is framed as local issue or a national one.
As a local issue, immigration is just one of many problems their communities face, and it ranks below several other concerns. But as a national issue, immigration is a serious threat to the nation that needs to be addressed. Furthermore, survey data show that people in every community type see the issue as a much bigger problem for the nation than they do for their communities.
Read more
How President Trump’s 100-Day Actions Diverge from Public Concern on Inflation
April 29, 2025
The recent raft of polls focusing on President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office do not paint a sunny picture for the White House. Trump’s job approval numbers seem largely locked in the low 40s in the major media polls — from 44% in the Fox News poll to 39% in The Washington Post survey — with good-sized drops since his inauguration.
When voters went to the polls last November, they had a complicated set of concerns, but the data suggested the electorate was primarily driven by economic concerns. AP VoteCast found that 39% of Americans said the economy was their top issue in 2024, while 20% said immigration. Abortion was a distant third at 11%.
Digging deeper, a 2024 survey from the American Communities Project found that one issue was driving those economic concerns across all community types: inflation. And as the White House wades deeper into a tariff war with China, that point should not be lost.
Read more
How Men and Women Divide on Hope for the Future of the United States
March 5, 2024
To better understand how men and women see the United States more broadly, the American Communities Project analyzed male and female responses around hope for the future of the country in all 15 community types from our 2024 survey with Ipsos.
Two clear points jump out of the data.
- First, on the whole, women seem to have a less hopeful view than men about the direction of the nation, both short- and long-term. That shows up in most of the community types and very different kinds of places, from the Aging Farmlands to the College Towns.
- Second, the gender divides look very different in the community types. In some places, men and women seem to be largely in agreement about the near-term and long-term hopes for the country. In others, there were wide differences, and there are some where men are more dour.
Read more
How Americans Consume News and Bright Spots in the Local Landscape
February 11, 2025
As the local news landscape continues to shrink, a large swath of Americans say they absorb community news through the ether and their daily chatter, from going about their day to scrolling on social media to connecting with family and friends. At the same time, a large part of the population says they avoid the news, according to the latest American Communities Project/Ipsos survey of some 5,000 Americans, conducted last summer.
As if to underscore these points, our survey found that 40% of Americans spent zero hours or almost no hours reading online news sites in a day, on average. Another 39% said they spent one hour a day on online news sites. Overall, 21% read such sites for more than one hour in an average day.
Read more
Where Home Insurance Is Not Getting Renewed and Why Americans Want to Move
January 22, 2025
Where people live and how they live are big parts of the American Communities Project’s work. And as the ACP studies the country’s fragmentation culturally, politically, and economically, our 2024 survey asked: “Would you like to move to a new community, city, or town (inside or outside of your current state)?”
Overall, 39% said yes, and 61% said no. The desire to move was highest in the African American South at 45% (where the nonrenewal rate was higher), Working Class Country at 42%, Big Cities at 41%, Hispanic Centers at 40% (also with a higher nonrenewal rate), College Towns at 40%, and Military Posts at 40%.
Read more
Americans’ Feelings and Behaviors Highlight Connection and Its Limits
November 26, 2024
Amid America’s political frictions and loneliness epidemic, our recent ACP/Ipsos survey revealed a bright spot in Americans’ social lives: Across communities, people reported feeling connected to family or friends most days.
The American Communities Project and Ipsos asked 5,312 residents across the ACP’s 15 types how many days in the past week they felt connected to family or friends and how often they felt lonely. Overall, Americans said they felt connected to family or friends five out of seven days a week and felt lonely 1.2 days a week.
Feeling connected to family or friends was relatively uniform among the community types, but two very sparsely populated communities separated themselves from the pack.
Read more
Keys to a Good Life for Americans: Relationships, Local Commerce, and Civil Society
November 20, 2024
What impacts the ability to live a good life? It’s a question long pondered — and answered — through one’s lived experiences. The American Communities Project and Ipsos asked this question to nearly 5,000 Americans recently to understand where the public stands today. Our findings underscore the significance of personal and local connections as well as a belief in commerce and civil society over government. Drs. Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz chronicled the centrality of relationships in their 2023 best-selling book The Good Life.
In our survey, local enterprises as well as civic, volunteer, or charitable groups emerged in the strongest positions nationally, perhaps because these are well integrated into Americans’ day-to-day, warm interactions with friends, neighbors, colleagues, and community members.
Read more
How Crime Affects Americans Across Communities
November 8, 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.
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.
Read more
Americans Across Communities Struggle to Discern Facts on Voting, Crime, Immigration, and Economic Issues
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.