历史的积淀.doc

生活费 第一周第二周第三周第四周合计 3 月2102102104001030 4 月2102102104001030 5 月2102102104001030 6 月210140140300790 7 月210210210300930 合计105098098018004810 A revolutionary new way to understand America s complex cultural and political landscape with proof that local communities have a major impact on the nation s behavior in the voting booth and beyond In a climate of culture wars and tremendous economic uncertainty the media have often reduced America to a simplistic schism between red states and blue states In response to that oversimplification journalist Dante Chinni teamed up with political geographer James Gimpel to launch the Patchwork Nation project using on the ground reporting and statistical analysis to get past generalizations and probe American communities in depth The result is Our Patchwork Nation a refreshing sometimes startling look at how America s diversities often defy conventional wisdom Looking at the data they recognized that the country breaks into twelve distinct types of communities and old categories like soccer mom and working class don t matter as much as we think Instead by examining Boom Towns Evangelical Epicenters Military Bastions Service Worker Centers Campus and Careers Immigration Nation Minority Central Tractor Community Mormon Outposts Emptying Nests Industrial Metropolises and Monied Burbs the authors demonstrate the subtle distinctions in how Americans vote invest shop and otherwise behave reflect what they experience on their local streets and in their daily lives Our Patchwork Nation is a brilliant new way to debate and examine the issues that matter most to our communities and to our nation Dante Chinni and his co author James Gimpel do not like the red states blue states map that pops up every four years during a presidential election They ask How can a nation of 300 million people be reduced to a binary so crude that it doesn t even account for all three primary colors In Our Patchwork Nation The Surprising Truth About the Real America Chinni a longtime journalist and Gimpel a professor of government at the University of Maryland set out to chart a map of America that more accurately represents its sprawling complexities Chinni talked to TIME about the communities he discovered the grim times that await many and what it all means for the country s future What is misleading about dividing America into red states and blue states It s not that I think red states and blue states completely miss the mark I mean obviously we have two parties in this country and that s the way we keep score and keeping score is not an unimportant thing But it does a disservice in that California s Orange County is a very Republican county and so is Sioux County in Iowa and so is Christian County in Missouri but those places have very little in common when you get right down to it except for the fact that they vote Republican They are all red America but the people who live in those places shop in different kinds of stores and eat different kinds of foods So when we start talking about red America and blue America we can completely miss what s really going on See 10 elections that changed America Can you give me an example I grew up outside Detroit and Detroit is very blue and so is Washtenaw County where Ann Arbor is But it s hard to think of two places that are more different than Detroit and Ann Arbor One is educated one is really fairly wealthy one is young one is white the other is black and it s poor and the education level isn t as high Those two places are extremely different but they re right next door to each other They really live in different realities You broke the U S down into 12 community types including categories with names like Evangelical Epicenters Minority Central and Tractor Country How did you come up with those 12 We took all the demographic data we could find everything from age to race to income to religious background to educational background and some rudimentary consumer data things like household income cost of a home cost of a car We even have some data on alcohol purchases in there And that was what we used to crunch them all down to the 12 communities we ended up with See 50 authentic American experiences What struck you the most from your road trip to these different communities When you get off the beaten path you really get a feel for how complicated the U S is how difficult it is to govern and how hard it is to understand What holds it together other than Sunday night football When you talk to the mayors the church leaders the schoolteachers in 12 different places with 12 different economies it really gives you an appreciation for just how difficult it is to really get anything done Out of this patchwork do you see a national identity A big part of the national identity is the belief that you control your own destiny here I actually think that s taken a real hit in the last year and a half Part of being an American is you come here work hard and make your way People really like that idea but I think when you look at the world around us the thing people see is that things are kind of out of sorts in America and nobody is really sure how to fix it People may be supporting Republicans for Congress but the party hasn t offered a plan of what they are going to do and the Democrats aren t sure either We need a big plan for economic restructuring and nobody seems to know what that is yet I think that the idea that we don t know what the plan is is disheartening and it makes people think that there are forces playing with their lives that are out of their control See pictures of 60 years of election night drama What does that mean for our future as a nation People do still believe in America and I think that s a wonderful thing In terms of governing and getting things done it means we re in for a bumpy decade The economy has fundamentally changed and I don t know if everyone understands that yet It s not about what happened under Bush or what happened under Clinton it s 30 years of problems that we have to fix That calls for a major overhaul and a major overhaul in this country is really hard because there are so many different interests and so many different things that people in these different communities want I don t think it s going to just fall apart but I think it s going to take things getting really bad before people will put aside some of the differences they have and say O K I may not agree with you but we all have to come to the table and try to figure some stuff out here You conclude on a positive note though that we are still a nation of optimists How did you come to that conclusion Even in these tough times you ll hear people say Things are really bad but we think it s going to turn around There s this idea that if you work hard you re going to get ahead in America And the fact is no fewer than 60 of people in all these different community types despite all the differences they have between them say that s true I think that is something you can try to build a country around But I do wonder and I m not saying this to be the eternal pessimist what those numbers are going to look like in five years because as I said we re in for a really difficult 10 years See 50 essential travel tips See the top 10 Secret Service code names by Taboola YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE Read more ml ixzz2Lg9nqTT0 KIRKUSKIRKUS REVIEWREVIEW Political journalist Chinni and political geographer Gimpel Government Univ of Maryland Separate Destinations Migration Immigration and the Politics of Places 1999 etc move beyond the simplistic Red State Blue State dichotomy to examine the often stark and troubling differences among Americans Capturing the meaning and nature of these vast economic political and cultural differences among the 308 million people of America is no easy matter The authors looked at the 3 141 counties that make up the United States Using a host of variables income race ethnicity education level religion population and many more Gimpel came up with 12 basic types of county level communities which include Boom Towns Campus and Careers Evangelical Epicenters Industrial Metropolis and Military Bastion A representative city or town was selected for each basic type Ann Arbor Mich for instance for Campus and Careers which Chinni then visited speaking with residents to understand the reality beyond the numbers and variables The result is a captivating and at times surprising analysis both rigorous and accessible which suggests that while the country as a whole is going through a period of economic restructuring