Our Patchwork Nation, Dante Chinni
Our Patchwork Nation, Dante Chinni
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Our Patchwork Nation
The Surprising Truth about the "Real" America

Author: Dante Chinni, James Gimpel

Narrator: Peter Berkrot

Unabridged: 8 hr 39 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/30/2010

Synopsis

In a climate of culture wars and tremendous economic uncertainty, America is often reduced 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. These communities include:

—Boom Towns

—Evangelical Epicenters

—Military Bastions

—Service Worker Centers

—Campus and Careers

—Immigration Nation

—Minority Central

—Tractor Community

—Mormon Outposts

—Emptying Nests

—Industrial Metropolises

—Monied Burbs

By examining these populations, the authors demonstrate that 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.

About Dante Chinni

Since the run-up to the 2008 presidential election, Dante Chinni has been the correspondent for the Patchwork Nation project, which he invented. He has been a journalist for over two decades, serving stints at Newsweek and the Christian Science Monitor. His work has also been published in the Washington Post Magazine, the Economist, the New Republic, and other publications. Dante lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and two children.

Reviews

Goodreads review by ALLEN on July 07, 2020

OUR PATCHWORK NATION (2010) is one of a number of lifestyle-segmentation books that were published in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. The assumption behind them is that red-and-blue-state distinctions are too simplistic and misleading (true, but an overworked thesis). According to the authors, every Am......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on December 31, 2010

If you've read The Nine Nations of North America, this book's premise will seem somewhat familiar. The authors attempt to define Americans through an ocean of cultural and economic data. Using this data they designate tweleve different community types, from Industrial Metropolises to Mormon Outposts......more

Goodreads review by Robert on April 22, 2012

Trying to analyze the country by breaking it into communities based on shared socioeconomic and religious factors is a very good idea. However, this book approaches it in a way that feels very simplistic. They only spending a few pages describing one location in each of the 12 communities they descr......more

Goodreads review by Emily on November 18, 2010

A random library pick-up, this is an attempt to provide a more nuanced picture of America than just "red and blue," using statistics and narrative. The authors, a journalist and a professor of government, analyzed factors like income, gas prices, church attendance, etc. by county and found twelve cl......more

Goodreads review by Caren on November 21, 2010

Some very interesting ideas here. Rather than the simplistic red state/blue state scenario, the authors have divided the country into twelve community types with representative examples of each. In the back of the book is a list of every county in the USA and the first and second choice of what type......more

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