Our Patchwork Nation
The Surprising Truth about the 'Real' America
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Narrated by:
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Peter Berkrot
About this listen
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 12 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.
©2010 Dante Chinni and James Gimpel (P)2010 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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- What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas
- By: Erica Grieder
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Texas may well be America’s most controversial state. Evangelicals dominate the halls of power, millions of its people live in poverty, and its death row is the busiest in the country. Skeptical outsiders have found much to be offended by in the state’s politics and attitude, and yet, according to journalist and Texan Erica Grieder, the United States has a great deal to learn from Texas. In Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right, Grieder traces the political history of a state that was always larger than life. From its rowdy beginnings, Texas has combined a long-standing suspicion of government intrusion with a passion for business.
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Loved this book!
- By ccarp on 06-04-14
By: Erica Grieder
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After America
- Get Ready for Armageddon
- By: Mark Steyn
- Narrated by: Mark Steyn
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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In his giant New York Times best seller, America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It, Mark Steyn predicted collapse for the rest of the Western World. Now, he adds, America has caught up with Europe on the great rush to self-destruction. What will a world without American leadership look like? It won’t be pretty—not for you and not for your children. America’s decline won’t be gradual, like an aging Europe sipping espresso at a café until extinction. No, America’s decline will be a wrenching affair marked by violence and possibly secession.
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Facts
- By Peter on 11-11-11
By: Mark Steyn
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The Audacity of Hope
- Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
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In July 2004, Barack Obama electrified the Democratic National Convention with an address that spoke to Americans across the political spectrum. Now, in The Audacity of Hope, Senator Obama calls for a different brand of politics: a politics for those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by the "endless clash of armies" we see in Congress and on the campaign trail; a politics rooted in the faith, inclusiveness, and nobility of spirit at the heart of "our improbable experiment in democracy".
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My Fellow Conservatives, Give This A Listen
- By Dallas D.L. on 02-12-15
By: Barack Obama
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The End of the Suburbs
- Where the American Dream is Moving
- By: Leigh Gallagher
- Narrated by: Jessica Geffen
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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For nearly 70 years, the suburbs were as American as apple pie. But in recent years things have started to change. An epic housing crisis revealed existing problems with this unique pattern of development, while the steady pull of long-simmering economic, societal and demographic forces has culminated in a Perfect Storm that has led to a profound shift in the way we desire to live. In The End of the Suburbs journalist Leigh Gallagher traces the rise and fall of American suburbia from the stately railroad suburbs that sprung up outside American cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries to current-day sprawling exurbs.
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Informative, but the title is a lie
- By Marie on 08-27-13
By: Leigh Gallagher
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That Used to Be Us
- How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back
- By: Thomas L. Friedman, Michael Mandelbaum
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, analyze those challenges - globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption - and spell out what we need to do now to rediscover America and rise to this moment.
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We have met the enemy and it is us.... Pogo
- By Soudant on 09-16-11
By: Thomas L. Friedman, and others
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Better Off Without 'Em
- A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession
- By: Chuck Thompson
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Let’s talk about secession. Not exactly the most suitable cocktail party conversation starter anywhere in the country, but take that notion deep into the heart of Dixie and you might find yourself running from the possum-hunting conservatives, trailer-park lifers, and prayer warriors Chuck Thompson encountered during the two years he spent traveling the American South asking the question: Would we be better off without ’em?
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What can I say? I loved it.
- By Blake on 03-02-14
By: Chuck Thompson
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The South Side
- A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation
- By: Natalie Y. Moore
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In this intelligent and highly important narrative, Chicago native Natalie Moore shines a light on contemporary segregation on the South Side of Chicago through reported essays, showing the lives of these communities through the stories of people who live in them. The South Side shows the important impact of Chicago's historic segregation and the ongoing policies that keep it that way.
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Eyeopening!
- By Ladybug on 09-07-16
By: Natalie Y. Moore
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Americans Against the City
- Anti-Urbanism in the Twentieth Century
- By: Steven Conn
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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An aversion to urban density and all that it contributes to urban life, and a perception that the city was the place where "big government" first took root in America fostered what historian Steven Conn terms the "anti-urban impulse." In this provocative and sweeping audiobook, Conn explores the anti-urban impulse across the 20th century, examining how the ideas born of it have shaped both the places in which Americans live and work, and the anti-government politics so strong today.
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Excellent book
- By M. M. Conroy on 09-19-20
By: Steven Conn
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Boom, Bust, Exodus
- The Rust Belt, the Maquilas, and a Tale of Two Cities
- By: Chad Broughton
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2002, the town of Galesburg, a slowly declining Rustbelt city of 33,000 in western Illinois, learned that it would soon lose its largest factory, a Maytag refrigerator plant that had anchored Galesburg's social and economic life for decades. Workers at the plant earned $15.14 an hour, had good insurance, and were assured a solid retirement. In 2004, the plant was relocated to Reynosa, Mexico, where workers sometimes spent 13-hour days assembling refrigerators for $1.10 an hour.
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A Story I thought I Knew
- By Meek84 on 07-08-18
By: Chad Broughton
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Third World America
- How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream
- By: Arianna Huffington
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
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America's middle class, the driver of so much of our economic success and political stability, is rapidly disappearing, forcing us to confront the fear that we are slipping as a nation - that our children and grandchildren will enjoy fewer opportunities and face a lower standard of living than we did. It's the dark flipside of the American Dream - an American Nightmare of our own making.
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Sad... but with a ray of hope
- By Maciej on 10-20-10
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Outsider in the White House
- Special Audio Edition
- By: Bernie Sanders, Huck Gutman, John Nichols - afterword
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett, Brian Sutherland
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Bernie Sanders' campaign for the presidency of the United States has galvanized supporters all over the country, drawing attention to issues of economic, racial, and social justice and spotlighting one of the most interesting and unconventional candidates in decades.
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Behind the Scenes with Bernie--- WORTH it!
- By Susie on 02-23-16
By: Bernie Sanders, and others
What listeners say about Our Patchwork Nation
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lyle
- 06-30-13
We are really different!
Where does Our Patchwork Nation rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Near the top
What other book might you compare Our Patchwork Nation to and why?
The Nine Nations of North America
Have you listened to any of Peter Berkrot’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
no
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
Southerners can be very smart sometimes.
Any additional comments?
A good read
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- Blake
- 03-02-14
A little bit interesting, but largly pointless
These guys have no balls, and this book is pretty limp as a result. Yeah, a lot of the data that they have gathered is interesting, and the way they have broken up the nation into categories is novel, but this is a long way from groundbreaking stuff. A lot of my annoyance comes from the fact that the authors are trying to be more nuanced than simply red and blue state categories, but come up with categories that feel forced. "Moneyed Burbs" is a particularly odd grouping. They say these counties have wealthy, educated residents, that can vote either way depending on the performance of thier stock portfolios. In this category they include San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and Santa Fe. Last time I checked, hell was more likely to open a ski resort than these counties would be to vote Republican. The authors seem so scared to piss anyone off that they choose to report just the right facts to make themselves seem as centrist as a 50 yard line. Weak sauce if you ask me. Still, I did learn a few things about some parts of the country that I likely won't be moving to any time soon. The narrator is a champ. I'd love to hear more books read by him, because he's one of the best I've heard. If you're a big time political nerd like me, this book is worth a listen. But you'll not find it to be something that drastically impacts the way you look at elections. That's my view, at least.
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- Joshua Kim
- 06-10-12
A Course on 'Our Patchwork Nation'
Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth About the "Real" America, by Dante Chinni and James Gimpel, is a book that reminds me why I got into the social science game to begin with.
If I were still teaching sociology (and I miss teaching!), the next course I designed would be totally around Patchwork Nation.
The idea of Patchwork Nation came out of Chinni's and Gimpel's frustration with the Red State / Blue State media divide. They thought that there had to be a more nuanced and accurate framework to understand elections, politics, economics and culture. Using a variety of data sources, they came up with a framework that includes 12 types of communities (with the county as the unit of analysis):
Boom Towns
Campus and Careers
Emptying Nests
Evangelical Epicenters
Immigration Nation
Industrial Metropolis
Military Bastions
Minority Central
Monied 'Burbs
Mormon Outposts
Service Worker Centers
Tractor Country
You can check out what community type you live in at the Patchwork Nation website. Where do you live? Does the description on the site (or in the book) of your county ring true to your experience?
Not surprisingly, I live in a "Campus and Careers" county , defined as "…cities and towns with young, educated populations; more secular and Democratic than other American communities". The representative community for Campus and Careers is Ann Arbor, MI.
The combination of the book and the website provides all the material necessary for a great class. I think that the authors are willing to make part of the data they used to construct their analysis available to other researchers (and students) to analyze.
Think about how much richer the Patchwork Nation framework would be if student researchers contributed new forms of analysis to the public educational commons.
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- Consumer
- 07-02-15
Very biased, overly political
Interesting concepts if you can get over the seemingly constant political bias, anti-traditional and anti-religious innuendos.
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