The economic middle of the U.S. has shrunk across the country. The distinction individual metro areas must better understand is: by how much?

Trump’s stunning and unexpected victory in last week’s election highlighted the overlapping divides of class and location in American politics. Almost a decade ago now, Bill Bishop pointed to the ‘Big Sort’ that is dividing Americans by income, education, and where we live. As the election showed, that big sort has become an even bigger sort as America’s middle class has declined and the nation has split into areas of concentrated affluence and even larger spans of concentrated disadvantage.

Read the full article at the Atlantic’s CityLab.