America is often described as a place of great divides—between red and blue, big cities and rural towns, the coasts and the heartland. But, as The New York Times reports, our social lives are shaped by a much stronger force that ignores many of these lines: distance.
According to data analyzed by economists at Facebook, Harvard, Princeton and New York University, 55% of the people that East Baton Rouge parish residents know are likely to live within 55 miles of them. More than 65% of Baton Rouge resident’s friends likely live within 100 miles.
In the millions of ties on Facebook that connect relatives, co-workers, classmates and friends, Americans are far more likely to know people nearby than in distant communities that share their politics or mirror their demographics. The dominant picture in data from the economists is not that like-minded places are linked; rather, people in counties close to one another are. Even in the age of the internet, distance matters immensely in determining whom—and, as a result, what—we know.
Coastal cities like New York, Washington, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles do exhibit close ties to one another, showing that people in counties with similar incomes, education levels and voting patterns are more likely to be linked. But nationwide, the effect of such similarity is small. Â
Read the full story and see the map of the odds that you know someone in Missouri, or Utah or Wyoming.
