In Middlemarch, chapter 56, a character who I believe is never again mentioned may be heard, or overheard, talking angrily:
"Why, they're Lunnon chaps, I reckon," said Hiram, who had a dim notion of London as a centre of hostility to the country.
Hiram lived in rural Warwickshire, near the nonfictive town of Nuneaton in what the Brits call the east Midlands, and his bitterness made me wonder whether the Brexit vote in the UK exhibited the same rural-urban divide that's present in our country. In the accompanying maps, the rusty color indicates the area voted to "stay" while blue is for "leave" precincts. The map on the right appears distorted because the colored subdivisions have been blown up or shrunk according to population; also, darker hues represent a more lopsided result. You can see that it's generally true that the votes to stay came from London and Scotland, the great metropolis and the northern hinterland, and that almost everywhere else majorities voted to leave. This map allows you to zoom in on any region that interests you. English urban centers outside of London tended to have a pretty evenly divided vote, but in Scotland, "stay" got about two-thirds of the Glasgow vote, and in Edinburgh it was closer to three-fourths. Meanwhile, in the more rustic parts of Scotland, the vote to stay remained above or very near 60%, almost the same as in London. Nuneaton voted by 2-to-1 to leave. Lots of Hirams, still.
The geographic principle in play in the Brexit vote does not seem to have been rural versus urban. Scotland wanted to stay, and England wanted to leave, except for London, which voted like Scotland. But there were other demographic characteristics of the Brexit vote that seem more closely related to voting patterns and behavior in the United States. For example, of the 30 areas in the UK with the highest percentage of people 65 or older, 27 voted to leave (but three-fourths of voters under 25 voted to stay). Of the 30 areas with the lowest percentage of college graduates, 28 voted to leave. And of the 30 areas with the highest percentage of people identifying as English, all 30 voted to leave.
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