(That subject line ought to get me in trouble with just about everyone, eh?)

For those of you depressed by the election results — and in Seattle, at least, we are legion — this week’s Stranger is a must-read. The lead editorial, The Urban Archipelago: It’s the Cities, Stupid, is well-argued, intelligent, and even (dare I say it?) inspirational.

Very briefly, the article argues that the political divide within America is not between “blue” and “red” states, but between urban and rural areas — a point substantiated by the sidebar maps (best seen in the print edition). Urban areas are Democratic strongholds — even in the South; Republicans control the rural “heartland”. To win the next election, the Stranger’s editors argue, the Democratic Party should worry less about winning over conservative rural voters and more about championing progressive urban values while working to increase the strength of America’s cities.

As a dyed-in-the-wool urbanite, I know that I’m never going to move to BFE, Arkanas to missionize among the misguided. But I can certainly get behind the idea of working to make my city a shining example of enlightened urbanism — the kind of place a bright, misfit kid in Arkansas might dream of escaping to. Hell, we might even have a monorail in 10, 15, 20 years …

(As an aside: I have always loathed Norman Rockwell’s work, but that was before I saw The Problem We All Live With, mentioned in the article. It’s not simply that this representation of a young black girl being escorted to a desegregated school by four U.S. marshals in 1960 caters to my liberal sensitivities, which it does — this is American Realist art at its best, a beautifully constructed composition with surprising moral weight.)