WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The divergence in economic development among different U.S. regions has been as evident as the enduring political divides in the nation after the 2016 presidential election, a recent study has found.
The study, carried by a report titled "Countering the geography of discontent: Strategy for left-behind places," highlighted the dramatic gap between large, diverse, thriving metropolitan regions and those homogenous small towns and rural areas struggling under economic stagnation as well as social decline.
"This gap between two American geographies came as a shock to many observers," said the study published by the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.
It found that beginning from the 1980s, the top-tier metropolitan areas have consistently outpaced those median and small ones in average annual wage and employment growth.
In an indexed average annual wage chart, the study sets the 1969 level as 100, and the results are that in 2015, the figure for uppermost metropolitan areas rises to around 165, while that of median neighborhoods and "bottom third of metropolitan areas" both remain between 140 and 150.
Adopting the same methodology, the study showed that employment level in mega-cities such as Boston, New York, San Francisco and Washington D.C. neared 280 in 2015, while that of the median and least-prosperous cities hang around 220.
Zooming in on the present decade, the study said "a clear rank-ordered hierarchy of economic performance by community size had emerged."
It discovered that during this period, metropolises with populations over 1 million accounted for 72 percent of the nation's employment growth, whereas areas with populations between 50,000 and 250,000 contributed 6 percent.
For those "micro" towns and rural areas with populations less than 50,000, employment growth remained below the levels prior to the 2008 global economic recession.
"As a result, few can now deny that the geography of America's current economic order has brought economic and social cleavages that have spawned frightening externalities: entrenched poverty, 'deaths of despair,' and deepening small-town resentment of coastal cosmopolitan elites," the study said.
It suggested that more attention be given to lagged-behind places. Specific measures include boosting workers' digital skills, ensuring access to capital for businesses, filling the gap in broadband service, identifying "growth poles" to support regional growth, as well as doubling down federal-level efforts to help people move to places where they are exposed to more opportunities.
