There are only 24 counties that fall in the Patchwork Nation category of Industrial Metropolis but they hold 38 million people. True to their name, they are America’s biggest population centers — dense, diverse, complicated environments — and they are truly different from other places in the United States, sharing few big issues with other Patchwork Nation communities.

But grouping the major urban centers reveals a set of issues that should be important going in to the 2008 vote: crime, gun ownership, education.

Things like crime and poverty, which often go hand in hand, hit the nation’s big cities hardest. This year there is particular focus on the former, via the gun issue. A June Supreme Court decision made owning a gun constitutional in Washington, D.C., but it’s impact stretches into big cities across the country, where weapons are about more than the rights of hunters. Philadelphia experienced a wave of murders earlier this year; even Denver, where Democrats meet this week, had a rash of gun violence earlier this summer.

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Those cities aren’t alone. Violent crime throughout the country has risen since 2004. But big cities, with more than 250,000 people, are experiencing disproportionate increases in the number of murders, according to Department of Justice figures.

At the same time, as the economy slumps, the disparity between rich and poor has a special meaning in these cities. They have a higher percentage of people living in poverty than the national average, but also a higher percentage making more than $150,000 a year. Increasingly, the million-dollar condos are popping up — even as the unemployment rates rise — making these places more sensitive to and emblematic of the troubling idea that there are two Americas.

Education also plays a special role in these communities in 2008. The schools in big Industrial Metropolis counties are more likely to be on the wrong side of the No Child Left Behind bell curve.

And, this should come as no surprise about the citizens of the Industrial Metropolis: They vote overwhelmingly Democratic. In 2004, these voters gave Sen. John Kerry more than 67 percent of the vote.

– Dante Chinni

Read more about the Patchwork Nation communities at The Takeaway’s election Web site, vote2008.thetakeaway.org »