Having been one of the ultra-citified myself, I can tell you that these people would have others sacrifice simple comforts of life because they themselves sacrificed so many. To live in the heart of Manhattan, I had to sacrifice 1. great gobs of income to pay for a co-op; 2. personal space and privacy; 3. ease of travel; 4. living space; 5. intimacy with nature; the company of old people; 6. the company of children; 5. the company of people with ordinary middle-class values; 6. peace and quiet; 7. easy access to the abundant consumerism enjoyed by the average suburban resident, rich or poor; 8. a yard with trees; 9. large kitchens and dining rooms; 10. space for all one's books; 11. easy and relatively cheap automobile ownership; 12. distance from the mentally ill homeless, street and subway psychos, etc.; 13. easy access to repair people and handymen; 14. clean air; 15. policemen who actually do police things ... and so on. (Of course, this was in the 1970s and 80s.)
In return, I got all the well-known career, culture and mate-selection advantages one gets in a big city. But looking back on it, even living as a well-to-do person in a big northern city is an exercise in asceticism, and I can see these ultra-citified people thinking, "If I have to suffer, you can suffer, too."
Total Number of zip codes/zip codes with greater than 10,000 people per sq. mi.
New York State: 1776/198
California: 1766/160
Texas: 1933/18
Florida: 992/12
United States: 41,683/714
Texas and Florida are not currently in immediate danger of becoming California and NY based on these metrics and half of all zip codes at this cut off in the entire US are in California and New York State. Data from google and a website that was number one or two in google results zipatlas.com
Great addition to Arnold King's essay. You focused in on the population density issue, which I think is key to understanding the study under discussion.
I put a random Greenich, CT zip code in and it had a density of 2,182. So not even close, even though its the master of the universe hedge fund capital.
Even if the "elite" cohort is too narrowly defined, small unrepresentative cohorts of the politically hyperactive with extreme views have in the past wreaked great havoc when they succeeded in implementing those views, as in the National Socialist takeover in Germany in1933, and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. The ideas of Arnold's "ultra-citified" may seem absurd, but what they have in common is the urge to forcibly control others in pursuit of their utopian vision, a project which has always resulted in disasters.
Yep, they are the folk that drive munipal policies, HOA policies, push state and federal law, etc. They are the masses that go into the media or become bureaucrats and implement their visions via dictate. The ivory tower can push, and in many things win on things that don't matter practically to most people most of the time, but it's Karen and crew that gets 15 mph speed limits, a new unnecessary stadium built, and laws passed after people's names because they are terrified of their neighbors.
I'm sure that factors into source selection but the want for a new stadium itself is driven by the affluent fans that want better seating and higher prices to make it more Wimbledon'esque and keep the rabble out. The rabble is ok with old run down stadiums that they grew up with cheap seating and prices (i.e. "the bleachers ") as part of the experience
So I commented on this survey about a week ago, on this blog. I suspect it may suffer from sampling bias. Specifically, from how the outreach was conducted, I can see how the response rate would likely be very low, with perhaps a lopsided mix of left vs. right leaning folks responding.
Surprisingly our survey showed 100% of people questioned said they are the type of person who answers surveys. We therefore conclude with a +95% confidence level all Americans will answer surveys.
People who live in densely populated areas are more likely than those who live in, say, New Mexico, Montana, or West Texas, to listen to doomsayers like Paul Erlich who warn of population "bombs" and imminent resource depletion. And they are far less likely to heed resource optimists like Julian Simon. Additionally, because local governments significantly impact their daily lives, people in cities are more inclined to believe that government intervention is necessary to address real and perceived population and resource issues. The government's visible hand is far more tangible than is the market's invisible one.
I can't speak to Montana or New Mexico, but "desert rat" is a Texas species that would very decidedly not be on board with Julian Simon.
I knew a lady who lived in the southeast, read a Nat. Geo. article about the Big Bend (I think this issue was around 1970), put a trailer for herself and a trailer for a couple of hoofed animals she had behind her vehicle, in which she put her old mother; and drove out to Big Bend sight unseen. She slowly bought up lots from a long-ago Glengarry type scheme, keeping after their heirs until she got hold of hundreds of them. Decades later she was still living in that trailer, unfloored for some reason, with no electricity but a telephone line in a barn she built for the animals, and a single pump for water. I remember saying, well, at least you can drive a few miles down the (unpaved) road to the headquarters of the failed development, where some hippies ran a motel/restaurant, or rather would make you a grilled cheese - you know, if you need something (or occasionally wanted a bathroom, I was thinking).
Oh no, she said - she'd been feuding with them for quite awhile.
She needed nature, as unspoiled as possible. I am certain what she needed was never contemplated by a Julian Simon, or - a fellow I once heard lecture at college, whose schtick was going around explaining that what we call pollution is atoms being rearranged, it not being possible to "lose" anything on this Earth. Because of gravity.
I read Julian Simon’s book, “The Ultimate Resource,” and I don’t recall anything in there about desert rats living in decrepit trailers. His point was that, over the long term, resources have grown less expensive, indicating that they are becoming less scarce rather than more scarce as the Club of Rome and Paul Erlich claimed.
He also observed out that, faced with scarcity, people find substitutes. One argument he made was that we care about the service a resource provides rather than the resource per se. For example, I want my phone call to go through, and I don’t care if it’s carried over thousands of tons of copper wire, fiber optics made from silica (basically sand), or the airwaves.
His main point was that we will never run out of resources as long as we are free to employ the “ultimate resource,” human ingenuity.
I am familiar with him, but he is generally employed as a shorthand for “population growth is/must be limitless” (which plenty of people take to a “should be” point) - because people don’t care about the things it limits - or forestalls.
Of course human history is a history of ingenuity. Whether that tells you everything you need to know about life in the time of cheap fossil fuels, I would be hesitant to say. But obviously most people are quite ready to extrapolate into the far future.
People who associate Simon with the idea that population growth must be limitless are mistaken. While Simon did observe that innovation is proportional to population, he also noted that the rate of growth declines as a polity becomes more affluent. In a third world country, children provide cheap labor and support in old age. In a developed country, children are a net economic drain.
They may well be mistaken, but people can’t help the uses to which their work is put. In this case, the famous, rather pointless bet (between two men of similar backgrounds if not equal acuity) is chiefly used to deflect from - to paper over - a clash of values - which is what people ought to be arguing about, defending, rejecting, whatever.
The bet being referenced is always a sign of an ingenuous, probably unworthy interlocutor. So I appreciate that you are a reader of Julian Simon for your own reasons.
Either man could have won the bet depending upon the start and end dates. The time frames with which Simon dealt in his book were generally longer than a single lifetime. Simon got a lucky with his stunt, but only a bit - he bet on the long term trends and won.
While Erlich’s predictions have been consistently wrong, he still commands a large audience. By contrast, Simon’s predictions were consistently on the mark, though he remained in relative obscurity in his lifetime.
I think that the difference is due to media bias, but not necessarily political bias. Bad news sells. Threats go right to the top of our mental in-boxes. If they didn’t, human beings would not have survived. Advertisers and newspaper editors take advantage of this by feeding lurid clickbait and headlines to our inner cavemen.
That lady sounds like the environmentalists I've known -- their whole thinking is based on a distorted ideal of "nature," with no examination at all of how it got that way. An example is Sierra Club founder John Muir, who popularized hikes in scenic places: trips that were only safely possible because of men before him, including Native Americans, who for centuries purposely killed off as many of the dangerous animals as they could find. But if the enviro movement has its way, all that good work will be undone forever.
A more sensible ideal, in my view, is to give individual humans as many choices as possible so that they can use their ingenuity to increase their own comfort. Those who oppose that should be regarded as predators and criminalized, no matter how they rationalize their malice. A society which regards them as an "elite" is sick.
My Welsh relatives have said to me if they lived in BC they would be walking in the forest daily. They were shocked I didn’t do that. I explained the uncut BC coastal forest is so dense I would have trouble walking 50’ into it. If I walked 1/4 mile into it I could easily get lost and not be found. They had this idea it was park like.
I did not call him a wuss. I merely said he ignored (or maybe was ignorant of) what had to be done to achieve the conditions he found and just assumed they were natural.
"The ultra-citified also alienate much of Belmont."
"Much" is doing a lot of work.
Ilhan Omar has represented MN 5 since 2018. Before that, Keith Ellison (current MN AG) represent the district for over a decade. Both were elected and re-elected with between 55% and 70% of votes cast.
Minnesota's 5th congressional district is a geographically small urban and suburban congressional district in Minnesota. It covers eastern Hennepin County, including the entire city of Minneapolis, along with parts of Anoka and Ramsey counties. (Wikipedia)
Area: 124 sq mi (320 km2)
Distribution: : 100% urban; 0% rural;
Cook PVI: D+30
Ethnicity: 63.6% White; 16.6% Black; 8.8% Hispanic; 6.0% Asian; 3.8% Two or more races; 1.2% other
Median household income: $71,636 (about 2/3 of the income limit)
Population (2021): 708,012 (around 5700 people per square mile, about half of the criteria above)
AOC has represented NY 14 since 2018.
New York's 14th congressional district is a congressional district for the United States House of Representatives located in New York City, represented by Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The district includes the eastern part of The Bronx and part of north-central Queens. (Wikipedia)
Ethnicity: 47.3% Hispanic; 22.8% White; 16.9% Asian; 11.0% Black; 1.4% Two or more races; 0.6% other
Median household income: $66,749 (again, around 2/3 of the criteria)
Cook PVI: D+25
Population (2019): 696,664 (I can't find an area but this probably meets the 10K/sq mile based on other information about New York)
The real Belmont in Massachusetts hasn't elected a Republican to Congress in almost two decades.
Having a lot of local knowledge of MN 5th congressional district I do not think it negates the "The ultra-citified also alienate much of Belmont." Your example does highlight the arbitrariness of the 10,000 number and how those lower down in density can also be people to get away from with their unrepentant luxury beliefs/utopian visions/adherence to a far ideology at the cost of the material concerns of the near. Choosing to live in a suburban environment next to the citified carries its own costs, benefits, and tradeoffs.
The poll certainly seems to support the problem of “luxury beliefs” that Rob Henderson is becoming known for—and his book just came out. He has examples on his stack.
Yale students are on the top 1% elite track, tho few are already there. Their luxury beliefs are part of their status competition, and status signaling, so as to achieve higher status, even if unfairly earned.
Most normal middle folk, 20-80% of income or wealth or cultural influence, might think those in the upper quintile are elite, maybe broad elite Belmont, yet a majority of those there feel they’re not elite (yet?) but deserve to be, and are striving towards that, including the peacock costly signals of superiority.
Who are the elite on morals? What is right and wrong? Moral superiority is the usual goal, usually unspoken. Tho a recent headline read something like “We have no moral right to deny immigrants entrance to our country.” A pretty powerful luxury belief because of moral superiority.
The ultra-citified are top elite wannabes competing for status, especially among their many, many, densely packed sardine similar peers, with moral superiority a goal.
This seems reasonable to me, given that in a lot of the zip codes that exceed the population density threshold, household income of 150k+ probably isn't much better than average due to the cost of living.
That said, I think since these people can present themselves and their beliefs as pro-social and opposing beliefs as anti-social, they are able to attain status and that status attracts others. Their concentrated local influence means they're able to reward cooperators and punish defectors pretty effectively, also.
Why should "post-graduate education" be a necessary criterion of elite status? I would replace this criterion with criteria of success in the marketplace; e.g., chief officers of firms of a certain size, founders of new firms of a certain size, directors of major regulatory agencies, lawmakers, judges, and so on.
I don't see the connection between having a Master's Degree and entree to elite status.
And I would add top artists (e.g., prima ballerinas at major ballet companies), scholars in the national academy, and the like -- people at the top of the professions.
Pick any small cohort to the US population (e.g., the ultra rich, cattle ranchers in certain regions, Ivy League college kids, factory workers in some industry, . . .), and you will find some level of ignorance and wrong thinking about the economy, the environment, resources, and other issues affected by their local perspective, their particular media consumption, and other factors.
Arnold Kling's point in this article, that the survey didn't find the "elite", is well taken.
It's a somewhat semantic distinction. I think ultra-citified and the definition of elite that is used is roughly equivalent to what people not in that category would classify as elite. It doesn't mean millionaire per-se and it doesn't mean ultra rich. It means the critical mass of politically active people that have the right jobs, the adequate numbers, and the ambition and drive to have a huge impact in politics.
Society and law reflects the values of these people, much more so than a Mark Zuckerberg.
People who think power is about money or those that think in terms of mass politics ignore the group that sits between those two extremes and in many ways have the strengths of both: Mass, cohesion, and resources.
The density requirement *might* be too high and the income requirement might be too low though.
Having been one of the ultra-citified myself, I can tell you that these people would have others sacrifice simple comforts of life because they themselves sacrificed so many. To live in the heart of Manhattan, I had to sacrifice 1. great gobs of income to pay for a co-op; 2. personal space and privacy; 3. ease of travel; 4. living space; 5. intimacy with nature; the company of old people; 6. the company of children; 5. the company of people with ordinary middle-class values; 6. peace and quiet; 7. easy access to the abundant consumerism enjoyed by the average suburban resident, rich or poor; 8. a yard with trees; 9. large kitchens and dining rooms; 10. space for all one's books; 11. easy and relatively cheap automobile ownership; 12. distance from the mentally ill homeless, street and subway psychos, etc.; 13. easy access to repair people and handymen; 14. clean air; 15. policemen who actually do police things ... and so on. (Of course, this was in the 1970s and 80s.)
In return, I got all the well-known career, culture and mate-selection advantages one gets in a big city. But looking back on it, even living as a well-to-do person in a big northern city is an exercise in asceticism, and I can see these ultra-citified people thinking, "If I have to suffer, you can suffer, too."
Are you still living in a city or have you moved out to the country or suburbs?
Total Number of zip codes/zip codes with greater than 10,000 people per sq. mi.
New York State: 1776/198
California: 1766/160
Texas: 1933/18
Florida: 992/12
United States: 41,683/714
Texas and Florida are not currently in immediate danger of becoming California and NY based on these metrics and half of all zip codes at this cut off in the entire US are in California and New York State. Data from google and a website that was number one or two in google results zipatlas.com
Great addition to Arnold King's essay. You focused in on the population density issue, which I think is key to understanding the study under discussion.
Good point. Density correlates with lots of both good and bad things. Take a look at GDP per capita. Very urban, blue state correlated with North Dakota thrown in. Resource heavy with no people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP#:~:text=GDP%20per%20capita%20also%20varied,recorded%20the%20three%20lowest%20GDP
I put a random Greenich, CT zip code in and it had a density of 2,182. So not even close, even though its the master of the universe hedge fund capital.
Even if the "elite" cohort is too narrowly defined, small unrepresentative cohorts of the politically hyperactive with extreme views have in the past wreaked great havoc when they succeeded in implementing those views, as in the National Socialist takeover in Germany in1933, and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. The ideas of Arnold's "ultra-citified" may seem absurd, but what they have in common is the urge to forcibly control others in pursuit of their utopian vision, a project which has always resulted in disasters.
I think this is a very good point, especially in conjunction with the observation that cities seem to breed political dysfunction.
Yep, they are the folk that drive munipal policies, HOA policies, push state and federal law, etc. They are the masses that go into the media or become bureaucrats and implement their visions via dictate. The ivory tower can push, and in many things win on things that don't matter practically to most people most of the time, but it's Karen and crew that gets 15 mph speed limits, a new unnecessary stadium built, and laws passed after people's names because they are terrified of their neighbors.
See I would have said the new stadium got built because some land speculator is well-connected, or because somebody owns a concrete plant.
I'm sure that factors into source selection but the want for a new stadium itself is driven by the affluent fans that want better seating and higher prices to make it more Wimbledon'esque and keep the rabble out. The rabble is ok with old run down stadiums that they grew up with cheap seating and prices (i.e. "the bleachers ") as part of the experience
It's team owners who constantly want stadium upgrades. Localities & taxpayers foot the cost and owners get more revenue from deluxe boxes etc.
So I commented on this survey about a week ago, on this blog. I suspect it may suffer from sampling bias. Specifically, from how the outreach was conducted, I can see how the response rate would likely be very low, with perhaps a lopsided mix of left vs. right leaning folks responding.
Oh opinion surveys! Here's a survey question: "Q... Are you the kind of person who responds to opinion surveys?"
Surprisingly our survey showed 100% of people questioned said they are the type of person who answers surveys. We therefore conclude with a +95% confidence level all Americans will answer surveys.
There are two types of people in the world. Those who divide people into two types, and those who don’t.
People who live in densely populated areas are more likely than those who live in, say, New Mexico, Montana, or West Texas, to listen to doomsayers like Paul Erlich who warn of population "bombs" and imminent resource depletion. And they are far less likely to heed resource optimists like Julian Simon. Additionally, because local governments significantly impact their daily lives, people in cities are more inclined to believe that government intervention is necessary to address real and perceived population and resource issues. The government's visible hand is far more tangible than is the market's invisible one.
I can't speak to Montana or New Mexico, but "desert rat" is a Texas species that would very decidedly not be on board with Julian Simon.
I knew a lady who lived in the southeast, read a Nat. Geo. article about the Big Bend (I think this issue was around 1970), put a trailer for herself and a trailer for a couple of hoofed animals she had behind her vehicle, in which she put her old mother; and drove out to Big Bend sight unseen. She slowly bought up lots from a long-ago Glengarry type scheme, keeping after their heirs until she got hold of hundreds of them. Decades later she was still living in that trailer, unfloored for some reason, with no electricity but a telephone line in a barn she built for the animals, and a single pump for water. I remember saying, well, at least you can drive a few miles down the (unpaved) road to the headquarters of the failed development, where some hippies ran a motel/restaurant, or rather would make you a grilled cheese - you know, if you need something (or occasionally wanted a bathroom, I was thinking).
Oh no, she said - she'd been feuding with them for quite awhile.
She needed nature, as unspoiled as possible. I am certain what she needed was never contemplated by a Julian Simon, or - a fellow I once heard lecture at college, whose schtick was going around explaining that what we call pollution is atoms being rearranged, it not being possible to "lose" anything on this Earth. Because of gravity.
I read Julian Simon’s book, “The Ultimate Resource,” and I don’t recall anything in there about desert rats living in decrepit trailers. His point was that, over the long term, resources have grown less expensive, indicating that they are becoming less scarce rather than more scarce as the Club of Rome and Paul Erlich claimed.
He also observed out that, faced with scarcity, people find substitutes. One argument he made was that we care about the service a resource provides rather than the resource per se. For example, I want my phone call to go through, and I don’t care if it’s carried over thousands of tons of copper wire, fiber optics made from silica (basically sand), or the airwaves.
His main point was that we will never run out of resources as long as we are free to employ the “ultimate resource,” human ingenuity.
I am familiar with him, but he is generally employed as a shorthand for “population growth is/must be limitless” (which plenty of people take to a “should be” point) - because people don’t care about the things it limits - or forestalls.
Of course human history is a history of ingenuity. Whether that tells you everything you need to know about life in the time of cheap fossil fuels, I would be hesitant to say. But obviously most people are quite ready to extrapolate into the far future.
People who associate Simon with the idea that population growth must be limitless are mistaken. While Simon did observe that innovation is proportional to population, he also noted that the rate of growth declines as a polity becomes more affluent. In a third world country, children provide cheap labor and support in old age. In a developed country, children are a net economic drain.
They may well be mistaken, but people can’t help the uses to which their work is put. In this case, the famous, rather pointless bet (between two men of similar backgrounds if not equal acuity) is chiefly used to deflect from - to paper over - a clash of values - which is what people ought to be arguing about, defending, rejecting, whatever.
The bet being referenced is always a sign of an ingenuous, probably unworthy interlocutor. So I appreciate that you are a reader of Julian Simon for your own reasons.
Either man could have won the bet depending upon the start and end dates. The time frames with which Simon dealt in his book were generally longer than a single lifetime. Simon got a lucky with his stunt, but only a bit - he bet on the long term trends and won.
While Erlich’s predictions have been consistently wrong, he still commands a large audience. By contrast, Simon’s predictions were consistently on the mark, though he remained in relative obscurity in his lifetime.
I think that the difference is due to media bias, but not necessarily political bias. Bad news sells. Threats go right to the top of our mental in-boxes. If they didn’t, human beings would not have survived. Advertisers and newspaper editors take advantage of this by feeding lurid clickbait and headlines to our inner cavemen.
That lady sounds like the environmentalists I've known -- their whole thinking is based on a distorted ideal of "nature," with no examination at all of how it got that way. An example is Sierra Club founder John Muir, who popularized hikes in scenic places: trips that were only safely possible because of men before him, including Native Americans, who for centuries purposely killed off as many of the dangerous animals as they could find. But if the enviro movement has its way, all that good work will be undone forever.
A more sensible ideal, in my view, is to give individual humans as many choices as possible so that they can use their ingenuity to increase their own comfort. Those who oppose that should be regarded as predators and criminalized, no matter how they rationalize their malice. A society which regards them as an "elite" is sick.
My Welsh relatives have said to me if they lived in BC they would be walking in the forest daily. They were shocked I didn’t do that. I explained the uncut BC coastal forest is so dense I would have trouble walking 50’ into it. If I walked 1/4 mile into it I could easily get lost and not be found. They had this idea it was park like.
It's early days, but "John Muir was a wuss" seems likely to stand unchallenged as most "2024" comment possible.
I did not call him a wuss. I merely said he ignored (or maybe was ignorant of) what had to be done to achieve the conditions he found and just assumed they were natural.
You seem to think nature is static. I'm certain John Muir did not.
I don't think nature is static. I do think, if left alone, it reaches stable equillibria.
Or, perhaps even better, the people who live within 20 miles of Washington D.C.
"The ultra-citified also alienate much of Belmont."
"Much" is doing a lot of work.
Ilhan Omar has represented MN 5 since 2018. Before that, Keith Ellison (current MN AG) represent the district for over a decade. Both were elected and re-elected with between 55% and 70% of votes cast.
Minnesota's 5th congressional district is a geographically small urban and suburban congressional district in Minnesota. It covers eastern Hennepin County, including the entire city of Minneapolis, along with parts of Anoka and Ramsey counties. (Wikipedia)
Area: 124 sq mi (320 km2)
Distribution: : 100% urban; 0% rural;
Cook PVI: D+30
Ethnicity: 63.6% White; 16.6% Black; 8.8% Hispanic; 6.0% Asian; 3.8% Two or more races; 1.2% other
Median household income: $71,636 (about 2/3 of the income limit)
Population (2021): 708,012 (around 5700 people per square mile, about half of the criteria above)
AOC has represented NY 14 since 2018.
New York's 14th congressional district is a congressional district for the United States House of Representatives located in New York City, represented by Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The district includes the eastern part of The Bronx and part of north-central Queens. (Wikipedia)
Ethnicity: 47.3% Hispanic; 22.8% White; 16.9% Asian; 11.0% Black; 1.4% Two or more races; 0.6% other
Median household income: $66,749 (again, around 2/3 of the criteria)
Cook PVI: D+25
Population (2019): 696,664 (I can't find an area but this probably meets the 10K/sq mile based on other information about New York)
The real Belmont in Massachusetts hasn't elected a Republican to Congress in almost two decades.
Having a lot of local knowledge of MN 5th congressional district I do not think it negates the "The ultra-citified also alienate much of Belmont." Your example does highlight the arbitrariness of the 10,000 number and how those lower down in density can also be people to get away from with their unrepentant luxury beliefs/utopian visions/adherence to a far ideology at the cost of the material concerns of the near. Choosing to live in a suburban environment next to the citified carries its own costs, benefits, and tradeoffs.
The poll certainly seems to support the problem of “luxury beliefs” that Rob Henderson is becoming known for—and his book just came out. He has examples on his stack.
https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/what-shocked-me-about-the-culture
Yale students are on the top 1% elite track, tho few are already there. Their luxury beliefs are part of their status competition, and status signaling, so as to achieve higher status, even if unfairly earned.
Most normal middle folk, 20-80% of income or wealth or cultural influence, might think those in the upper quintile are elite, maybe broad elite Belmont, yet a majority of those there feel they’re not elite (yet?) but deserve to be, and are striving towards that, including the peacock costly signals of superiority.
Who are the elite on morals? What is right and wrong? Moral superiority is the usual goal, usually unspoken. Tho a recent headline read something like “We have no moral right to deny immigrants entrance to our country.” A pretty powerful luxury belief because of moral superiority.
The ultra-citified are top elite wannabes competing for status, especially among their many, many, densely packed sardine similar peers, with moral superiority a goal.
This seems reasonable to me, given that in a lot of the zip codes that exceed the population density threshold, household income of 150k+ probably isn't much better than average due to the cost of living.
That said, I think since these people can present themselves and their beliefs as pro-social and opposing beliefs as anti-social, they are able to attain status and that status attracts others. Their concentrated local influence means they're able to reward cooperators and punish defectors pretty effectively, also.
The poll should have simply polled journalists and lawyers.
Why should "post-graduate education" be a necessary criterion of elite status? I would replace this criterion with criteria of success in the marketplace; e.g., chief officers of firms of a certain size, founders of new firms of a certain size, directors of major regulatory agencies, lawmakers, judges, and so on.
I don't see the connection between having a Master's Degree and entree to elite status.
And I would add top artists (e.g., prima ballerinas at major ballet companies), scholars in the national academy, and the like -- people at the top of the professions.
The point is the criteria don't select what most of us think of based on the word elite.
Very good critique. My hypothesis is you would have found something similar throughout the decades/centuries with beliefs like communism, etc.
Pick any small cohort to the US population (e.g., the ultra rich, cattle ranchers in certain regions, Ivy League college kids, factory workers in some industry, . . .), and you will find some level of ignorance and wrong thinking about the economy, the environment, resources, and other issues affected by their local perspective, their particular media consumption, and other factors.
Arnold Kling's point in this article, that the survey didn't find the "elite", is well taken.
It's a somewhat semantic distinction. I think ultra-citified and the definition of elite that is used is roughly equivalent to what people not in that category would classify as elite. It doesn't mean millionaire per-se and it doesn't mean ultra rich. It means the critical mass of politically active people that have the right jobs, the adequate numbers, and the ambition and drive to have a huge impact in politics.
Society and law reflects the values of these people, much more so than a Mark Zuckerberg.
People who think power is about money or those that think in terms of mass politics ignore the group that sits between those two extremes and in many ways have the strengths of both: Mass, cohesion, and resources.
The density requirement *might* be too high and the income requirement might be too low though.
I live in a semi-rural suburb and enjoy the space and convenience. It is a kind of utopia.