what economists call “assortative mating.” Executives with MBAs used to marry their secretaries; now they marry other executives with MBAs.28 And just as people choose ever more similar spouses, they also choose ever more similar neighborhoods in a process called “assortative migration.” In the United States, neighborhoods are increasingly segregated—economically, politically, almost any way one cares to look at the data.29 We have an unprecedented choice of news outlets. Americans, Canadians, Australians, and Brits can easily read The Times of India or The Japan Times. But we don’t. Instead,
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