I did ask the researchers about potential overlap with/implications for politics. They acknowledged that comparing large urban areas with smaller urban areas and/or rural areas is an important dimension in politics, as well as economics. It's one of the reasons they wanted to examine the role of automation in this way.
They also noted that if you look at voting on a district level, cities above a certain size leaned blue in the past election while areas below a certain population leaned red, independent of the state in which they were located.
I did ask the researchers about potential overlap with/implications for politics. They acknowledged that comparing large urban areas with smaller urban areas and/or rural areas is an important dimension in politics, as well as economics. It's one of the reasons they wanted to examine the role of automation in this way.
They also noted that if you look at voting on a district level, cities above a certain size leaned blue in the past election while areas below a certain population leaned red, independent of the state in which they were located.