In Praise of “Solid B" Cities with Halina Bennet

There are the superstar cities that act as the seedbeds of American cultural cosmopolitanism and the great engines of blue America's knowledge economy: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle etc. These are the cities that we obsess over and that typically provide the grist for this podcast. And countering them, of course, is the red America of small towns and rural areas that powered the rise of Trump and MAGA.

Both the urban powerhouses and the rural heartland receive more than their share of attention. But then there are also the often overlooked or ignored second tier cities of blue America, big cities with large populations that no one outside of their regions pays much attention to. 

That’s a mistake, contends Halina Bennet, a reporter at Slow Boring, the Substack newsletter founded by Matt Yglesias. Bennet is the author of a provocatively counterintuitive recent piece titled, “The case for the ‘Solid B’ city,” in which she compellingly argues that these largely ignored second tier cities – places like Columbus or Indianapolis or Fayetteville – are leading the way on urbanist policy innovations while offering their residents a high quality of life in affordable environs. 

Halina's piece challenged some of our assumptions, so we asked her to come on BCB to explain why she thinks these "Solid B" burgs merit more of our attention. David and Sandeep launch the conversation with their reminiscences of Portland, Oregon in the 1980s. Back then Portland was very different, they say, an economically depressed “downscale Northwest gearhead” town with good beer and ultra-cheap rents, before its transformation into the “bougie emo twee” Portlandia we know today. We then quickly get into a discussion with Bennett about what these Solid Bs offer that differentiates them positively from the world class cities that dominate the national discourse.

She points first to Columbus, a city (as Sandeep mentions) disparagingly nicknamed “Cowtown.” But in reality Columbus is now the second-largest city in the Midwest, a fast growing metropolitan center with a burgeoning tech economy where the median home price is still a fraction of what houses cost in A-list megacities. And Bennett also praises Indianapolis, where the rapid spread of a bus-rapid-transit system is enhancing livability. And Fayetteville too, the first city in the country to experiment with eliminating all parking minimums.

As the conversation continues, we get into why these B cities are able to move so much faster than their higher profile counterparts in reshaping their urban landscapes in productive ways, building housing and infrastructure and innovating on policy. Often blue dots in vast red seas, these cities are shaped by a more pragmatic politics focused on results, rather than the ideological progressive monocultures of the A cities, where culture war purity tests, entrenched interests and the high cost of doing business militate against change and innovation. We close with Halina speculating that the salvation of the Democratic Party may be found in these B cities, which she suggests are well positioned to produce the next politician with broad enough appeal with normie Americans to capture the presidency. 

Our editor is Quinn Waller.

OUTSIDE REFERENCES:

Halina Bennet, "The case for the 'Solid B' city," Slow Boring, March 27, 2026.

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