A few weeks back, New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro published an article "With Farms Fading and Urban Might Rising, Power Shifts in Iowa", looking at the state's demographic changes with an eye on the closely-watched Senate election between Bruce Braley and Jodi Ernst.

 I don't have any issue with most of the article–certainly I have no reason to dispute the qualitative reporting, and most of it corresponds to a quantitative picture I have no reason to dispute either (and I should add Mr. Barbaro kindly discussed the piece on Twitter with me). My main concern is with the false equivalence it sometimes suggests–the false equivalence of "urban" and "downtown city core".

 Mr. Barbaro (who does mention suburban and exurban growth in other parts of his article) follows a section called "Rural Collapse" with a section called "Downtown Revival", mentioning technology start-ups and profiling a fellow named Mickey Davis, a manager for "the Des Moines Social Club, an art and performance space in downtown Des Moines":

 "The population downtown has doubled over the past decade, and 1,500 new units of housing are planned. As a result, Des Moines’s home, Polk County — where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 20,000 and President Obama’s margin of victory widened between 2008 and 2012 — is growing even more influential in statewide politics."

Given this context, you might well think that Polk County has had so much growth "as a result" of growth in downtown Des Moines. But, looking at the same kinds of Census and American Community Survey figures used by the Times, I don't see it.