Regional inequality is often cited to explain just about every challenge the United States faces: political conflict, joblessness, drug overdoses, even the decline of marriage.

Conventional wisdom holds that regions are diverging economically in drastic fashion, and many are raising alarms that fewer people are moving from small towns to prosperous cities.

Research confirms that workers are in fact more productive in densely populated metropolitan areas. But it’s a mistake to think that regional divides are the source of the nation’s core economic problems.

In important ways, states are more alike now than they have been historically. In places other than big metropolitan areas, research shows it’s easier for parents to give children opportunities to become higher-earning adults because the cost of living in a high-quality neighborhood is usually lower. Moreover, people living in smaller towns or cities tend to rate the quality of their communities higher than residents of large metropolitan areas do.