Trivial pursuits or serious sociology?

Abstract

Did you know that in the eastern and western outlying parts of the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, white bread sells well because people are poor, whereas in the intervening wide swath of central to suburban space, inhabited by wealthier people, whole wheat is the bread of choice (p. 144)? Did you know that there is a Mason-Dixon mayonnaise line, north of which customers prefer Kraft's tangy Miracle Whip and south of which consumers prefer creamy Hellman's (p. 129)? Did you know that NOW members are recruited mostly from urban gold coasts, elegant low-density suburbs, well-to-do professional districts, Bohemian quarters in big cities, and zones favored by intellectual yuppies, whereas few members come from poor rural areas, Southern textile towns, or farms in the grain belt (p. 211)? Did you know that politics makes strange bedfellows? Americans with the most conservative political views are either raising children in struggling new suburban zones, living in the fanciest suburban estate zones, or wresting bare subsistence from the poorest rural areas of the country, whereas the least conservative views are held by inner city Bohemians, struggling singles, the emergent black middle class, new ethnics, and unionized workers in heavy industry?