Like many nations, the United States is undergoing a revolution in economic and political geography. The shift from an industrial to a knowledge economy is feeding both political polarization and economic polarization. Scholars of American political development have long stressed that the United States’ diverse economic geography and strongly territorialized institutions encourage sectional policy conflict. Prominent scholars of contemporary politics have similarly argued that territorially based representation encourages policy responsiveness to local communities. We argue to the contrary that several key mediating factors – the increasing antiurban and status quo bias of American political institutions, the nationalization of US party coalitions, and the path-dependent character of inherited policy regimes – have greatly weakened the representation of place-based economic interests (PBEIs) in contemporary American politics. Indeed, because of these “filters,” each of the nation’s two major party coalitions manifests what we call a “PBEI paradox,” a set of policy commitments starkly at odds with the underlying economic needs of the areas that vote for it.