National survey data are used to test the relationship between urbanism and racial attitudes among whites, and a liberalizing effect of urbanism is found. The relationship is independent of differences in population composition occurring across the rural-urban continuum, and it operates largely in the same way in both the North and the South. Of the urban theories considered, the relationship is best explained by that portion of subcultural theory dealing with diffusion. Specifically, it appears that urbanism liberalizes racial attitudes by increasing equal-status, cooperative, and relatively personal contact between members of racial subcultures.
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