Places that don’t matter: between the rural-urban and the centre-periphery divides?

Place as a politically divisive element is receiving increasing attention. Literature tells us about the existence of "places that don’t matter" or "left-behind places", that express a particular political discontent. These places are usually related to rural and/or peripheral areas, often in a situation of stagnation or decline. However, despite numerous research on this phenomenon, it is still necessary to clarify how the rural-urban and centre-periphery cleavages intersect in the definition of these areas and their expressions of discontent. This article aims to shed light on this issue by analysing how perceptions about the capital city are related to the rural-urban divide. The objective is, therefore, to know to what extent we are faced with a rural resentment, a regional resentment, or some combination of both. Specifically, we study the case of Spain, a country that shows extreme disparities in demographic terms between rural and urban areas and whose political reality has always been conditioned by the centre-periphery debate. To do this, we use data from a unique survey in Spain conducted in 2022. Our results help clarify the nature of the political discontent of the "places that don’t matter", something essential to be able to act on the tensions that cause it.