Political polarisation takes the form of an urban-rural divide in democracies worldwide. This has significant implications for the political opportunity structure in secondary cities, which we tease out in this article. The article draws on research conducted in Bangladesh, Somaliland, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe, involving multiple surveys and waves of interviews with residents of four low-income neighbourhoods in each capital city and two neighbourhoods in a selected smaller, secondary city. Residents of secondary cities report greater satisfaction across a range of quality-of-life measures. However, this is nuanced slightly in interviews; it appears that life in smaller towns has significant benefits. In attempting to explain this pattern, the research identified a range of innovative policy measures adopted or even only discussed at the city level across all secondary cities, which contribute to the quality of life for residents. Interviews with local government representatives highlight the repeated policy inertia in capital cities caused by opposition between the national government and city government. Although the same political party typically runs secondary cities as the capital, they attract less national attention and so offer greater freedom to policymakers to try new things, engage with residents across the political spectrum and take credit for policy successes. Although capital cities are typically the focus of policy attention, policymaking in secondary cities deserves much greater analysis than it usually receives.

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