Amazon’s request for proposals (RFP) for a second headquarters complex continues to rivet city lovers, economic development leaders, and the site selection crowd (and its critics). Like a reality TV show, millions are pulling for their favorite cities. And why not: winning the title could be life-changing for some lucky metro.

Yet there’s a problem here: At present, America possesses no strategy—let alone serious policies—for addressing the uneven allocation of growth across the nation’s 50 states and hundreds of metropolitan areas. As a result, the nation is tolerating stark geographic disparities that are breeding resentment and dysfunction in the nation’s heartland while leaving too many places behind.

At Brookings we have been adding to the story since the election by depicting the massive growth gaps, productivity gaps, output gaps, and technology gaps among cities that are now pulling the country apart. As Moretti has summarized, prosperity is now accumulating in a handful of cities with the “right” industries and pools of well-educated workers. By contrast, cities at the other extreme, the ones with the “wrong industries and a limited human capital base,” are stuck with dead-end jobs and low average wages. Moretti calls this divide the Great Divergence and it has now become an emergency.

The Amazon competition—which will transform at least one metropolitan area, if a smaller mid-American city wins—points up the negligence of the nation’s lack of a strategy for addressing regional inequality. All of which underscores how badly the nation needs a set of policies, or at least a general strategy, aimed at mitigating (at least partially) the damage being done by the Great Divergence. So: what might such policies or a strategy look like?

Read the full article about regional inequality and disparity in the U.S. by Mark Muro and Amy Liu at Brookings.