Akademik

(eye.dee.AWP.uh.lis, id.ee-)

n.

A postindustrial metropolitan area dominated by knowledge-based industries and institutions, such as universities and research hospitals.

The Democratic vote is anchored in postindustrial metropolises, or "ideopolises." Because postindustrial society is not organized around a rigid separation between city and suburb, these ideopolises comprise entire metropolitan areas, not merely central cities. Some ideopolises contain significant manufacturing facilities — as in Silicon Valley or Colorado's Boulder area — but it is the kind of manufacturing (whether of pharmaceuticals or semiconductors) that relies on the application of complex ideas to physical objects.

— John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, "Majority Rules," The New Republic, August 5, 2002

Ruy Teixeira, the co-author of a forthcoming book on the emerging Democratic majority, points out that they do well among two increasingly important social groups: professionals and racial minorities. In the early 1970s, minorities comprised just 10% of the American electorate. Now the figure is closer to 20%. Mr Teixeira points out that the Democrats also dominate the country's "ideopolises": the noisy urban melting pots that shape the country's culture. A few years ago the Republicans had a stranglehold on Florida. Now, thanks largely to the growing number of professionals, non-Cuban immigrants and ideopolis-dwellers, the state is up for grabs.

— "Don't drop the dead donkey," The Economist, April 13, 2002

Lear elaborates on this existential belonging and separateness. Steeped in Greek thought, he refers to the shared world as our polis, and the inner world as our ideopolis.

— Marianne H Eckardt, "Psychoanalysis — myth and science," American Journal of Psychoanalysis, September 1, 2000

Today's word means, literally, "idea city," and it was coined by John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, the authors of the example citation. It also appears in their book titled The Emerging Democratic Majority, published in August. It hasn't taken long to catch on, though, because I found over a dozen citations that use ideopolis without referring to Judis and Teixeira or their book.