Since its release 10 days ago, Charles Murray's book, "Coming Apart," has placed Belmont squarely in the middle of a cultural – and now political – debate on class in America

Murray's premise is that the country's population is growing ever more apart, separating into a new upper class and a new lower class. In the book, the lower classes are represented by the Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown while Belmont is where the upper class reside. 

As Murray notes, his Belmont is actually a fictional place where assigns the demographic data for his upper class, a sort of placeholder for all the qualities that makes one wealthy.

David Haglund, the newly-hired cultural observer for the on-line magazine Slate (is he any relation to Karl, the former chairman of the the Planning Board, author and all around good guy?) contends in a column about the book that by using Belmont "the town he half-studies and half-invents in order to understand the new upper class," he does so with the knowledge that it is also the longtime hometown of ... Mitt Romney, who happens to be running for president.

"I know because I lived there, too," said Haglund, who now lives in New York City. (Wondering if he knows BHS grad and WSJ writer Jason Gay?) 

Long story short, Romney made it to Belmont not because he was wealthy but has the strong work ethic that people of his socio-economic class also have, contends Haglund.

So, Haglund wonders out loud: Is fictional Belmont like actual Belmont? Not really, he answers himself.

The demographics of "Belmont are skewed financially upward by what is, essentially, one big exception: Belmont Hill, the ritzier part of town (where the Romneys lived) ... " And while "relatively affluent," the town "is no means uniformly wealthy."

So what is your take on the issue: Is Belmont, as suggested in Charles Murray's new book, symbolic of "the new upper class"?

Vote and leave a comment. Including all you living in the "ritzier part of town."