An interesting bit on the polarization of America

[lpetrich]

Distance and Density, Not Just Demographics, Affect Urban-Rural Vote - The Daily Yonder
Median city-center distances and population densities:

• D: 12 mi - 1,197/mi^2
• I: 17 mi - 738/mi^2
• R: 20 mi - 585/mi^2

I = Independent

Distance limits interaction. Urban and rural populations differ, in large part, because the populations do not mingle with each other regularly. Population concentration is thought to have a substantive impact on the psychological individualism of populations.

The more populous a place is, the more people act in a reserved and indifferent manner toward one another, largely out of the need to limit the burden of getting to know large numbers of people. There is certainly liberation of expression in urban settings, explaining why they are havens of eccentricity and new ideas, but the cost appears to be loneliness and disorder. People don’t know their neighbors, and don’t much care. Conversely, relationships in rural areas have greater depth, and the neighbors care, but conformity pressures weigh more heavily, limiting freedom of expression.

 

[lpetrich]

Wilkinson-Density-Divide-Final.pdf

The Density Divide: Urbanization, Polarization, and Populist Backlash

Will Wilkinson, Vice President for Research, Niskanen Center
June 2019

Executive Summary
► Urbanization sorts populations on attributes—ethnicity, personality, and education—that make individuals more or less responsive to the incentives to move toward cities.
► Self-selected migration has segregated the national population and concentrated economic production into megacities, driving a polarizing wedge between dense diverse populations and sparse white populations—the “density divide.”
► The filtering/sorting dynamic of urbanization has produced a lower-density, mainly white population that is increasingly uniform in socially conservative personality, aversion to diversity, relative disclination to migrate and seek higher education, and Republican Party loyalty.
► Related urban-rural economic divergence has put many lower-density areas in dire straits, activating a zero-sum, ethnocentric mindset receptive to scapegoating populist rhetoric about the threat of “un-American” immigrants, minorities, and liberal elites who dwell in relatively prosperous multicultural cities.
► The low-density bias of our electoral system enabled Trump to win with majority support in areas that produce just 1/3 of GDP and contain less than 1/2 the population.

 Urbanization in the United States - nearly every state has become more urbanized over the last century, some more than others. So the growth of states like Texas and Colorado is from people moving to cities in those states from cities in California and New York State. That's affected their politics, making them purplish, from purple-red Texas to purple-blue Colorado.

 

[skepticalbip]

The OP makes it sound like the migration is a political decision. People relocate to find better living conditions such as job opportunity, lower taxes, less regulation so better business climate, more personal freedom, lower cost of living, etc.. It just happens that states that have been run by politicians from the right have created conditions that are better for those looking for those things. Politicians from the left that have been running states like more regulations and ever more taxes so have created conditions that those migrating from those states find less satisfactory.

In effect, people moving to where governments give big handouts to businesses and automatically take the sides of business managements in labor-management disputes, because the only real freedom is the freedom of business managements to do whatever they want regardless of the consequences to anyone and anything else.

That looks like an anti-business tirade with no understanding that "business friendly" doesn't mean no regulation. "Business friendly" means reasonable regulation. Without businesses we all become subsistence farmers or hunter-gatherers.

Except that the picture is rather different.

2020 Census shows U.S. population grew at slowest pace in history - Washington Post

Here Are the States Americans Don’t Want to Live Anymore in 2022 – Zippia

Although right-wingers gloat about people moving from places like California to places like Texas, which states people move to and which states people move from is a more complicated story. Two states with a lot of people moving away are West Virginia and Mississippi, and those states are supposed to be capitalist utopias.

You missed the job opportunities as one reason people move.

There are also some blue states that are being moved into, like Washington and Oregon, and purple states like Nevada and Colorado.

And most of the people moving to Washington and Oregon are because those states have lower taxes, less regulation, and lower cost of living than California that they are moving away from.

 

[lpetrich]

Although right-wingers gloat about people moving from places like California to places like Texas, which states people move to and which states people move from is a more complicated story. Two states with a lot of people moving away are West Virginia and Mississippi, and those states are supposed to be capitalist utopias.

You missed the job opportunities as one reason people move.

Which begs the question of why there aren't a lot of job opportunities in those two states. By skepticalbip's arguments, those ought to be the perfect places to start businesses -- governments bending over backwards to subsidize their relocation to those states, and other stuff that skepticalbip likes.

West Virginia's environmental troubles ought to be a good indicator of how pro-business that state's gov't is. Like this: West Virginia under toxic threat from highest industrial selenium pollution levels in the country | Energy and Environment | wvgazettemail.com

I looked at Quora as to why people are moving out of California. It's mainly property values and traffic. CA is crowded, and that makes property *expensive*. Surrounding states are not as developed, and that makes them cheaper.

 

[skepticalbip]

Although right-wingers gloat about people moving from places like California to places like Texas, which states people move to and which states people move from is a more complicated story. Two states with a lot of people moving away are West Virginia and Mississippi, and those states are supposed to be capitalist utopias.

You missed the job opportunities as one reason people move.

Which begs the question of why there aren't a lot of job opportunities in those two states. By skepticalbip's arguments, those ought to be the perfect places to start businesses -- governments bending over backwards to subsidize their relocation to those states, and other stuff that skepticalbip likes.

Decisions of where to base a business has a hell of a lot of considerations. An area with "business friendly" regulations is only one. There is also such considerations as logistics. As an example; Amazon had planned to open a headquarters facility in Queens, N.Y. primarily because of logistics. However the anti-business furor made that location untenable so instead they located the headquarters in Virginia. The N.Y. anti-business environment meant that the 25,000 jobs that would have gone to N.Y. citizens went to Virginia citizens instead.

 

[thebeave]

Although right-wingers gloat about people moving from places like California to places like Texas, which states people move to and which states people move from is a more complicated story. Two states with a lot of people moving away are West Virginia and Mississippi, and those states are supposed to be capitalist utopias.

You missed the job opportunities as one reason people move.

Which begs the question of why there aren't a lot of job opportunities in those two states. By skepticalbip's arguments, those ought to be the perfect places to start businesses -- governments bending over backwards to subsidize their relocation to those states, and other stuff that skepticalbip likes.

Decisions of where to base a business has a hell of a lot of considerations. An area with "business friendly" regulations is only one. There is also such considerations as logistics. As an example; Amazon had planned to open a headquarters facility in Queens, N.Y. primarily because of logistics. However the anti-business furor made that location untenable so instead they located the headquarters in Virginia. The N.Y. anti-business environment meant that the 25,000 jobs that would have gone to N.Y. citizens went to Virginia citizens instead.

I see what you did there. Nice little burn directed at his GF. Well done, sir.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah, that book is on my to-read list.

If you read it in the somewhat near future, it would be nice to get your impression of it.

I have read part of it--the basic idea seems to be our increased mobility means people are moving to places with people like them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Although right-wingers gloat about people moving from places like California to places like Texas, which states people move to and which states people move from is a more complicated story. Two states with a lot of people moving away are West Virginia and Mississippi, and those states are supposed to be capitalist utopias.

You missed the job opportunities as one reason people move.

Which begs the question of why there aren't a lot of job opportunities in those two states. By skepticalbip's arguments, those ought to be the perfect places to start businesses -- governments bending over backwards to subsidize their relocation to those states, and other stuff that skepticalbip likes.

Decisions of where to base a business has a hell of a lot of considerations. An area with "business friendly" regulations is only one. There is also such considerations as logistics. As an example; Amazon had planned to open a headquarters facility in Queens, N.Y. primarily because of logistics. However the anti-business furor made that location untenable so instead they located the headquarters in Virginia. The N.Y. anti-business environment meant that the 25,000 jobs that would have gone to N.Y. citizens went to Virginia citizens instead.

NY Anti-Business environment? You mean the city that is effectively the Business Capital of Earth? The place with so many jobs, people will commute hours to work there?

Being against Amazon isn't being Anti-Business... it is recognizing that Amazon is far from a workplace Utopia and there are an endless list of complaints about them. They ain't Google.

 

[Swammerdami]

My sister and her husband loved the Nevada City/Grass Valley region of California, once considered a retirement mecca. They are now eager to move — and will when financing etc. fall into place — for one reason: the region is now drenched in bigoted Trump supporters.

Key West, New Orleans, Savannah, etc. (all "southern redneck" areas) have been havens for the gay community since at least the 1960s and likely much earlier.

Didn't check the other two, but New Orleans is a firm stronghold of the Democratic Party.

 

[Politesse]

My sister and her husband loved the Nevada City/Grass Valley region of California, once considered a retirement mecca. They are now eager to move — and will when financing etc. fall into place — for one reason: the region is now drenched in bigoted Trump supporters.

Key West, New Orleans, Savannah, etc. (all "southern redneck" areas) have been havens for the gay community since at least the 1960s and likely much earlier.

Didn't check the other two, but New Orleans is a firm stronghold of the Democratic Party.

Key West is famously an island of refuge among the otherwise bigoted Keys and Florida generally. One of the first true "gay travel destinations" in the country. Locals jokingly call it Unflorida for its lack of resemblance to the rest of the state, and strong Caribbean cultural vibes.

Savannah began its life as an experiment in alternative community-building by its philanthropist founder, and is home to the Savannah College of Art and Design, among other things known as a mecca for the underground comics scene in the US. Liberal as Georgia gets.

Wonderful places, both. Liberalism and inclusion build paradises.

 

[skepticalbip]

My sister and her husband loved the Nevada City/Grass Valley region of California, once considered a retirement mecca. They are now eager to move — and will when financing etc. fall into place — for one reason: the region is now drenched in bigoted Trump supporters.

Key West, New Orleans, Savannah, etc. (all "southern redneck" areas) have been havens for the gay community since at least the 1960s and likely much earlier.

Didn't check the other two, but New Orleans is a firm stronghold of the Democratic Party.

It isn't a matter of Dem/Rep divide? There are many straight Democrats and many gay Republicans. It is about areas where people accept "classic liberalism" as opposed to what is called "liberal" in today's politics. "Classical liberals" accept people as individuals, equals with equal civil liberties. Today's "liberals" have moved away from seeing people as individuals and toward dividing people into groups then stereotyping the group and judging anyone they have assigned to the group by that stereotype.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

My sister and her husband loved the Nevada City/Grass Valley region of California, once considered a retirement mecca. They are now eager to move — and will when financing etc. fall into place — for one reason: the region is now drenched in bigoted Trump supporters.

Key West, New Orleans, Savannah, etc. (all "southern redneck" areas) have been havens for the gay community since at least the 1960s and likely much earlier.

Didn't check the other two, but New Orleans is a firm stronghold of the Democratic Party.

It isn't a matter of Dem/Rep divide? There are many straight Democrats and many gay Republicans. It is about areas where people accept "classic liberalism" as opposed to what is called "liberal" in today's politics. "Classical liberals" accept people as individuals, equals with equal civil liberties.

And solid supporters of separate but equal.

Today's "liberals" have moved away from seeing people as individuals and toward dividing people into groups then stereotyping the group and judging anyone they have assigned to the group by that stereotype.

"Classic liberal" guilty of what they are accusing "liberals" of doing.