Aleks Jakulin writes: “When one allows people to settle where similar people live, the geography is going to mirror these clusters, and political opinions will be increasingly geographically clustered. In particular, observe how blue are the urban centers. While this picture might be of the USA, the same pattern also appears in Europe.”
February 22nd, 2007 at 10:07 pm
I’m concerned about this viewpoint. It seems similar to David Brooks’ idea that people self-interestedly move to places where they maximize their chance that they’ll be near others exactly like them. This of course occurs. But it cannot be the only effect. Conversely, it seems equally possible that people move to cities expressly to be amongst strangeness and difference, and to allow oneself to immerse oneself in it. As Rebecca Solnit writes in her wonderful history of walking _Wanderlust_, “This uncharted identity, with its illimitable possibilities is one of the distintive qualities of urban living, a liberatory state for those who come to emancipate themselves from family and community expectation, to experiment with subculture and identity.” Furthermore, couldn’t this experimentation with subculture and identity that so characterizes urban living in part account for urban political “blueness”? Instead of liberal people just flocking to (sorting into) cities, might the social ecology of cities actually create “blue” citizens? Solnit addresses this I think, when she cites Virginia Woolf writing about the effect of walking in cities: “‘As we step out of the house on a fine evening between four and six, we shed the self our friends know us by and become part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers, whose society is so agreeable after the solitude of one’s room. Into each of these lives one could penetrate a little way, far enough to give the illusion that one is not tethered to a single mind, but can put on briefly for a few minutes the bodies and minds of others. One could become a washerwoman, a publican, a street singer.’ In this anonymous state, ‘the shell-like covering which our souls have excreted for themselves, to make for themselves a shape distinct from others, is broken, and there is left of all these wrinkles and roughnesses a central oyster of perceptiveness, an enormous eye….’” Empathy, tolerance, understanding. At this point more “blue” traits than “red”. And arguably, more characteristically urban.
February 22nd, 2007 at 10:26 pm
There is also a correlation between the blue zones and high crime rates. The crime is higher in those markedly blue cities not in raw numbers but as a percentage of population. The higher the blue, the higher the crime rates. DO you have any explanation or postulation here? Is it ‘family values’ as some on the right would say?
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:17 am
You might want to check that data again. Every statistic I’ve seen as of late essentially says the exact opposite. The states with the highest crime rates, higherst murder rates, lowest educational attainment, highest divorce rates, highest teenage pregnancy rates, highest rates of STD attainment, lowest life expectancy, etc etc etc, are all “red” states, especially those located in the deep south. Some family values. Looking internationally, the countries that are the most atheistic, like Scandinavia, Canada, etc have the lowest crime, murder, and do the best on these various social indicators. The US, does way worse, and is off the scale in terms of religiousity. So much for morality. That said, cities are harder places to live, and some of the subcultures I wrote about above will be criminal subcultures. But the extent to which they are harder to live in also makes them what they are, especially relative to sparse, rural, red areas.
February 23rd, 2007 at 9:15 am
Dave – Ed Glaeser has a simple explanation. He says density in cities promotes information exchange and innovation and also when combined with economic inequality facilitates crime. I defer to Brian on the statistics.
February 23rd, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Brian–Thanks for the post about Solnit and walking. I posted the map, well as a map. But, you’ve identified something quite powerful. I think you are right. It’s not just sorting at all. Living among different kinds of people, living in a place that has energy, changes one, opens up the mind. I recall what a phone-in caller from central Indiana mentioned to me about his sons. He was an immigrant and both his boys had gone to Purdue. They had good job offers locally, but moves to San Francisco and Seattle respectively. He couldn’t understand why at first. That is until he went to visit them. He could “feel” the difference, as soon as e stepped out their front doors. The people, the sights, the sounds, the energy, the stimulation. It changed them and made them better. I never really understood that until I read your post. Thanks.
February 26th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
These tilted maps confuse me in general, but this one in particular. Whatever it’s measuring seems to give lots of weight to LA, very little to San Francisco, Portland is a high point and Seattle is flat. What am I missing?
Having said that and hoping that someone can enlighten me, I think that it’s possible to be insular wherever you are. New Yorkers are notoriously provincial — they’ll say “only in New York” about behavior you can find in any city. I suspect it has to do with the walking, the stepping out the front door. If you’re stuck in routine and fear you don’t go out. But once you do, cities have much more variety to offer than small towns.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
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