I
got a chuckle after
the 2004 presidential elections when droves of
distraught Demos started applying for Canadian visas
rather than live four more years under the oppressive
rule of George W. Bush and the yahoos who re-elected
him. I also
took note, with some sympathy, of gay Virginia
couples who talked of decamping to a state where they are
more welcome than in a Commonwealth that
considers them a threat to
the institution of marriage.
That's
one of the consolations of living in America. Even if
you lose at the ballot box, you can still vote again --
with your feet. Moving from a hostile locale to one more
hospitable is as American as turkey on Thanksgiving. Our
forefathers have been doing it ever since the Puritans
left England, wore out their welcome in the Netherlands
and then moved to the New World.
The
difference now is that relocating has never been so
easy. Rent a U-Haul, throw in your belongings, and off
you go. No 20-percent mortality rates crossing the
Atlantic Ocean. No hostile Indians setting your wagons on
fire.
As
a result of this unprecedented mobility, the United
States is undergoing a massive re-sorting process. With
increasing frequency, people are moving to communities
where the inhabitants are of like mind. Availability of jobs, proximity
to family, cost of living and quality of life all still
influence where people settle down, but people are
looking for something else: They want a sense of shared
values and a tolerance for, if not an outright embrace
of, their way of life. If you're gay, for instance, you
undoubtedly will feel more welcome in New York City than
in Lynchburg, home to the Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Conversely, if you disapprove of sexual promiscuity, you
might feel a tad uncomfortable raising your children in
Los Angeles, center of the North American pornography
industry.
It
wasn't long ago that class divisions and ethnic
differences marked the great social cleavages in the
United States. Today, the culture wars predominate.
Cultural liberals, I would hypothesize, are
migrating to blue states where they find social
conventions, laws and institutions more to their liking,
while cultural conservatives are moving in the opposite
direction. The rate of change may be imperceptible year
to year, or even election to election, but over time, I
expect, we'll find the blue states getting bluer and the
red states getting redder.
For
sure, there are innumerable cross currents within this
broad trend. By and large, people identify most closely
with the specific communities, not the states,
where they reside, and there are blue cities within red
states, and red towns within blue states. Sometimes, the
cultural sorting process may be as simple as people
moving from one locality to another one nearby--from
Danville to Charlottesville, say, or from Fairfax to
Harrisonburg.
Indeed,
the migration may be even more finely granulated than
that: It often occurs within an MSA. Here in
Virginia, metro areas offer a surprising diversity of
cultural environments.
My
adopted home of 19 years is Richmond, renowned for its social and
cultural conservatism. But the region is not uniformly
"red." The central city of nearly 200,000
people is decidedly different from the suburban counties
surrounding it. The urban core is predominantly
African-American, and even the white people are of a
fairly liberal cast of mind. One of the city's largest
employers is Virginia Commonwealth University, a haven
for the orange-hair-and-lip-ring set, while a vibrant
advertising industry supports one of the largest
communities of commercial artists--not a very
button-down crowd--in the Southeastern U.S. Moving a few
miles in the Richmond region can make an immense
difference in one's social milieu.
Geographers
long have noted that certain demographic groups prefer
the urban environment: singles, married couples without
children and empty nesters. They value the cultural and
entertainment opportunities typically available in the
city. By contrast, families with children have very
different priorities. Parents are concerned about the
safety, education and upbringing of their children,
which, rightly or wrongly, they perceive as being easier
in suburban settings.
New
York Times columnist David Brooks set off a wave of
commentary with a column he wrote in December about the
so-called natalist movement. Birthrates are falling
across the industrialized world, from Western Europe and
Japan to many parts of the United States. People are
marrying later, and women are postponing childbirth
while they pursue their careers. But, according to
Brooks, the idea of the three- and four-child family is
making a comeback.
The
personal identity of the natalists, writes Brooks,
"is defined by parenthood. They are more
spiritually, emotionally and physically invested in
their homes than in any other sphere of life, having
concluded that parenthood is the most enriching and
elevating thing they can do."
The natalists, suggest
Brooks, shun crime, disorder and vulgarity and move to
places that are congenial to their values, typically to
small towns or the sprawling exurbs of major metro
areas. In the era of the culture wars, the natalists
tend to be conservative. And in the long run, they enjoy
one huge advantage over the cultural liberals: They
breed faster.
Steven Sailer, a writer
for the American Conservative, put it this way:
Bush
carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility
(just as he did in 2000), and 25 out of the top 26,
with highly unionized Michigan being the one blue
exception to the rule. (The least prolific red states
are West Virginia, North Dakota, and Florida.)
In
sharp contrast, Kerry won the 16 states at the bottom
of the list, with the Democrats’ anchor states of
California (1.65) and New York (1.72) having quite
infertile whites.
(See "Baby
Gap: How birthrates color the electoral map.")
If,
according to the Brooks/Sailer theory, the care and
upbringing of children is increasingly a dividing line
in the culture wars, we should be able to detect some
sign of it in the 2004 presidential election results,
which hinged largely on "values" issues here
in Virginia, as elsewhere.
Northern
Virginia is part of a predominantly liberal metropolitan
area. The Washington, D.C., core favored Kerry over Bush
by an astounding 10 to one margin (90 percent vs. nine
percent). On our side of the Potomac River, the
urbanized localities of Alexandria and Arlington County
voted strongly for Kerry, though not by quite the same
lopsided margin. It is no coincidence that those two jurisdictions have
the smallest number of children, expressed as a
percentage of their population, of all jurisdictions in
Virginia.
Northern
Virginia |
Locality
|
%
Pop. 19
or
under
|
Top
Vote
Getter
|
Victory
Margin |
Arlington |
18.2% |
Kerry |
36% |
Alexandria |
18.2% |
Kerry |
34% |
Fairfax
City |
22.6% |
Kerry |
3% |
Falls
Church |
24.8% |
Kerry |
31% |
Fairfax
County |
27.4% |
Kerry |
7% |
Loudoun |
31.4% |
Bush |
12% |
Manassas |
32.3% |
Bush |
13% |
Prince
William |
32.9% |
Bush |
6% |
Manassas
Park |
33.3% |
Bush |
9% |
Stafford |
33.9% |
Bush |
25% |
Moving
toward the metropolitan periphery, the percentage of
children in the population rises. Fairfax County, which
tracks the state average for the percentage of children,
voted narrowly for Kerry. Moving farther toward the
periphery, the jurisdictions have larger numbers of
children -- and they tended to favor Bush.
A
similar pattern can be seen in the Richmond metro area.
Richmond
Region
|
Locality
|
%
Pop. 19
or
under
|
Top
Vote
Getter
|
Victory
Margin |
Richmond |
25.6% |
Kerry |
41 |
Henrico |
26.6% |
Bush |
8 |
Hanover |
29.6% |
Bush |
43 |
Chesterfield |
31.0% |
Bush |
26 |
Once
again, the urban core (the city of Richmond) voted
heavily for Kerry. Henrico, with its aging suburbs and
smaller number of children, voted for Bush but narrowly.
Hanover and Chesterfield, where the percentage of
children is highest and the fastest growth is occurring,
favored Bush by wide margins.
The
pattern was repeated in Roanoke, Lynchburg and
Danville and, though less clear cut, in Hampton Roads. Virginia's
small towns and rural areas voted overwhelmingly for
Bush, excepting only those jurisdictions with large
African-American populations.
As
the culture wars intensify in the U.S., the migration of
households to compatible locales will sharpen the
demographic differentiation between states, between
metropolitan areas, and between sub-units of metro
areas. If my logic is correct, downstate Virginia will
take on an ever redder tint, balanced to some degree by
the phenomenal population growth of blue-leaning
Northern Virginia. As the population segregates itself
by cultural orientation, politicians will reflect those
divisions with increasingly strident rhetoric. For those
of us who wonder, "Why can't we just all get
along?", it won't
be pretty.
--
February 14, 2005
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