{"id":66111,"date":"2021-03-23T13:12:33","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T19:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=66111"},"modified":"2021-03-23T13:12:33","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T19:12:33","slug":"66111","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=66111","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Battlefield \u2018Burbs<\/a><\/p>\n

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America’s political future turns on our last contestable places.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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America\u2019s political culture has been shaped by its rural and urban environments, each of which tends to be dominated by one party. Urban Republicans are now as rare as rural Democrats.<\/p>\n

Yet the political\u00a0future<\/em>\u00a0of the country lies in the suburban and exurban rings that dominate every metropolitan region. These voters are made up predominately neither of woke city hipsters nor gun-toting rubes, the stereotypes that dominate our competing cultural memes. The suburbs are the last\u00a0contestable\u00a0<\/em>geography in the country.<\/p>\n

Since 1950, suburban population growth has expanded more than ten times faster than core cities. Overall, suburb-dwellers account for more than half the population of the country, and 90 percent of the overall population of metropolitan America. Over the past decade, they have accounted for\u00a0<\/a>well over four-fifths of all new job growth<\/a>\u00a0(and the\u00a0vast majority<\/a>\u00a0of all new patents). As one political\u00a0analyst<\/a>\u00a0put it, \u201cSuburbs are the new Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

These trends were expanding before the pandemic, but as realtors attest, Covid has\u00a0accelerated city residents\u2019 movement<\/a>\u00a0to suburbs. Manhattan and San Francisco rents have been falling some, but prices in the periphery have been rising. A new national\u00a0poll<\/a>\u00a0from the\u00a0Los Angeles Times\u00a0<\/em>and Reality Check Insights, held after the November 2020 election, found that most residents of big cities want to relocate.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0American Enterprise Institute<\/a>\u00a0has found that less dense areas are now\u00a0growing much faster<\/a>\u00a0than denser ones. Critically, millennials, once seen as drawn to urban lifestyles, were already ditching the big city before the pandemic,\u00a0notes Brookings.<\/a>\u00a0A May\u00a0Zillow survey<\/a>\u00a0suggests \u201cspace seekers\u201d are leading the charge\u2014millennials and younger Americans, according to\u00a0Gallup<\/a>\u00a0and others, who want to get married and have children, and are following\u00a0the widely dissed home preference<\/a>\u00a0patterns of their parents in order to do so.<\/p>\n

Suburbs are also becoming more reflective of the nation\u2019s ethnic diversity. In the 1960s and 1970s suburbs were considered largely white enclaves; but during the past decade, notes\u00a0Brookings\u2019 Bill Frey<\/a>, the percentage of suburbanites living in predominantly white suburbs fell from 51 percent to 39 percent.More than\u00a0a third of the 13.3 million new suburbanites<\/a>\u00a0between 2000 and 2010 were Hispanic, with whites accounting for a mere fifth of suburban growth in that same period. African Americans have been steadily moving from inner cities, where\u00a0many middle income areas have declined<\/a>\u00a0due to economic collapse, crime or, in some cases, gentrification. Today, in the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, 44 percent of residents live in racially and ethnically diverse suburbs, ranging from 20 percent to 60 percent non-white.<\/p>\n

Competitive Politics in Rural and Urban America<\/strong><\/p>\n

Besides their numerical importance in elections, suburbs are the last redoubts of competitive politics. Both rural America and the core city have become increasingly dominated by political extremes. This does not mean there are no progressives in small towns, or Republicans in big cities, but voting patterns have become more lopsided.<\/p>\n

Republicans now totally dominate the politics of small towns and rural areas. Yet as recently as 2008 Barack Obama won nearly one quarter of the\u00a0country\u2019s non-metro counties<\/a>; eight years later, Hillary Clinton won barely ten percent. Last year, rural and small-town voters supported Donald Trump by a remarkable 47 percentage points, well above the 30 percent margin for John McCain eight years earlier. Pockets of past rural liberal populism, like\u00a0Montana<\/a>\u00a0and North Dakota, are becoming crimson red. The biggest\u00a0exception<\/a>s are found in \u201camenity\u201d areas, such as Vermont, that draw on metropolitan refugees. Sixty of the seventy most rural districts nationwide are represented by Republicans.<\/p>\n

Cities, largely devoid of Republicans, have undergone an equally thorough transformation. Less than three decades ago the nation\u2019s two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, were governed by Republicans while Houston, Philadelphia, and Denver were run by business-oriented Democrats. Now big cities are dominated increasingly by left wing progressives. They produce few Republican elected officials and vanishingly few congresspeople. By\u00a0one recent account<\/a>, only one of the 34 most urban Congressional districts is represented by a Republican.<\/p>\n

On the Presidential level, lockstep voting approaches Soviet levels. In 1984, for example, Ronald Reagan garnered 31 percent of the vote in San Francisco, while\u00a0winning<\/a>\u00a027.4 percent in Manhattan and over 38 percent in Brooklyn. By 2012, Mitt Romney, a more moderate Republican,\u00a0won<\/a>\u00a0barely 13 percent of the vote in San Francisco, and he garnered\u00a0less than half<\/a>\u00a0of Reagan\u2019s share 28 years earlier in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Donald Trump did even worse in all these areas, winning\u00a0barely ten percent<\/a>\u00a0of San Francisco and Manhattan, and\u00a0barely 18 percent in Brooklyn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Last Ideological Battlefield<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Given the shift in cities and rural areas, national electoral victory can only be had by winning in the suburbs, where even a percentage point or two can make or break a candidate. Bill Clinton<\/a>\u2019s success was in large part due to his appeal in key suburban areas, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, that had previously supported Ronald Reagan. In 2008, with many suburban mortgages underwater from the financial crisis,\u00a0Barack Obama<\/a>\u00a0won the suburban vote, and the election.<\/p>\n

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In 2016 the suburbs turned, as rising discontent and a flattening economy helped Trump outpoll Hillary Clinton among suburban voters\u00a0by four points<\/a>,\u00a0two points<\/a>\u00a0better than Romney four earlier. But\u00a0in 2018<\/a>, suburban voters, reacting to\u00a0Trump\u2019s erratic behavior<\/a>, shifted again, with 52 percent favoring the Democrats. Some 38 out of the 41 districts taken from Republicans that year were\u00a0suburban<\/a>. Two years later, the suburbs\u00a0slightly favored Biden<\/a>, providing a key margin in swing states.<\/p>\n

Biden consciously targeted, notes Democratic pollster\u00a0Stan Greenberg<\/a>, suburban and exurban voters, including those deemed \u201cBiden Republicans.\u201d However, it is hard to derive trends from these numbers. In 2020, Trump Republicans running for Congress did\u00a0surprisingly well<\/a>\u00a0in the suburbs, even those won by Biden at the top of the ticket.<\/p>\n

Suburbia\u2019s Political Divide<\/strong><\/p>\n

The question national candidates face is determining what suburban voters want and how to reach them. One view, adopted by pollsters working with\u00a0Bloomberg<\/a>, holds that suburban voters are just as partisan as their city and country counterparts, but the mix of red and blue voters is more evenly distributed.<\/p>\n

A more nuanced picture comes from the work of Sarah Lawrence pollster Sam Abrams, who finds suburbanites somewhat more moderate than other demographics. AEI\u2019s \u201cSurvey on Community and Society<\/a>\u201d\u00a0shows that 21 percent of suburbanites maintain that they are \u201cextremely\u201d or \u201cvery\u201d liberal, and 16 percent are \u201cvery\u201d or \u201cextremely\u201d conservative, meaning that 63 percent of suburbanites are not part of either ideological extreme.<\/p>\n

These patterns persist across age groups. Roughly one-quarter of 18 to 29-year-olds in the suburbs declare themselves liberal, with 9 percent conservative; thus, roughly two in three are either moderate or have no stated ideology. As for suburbanites 60 and older, 14 percent are liberal and 20 percent are conservative\u2014but these differences are dwarfed by the 66 percent who are not on the extremes. Clearly, the suburbs remain ideologically diverse, and thus\u00a0will remain\u00a0up for grabs politically<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Changing Demography<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some democrats think that as\u00a0millennials<\/a>\u00a0and minorities come to dominate suburbs, they will come to resemble cities in their voting patterns. And to be sure, many suburban voters do not react as well as their country cousins to Trumpism\u2019s xenophobic tinge. His perceived nativism was widely associated with 2018\u00a0Republican losses<\/a>\u00a0in places like\u00a0northern Virginia,\u00a0<\/a>Orange County, California, which is\u00a0over half Hispanic and Asian<\/a>, or the diverse Texas suburbs such as Fort Bend County outside Houston.<\/p>\n

But Democratic manifest destiny is far from assured. Last year, some suburban districts shifted back to the GOP. Some of this may reflect a reaction to the disorders following the death of George Floyd, calls for \u201cdefunding the police,\u201d and reduced enforcement of property and other crimes. In places like formerly red Orange County, Biden won by\u00a0a decisive margin<\/a>, 53 to 44, but voters also unseated two Democrats by Asian Republicans.<\/p>\n

The increasing diversity of suburbs could prove a two-edged sword for Democrats. In 2020 Trump, whom they routinely characterized as a white nationalist, won a growing share of\u00a0Latino voters<\/a>\u00a0and other minorities, as did\u00a0Republican candidates<\/a>\u00a0down ticket. It turns out that many non-white suburbanites are more culturally and economically conservative than their age or skin color might suggest to progressive ideologues. In now-purple Orange County, many of the same voters who backed Biden rejected a measure to raise property taxes on businesses by\u00a0roughly 20 points\u00a0<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most critical, however, may have been the Asian reaction to a proposed measure to reinstate racial preferences for schools and jobs, which heavily Asian Orange County voted against\u00a0nearly two-to-one<\/a>, despite near unanimous support by\u00a0Democratic officeholders<\/a>\u00a0and members of\u00a0the progressive gentry<\/a>. The measure did poorly elsewhere, trailing also in the\u00a0fastest growing parts<\/a>\u00a0of the state, and was\u00a0crushed<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0the heavily Hispanic Inland Empire and the Central Valley<\/a>, as well as in the\u00a0outer suburbs\u00a0<\/a>of the Bay Area.<\/p>\n

A Suburban Agenda<\/strong><\/p>\n

What neither party has developed is an agenda to win the suburbs, beyond appealing to voter fears about immigration, white nationalists, or crime. Part of the problem is structural: though suburbs vastly outnumber the residents of traditional cities, there is no suburban equivalent to the National Council of Mayors and virtually all major media outlets\u2014television, print, periodical\u2014reflect a distinctly big-city worldview, primarily that of New York and Washington. Hollywood, now a primary generator of woke values, remains ensconced in Los Angeles, while the tech oligarchy has clustered around ultra-liberal Seattle and San Francisco.<\/p>\n

Suburbanites can be very liberal on issues such as guns or environmental concerns, but they also desire to preserve their way of life. Safety is a key appeal of suburbs\u2014big cities still have by far\u00a0the highest crime rates<\/a>\u2014and most have experienced\u00a0a sharp uptick<\/a>\u00a0over the past year.<\/p>\n

Over the coming months, Biden\u2019s environmental focus could appeal to some suburban voters, many of whom are passionate about preserving\u00a0open space<\/a>. But he may also be plagued by his apparent willingness to adopt the left-agenda demanded by his core urban constituency. During\u00a0Obama\u2019s second term,\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0the Department of Housing and Urban Development suggested imposing residential density and low-income housing on suburbs, even without any evidence of real discrimination. Progressives in\u00a0California<\/a>,\u00a0Oregon<\/a>, and\u00a0Minnesota<\/a>\u00a0have all pushed bans on single family zoning, which many on\u00a0the progressive left\u00a0<\/a>regularly attack\u00a0as racist and unecological<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Much of the media, as well as the planning and academic clerisy, has little appreciation for what drives suburban migration\u2014factors like greater affordability, more space,\u00a0better schools<\/a>, or\u00a0less crime<\/a>. Even suburbanites who may be somewhat \u201cwoke\u201d on issues of the environment, race, or gender, still have economic and family interests, and prefer to control their own communities. A\u00a0recent Rasmussen poll<\/a>\u00a0found that close to 80 percent of adult Americans oppose the idea of letting Washington control local zoning.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the drive for\u00a0forced density<\/a>, notes\u00a0Mother Jones\u2019<\/em>\u00a0Kevin Drum<\/a>, could prove \u201cpolitical suicide\u201d for the Democrats. \u201cThe whole point of living in the suburbs is that\u00a0it\u2019s not the big city,\u201c he suggests. \u201c<\/em>This means that trying to convince suburbanites to become more like big cities is simply hopeless. They will fight you in the streets, fight you in the fields, fight you on the beaches, etc. They will never surrender.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, the suburban interest must be served by its political masters, or they will overturn them, as they have done for generations, with little regard to ideology or party affiliation. Democrats who seek to undermine this way of life could pay dearly in 2022. A smart political party cannot win over time if it seeks to engineer society contrary to the way most Americans prefer to live and where the political fate of the nation will ultimately be decided.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Battlefield \u2018Burbs America’s political future turns on our last contestable places. America\u2019s political culture has been shaped by its rural and urban environments, each of which tends to be dominated by one party. Urban Republicans are now as rare as rural Democrats. Yet the political\u00a0future\u00a0of the country lies in the suburban and exurban rings that … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66112,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66111\/revisions\/66112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}