Not so simple question
I’m not judging nor am I saying one is right or one is wrong. But, why is it that larger urban population areas and big cities tend to be blue/liberal/Democrat (pick you label) and sparsely populated rural areas tend to be red/conservative/Republican? Seriously, I want to know
May 5th, 2006 at 12:50 am
ooooh. This is a very delicate question to answer. Obviously it comes down to demographics. While I do not have links to back this up, I am convinced it has alot to do with doing things for yourself or having things done/decided for you. In the rural areas you have alot more say in how things are done that relate to you and the area you live in. In the cities that is not the case. You are bound by the too numerous to list laws and regs. So it basically comes down to this, do you do it your way or have it done to/for you? I think that it fall along these lines more times than not by a large margin.
YMMV
May 5th, 2006 at 1:32 am
Actually, I think it is pretty simple. Urban areas are those that are most benefitted by communal social policies that are generally favored by Democrats and generally opposed by Republicans (for example, mass transit). While I’ve seen studies that show most rural areas receive more benefits in the form of government spending than they pay in taxes, the benefits they receive aren’t as obvious or immediately apparent. (The rural poor, for example, would be the group hardest hit by the death of social security.) Further, rural areas tend to be far less diverse than urban areas, so there’s less direct exposure to people whose race, religion, or heritage isn’t like yours.
Because of the population density of urban areas, you have to learn to get along with those who are different from you, and you have to learn to compromise, and you have to learn to work together. That, or you leave, and flee to the red suburbs. 🙂
I’d bet that the urban/rural divide is probably an even more accurate than the rich/poor divide in determining whether someone is apt to be Democrat or Republican.
May 5th, 2006 at 1:33 am
My own theory is its issue-by-issue, which ultimately make urban dwellers more “liberal” and rural people more “conservative”….
for instance, urban areas tend to be less religious than rural areas. I think that it has partially to do with rural areas tending to have social lives directed around the local church, while in urban areas there is other stuff to do.
On gun control, urban dwellers see guns as something murderers own, while rural dwellers see it as something they might use every day. Protecting yourself is more of an issue in rural areas, while urban dwellers have a more reasonable expectation that a 911 call will yield a police response quickly. (For that matter rural democrats tend to more anti-gun control while urban Republicans tend to be more pro-gun control than the regular views of their respective parties).
Urban centers tend to attract more homeless people. I think that when urban dwellers see the homeless, they want the government to help them. Rural dwellers don’t see homeless people every day and thus have less attachment to their needs.
On things like affirmative action and racial harmony, urban dwellers tend to know more people of other races while sparsely populated areas tend to have fewer non-whites. Illegal immigration…again your more likely to know an illegal immigrant living in a large city than in a sparely populated area.
I know someone is going to bring up the cannard about self sufficiency in rural areas, while urbanites want to rely on the government. Well give that up. Rural voters don’t seem to object to various farm bills and agricultural subsidies that exist.
May 5th, 2006 at 3:12 am
Grew up in NYC. It is fundamentally very different to live in the city or the suburbs or country and honestly too much to cover in one post.
Cities are so crowded that no one knows anyone else. It is almost inconceivable that you are not within walking distance of thieves, rapists and serial murderers. People tune out everything and turn a blind eye to wrongdoing. Out here in semi-rural florida, I know almost all my neighbors and can recognize them easily. If I saw one of them being attacked, I would almost immediately come to their aid.
The higher population density of cities also makes it a lot easier to realize economies of scale with a lot more types of activities, many of which are harmful.
-Crime is one. You could probably mug a person every night for 100 years and not victimize 1 percent of the population in your entire life. Victims are plentiful and anonymity is tough to crack.
-Taxation and political organization of government workers is another. A sparsely populated area cant support thousands of police officers and social workers. A small sheriff’s department might cause occaisional trouble, but not the sort of lasting trouble that several thousand officers can by becoming a self-interested and influential political institution. Multiply that across all of the local government and you have enormous momentum for the encouragement of government dependency and the raising of taxes.
I’m tired, I’ll come up with more tomorrow. I think it comes down to the effects of population density and probably little else.
May 5th, 2006 at 8:28 am
The more rural an area you live in, the more self-reliance is possible and necessary. If the fire department or police station is 20 miles away and you have a fire/burglar, you deal with it on your own. And, if your neighbor has a problem, you help him.
On the other hand, in a city, it’s easy to convince yourself that the police station which is now a few blocks away will save you. Or the fire station a few blocks away will put out your fires. Also, when you live in an apartment building with a hundred other people, not only can you convince yourself that the fire department will put out your fires, but that the fire department will put out the other people in your building’s fires. In a city, you’re more affected by the actions of others, (some idiot leaves a cigarette buring as he falls asleep is now a threat to everyone in the building, not just the idiot and his family) so busy-bodies gain more traction. In a city like NYC, the only open space you’ll go to is publicly owned (like Central Park–not granpa’s farm or your buddy’s house with the X acres out back), trash tends to be picked up by the city for efficiency reasons–and do you really want your neighbor storing two weeks’ worth of trash by the curb before he finally drives it to the dump? So, on a thousand little issues, communal solutions win out over individual ones, the net effect being less self-reliance and more statism. As beerslurpy said, I think it comes down to higher order effects of population density. Hmm… thinking with my fingers… I’ve got data on the population density by county from a project for work, I assume I can find the voting results by county for the ’04 election (unless someone suggests a better dataset), I think I’ll try to line them up and run a regression analysis… I’ll post my results if’n I get my behind in gear today. Darn that “work” thing.
May 5th, 2006 at 8:29 am
just so no one gets disappointed…
It’s partially the self-reliance/dependence thing, but I think that’s a sympton more than a cause. (which i thought sounded like a much nicer refuation that “canard my ass – we dont’ even have those virds around here!” 😀 )
enviromentally &/or culturally the folks living with fewer people around tend to favor individualism, whereas those growing up in crowded areas tend to favor collectivism. & as long as dems appear to be the party in favor of collectivism & repubs appear to be the party in favor of individualism then city folks will vote dem & us redencks will tend towards republicans.
So I submit than when everything is broken down to its simplest form that the answer to Unc’s question is that individualism is the tendency in rural areas & collectivism is the tendency in urban areas & people tend to vote along their own respective tendencies. It’s a generality & there are exceptions but I think it’s the most logical explanation.
May 5th, 2006 at 9:32 am
I’ve always felt that the people that are willing to compromise on privacy, security and personal responsibility by living in dense communities tend to be left-leaning.
The rest of us have no option other than to escape from the cities to find space, peace and quiet and an ability to exercise some responsibility over our lives.
The fact that the policies of the main two parties follow these basic choices is reflected in the geographical nature of the vote.
May 5th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Not much to add, really. Lots of good points here.
I’d say living in the country forces a person to become more self-reliant. I learned that the hard way after a tree blew over in my yard this past weekend. No one’s coming to get it. I’m out there with my newly purchased chainsaw, whittling it down so I can haul it off to the back of my lot.
Dang, I miss city life. =P
May 5th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
I agree with Publicola. Freedom of movement is quite easy in our society. If you want to live in the city, you have no problem getting into the city. If you want out, there is no problem getting out. That means that people self-select into the type of environment they like.
The Blue areas are that way because those people tend to like having the state omnipresent and ubiquitous, so they move to where that is the case. People in Red areas are there because they prefer the opposite.
May 5th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Yeah, I would agree that it’s largely cultural: Individualism v. collectivism.
Grew up in a small town, only live in the city (actually I live as far from the city as is reasonable) because statistician’s jobs are not exactly a rural occupation, and will retire to an even smaller city than I grew up in.
May 5th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
The notion that city-dwellers seek collectivism is simply wrong. Most of us who live in the city seek the cultural, lifestyle and financial benefits of high population density and diversity. We value independence, and we didn’t move to the city because we love the nanny state.
Some of the interdependence of city life is a necessary cost of city living. Some of it is local politicians getting out of control. Some of it is just stupidity. But few people choose to live in the city because they want high taxes and oppressive laws.
Similarly, people don’t move to the sticks because they value monoculture and hate museums.
May 5th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
I agree with BH that the individualism/collectivism thing is far too simplistic. For example, look at how urban dwellers tend to view individual decisions about whether/when/with whom to have sex, versus rural views on those same issues, and you’ll find the rurals to be a lot less individualistic.
Then again, it could be that there’s a second dimension here, with individualism/collectivism on one axis, and conformism vs. non-conformism on the other.
May 5th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
“Similarly, people don’t move to the sticks because they value monoculture and hate museums.”
No they move there because of low crime, low pollution, better life style and so on. Of course i do love moncultures and hate musems, but that is besides the point.
I think all of you are also wrong….I belive it has somthing to do with the sea water. Look at the places closest to the sea and they are all blue. Ok, a land locked state is nice and red.
It could be tidal magnitism affecting peoples brian waves, if you want a little science with your beliefs.
Recently it was found that cell phones affect the brian patterns of pepole, so i don’t see any reason why tidal magnetism could not affect peoples brains
May 5th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
I’m a failure. My google fu skills are sorely lacking. I couldn’t find the data for the 04 election by county in one big file (and I really don’t care enough to enter the data from the USA Today site one county at a time for all 3000-odd counties). So, some other time, maybe.
May 6th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Lots of good comments here. One myth I want to pick at, though, is that the diversity of cities allows for more individualism. That may have been true once, but now cities have their own monoculture. It doesn’t take much more than a look at voting records to dispel that. In a “red state” rural area, you have no idea who your neighbor voted for unless he tells you; in a city, your neighbor voted for the Democrat or is a misfit.
This myth is made plausible to urban dwellers by a couple of facts: that urban culture different from the largely imaginary “Happy Days” red-state monoculture, and that there are a lot of skin colors present. These red herrings enable people to believe that being the same as their friends is being individualistic or rebelling against conformity. The red-state monoculture just isn’t there outside of the minds of Hollywood types who think we all mow our lawns in unison.
In my rural-turning-suburban neighborhood, for example, our only purveyors of conformity were my rich, white, rigidly Democratic neigbors who tried to get the rest of us to conform to their ideas of landscape maintenance and really didn’t like my pro-Bush 4’x8′ hand-painted pro-Bush yard sign up before the 2004 elections. Nice enough people as long as you hide your differences. Nobody else seems to mind anything; they didn’t mind my yard sign, they don’t mind the farmer down the road with his “Vote Democrat” stenciled stake truck at the roadside, they don’t mind my other neighbor’s armored personnel carrier or front-yard tractor repair and resale operation or succession of girlfriends, they don’t mind the various churches or the Buddhist temple or the topless bar. Out here I don’t have to worry about what people think, and that’s why I moved out here. (From a blue suburb in NJ).
(The conformist Democrat neighbors have since moved to a retirement community where they should get more of the sameness they wanted.)