I've certainly posted about it before, but I still doubt most people recognize how big a deal urbanization is, economically and politically, around the world but also in the U.S.
For instance, consider the complexity and difficulty of being the Governor of Nevada (pop. 3 million), Kansas (2.9 million), New Mexico (2 million), Nebraska (1.9 million), Idaho (1.7 million), North and South Dakota (1.7 million, combined), Wyoming (586,000), versus the job of being Mayor of New York City (8.6 million - 24 million in the metro area), Los Angeles (4 million - 18.7 million in the metro area), Chicago (2.7 million - 9.4 million in the metro area), Houston, (2.3 million - 6.5 million in the metro area), Philadelphia (1.6 million - 6 million metro), Phoenix (1.6 million - 4.2 million metro), San Antonio (1.5 million - 2.2 metro), or San Diego (1.4 million - 3.1 million metro).
So any one of these cities is larger than a handful of U.S. states.
The annual GDP of the New York and Los Angeles metro areas is about $1 trillion each! Compare that to VP Mike Pence's home state of Indiana, with a GDP in 2016 of $3.5 billion. There's really no comparison.
On top of that, consider that as many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City. Over 200 languages in Los Angeles.
Consider all the diverse people packed together in cities who have to find a way to get along with one another. Tolerance of multiculturalism in these cities isn't a liberal fetish -- it's a matter of survival, a fact of life.
Moreover, every major U.S. city votes Democratic in national elections. We don't have a Red/Blue state divide; we have an urban/rural divide. Even in the Red state of Texas, Houston, Dallas and San Antonio voted overwhelmingly for Hillary in 2016. It wasn't even close.
The U.S. is becoming two different countries: urban and rural. This is not what our Founding Fathers or the Federalist Papers anticipated. Even in rural/Red states, we have urban centers who vote solidly Democratic. That matters in Presidential and governors races, but not in state or federal congressional races.
Hence, the people representing the fewest and most rural have outsized, un-representative influence over our politics at the state and federal level.
I predict that liberals and Democrats will become the new Federalists, preaching the government closest to the people should have the most power, because cities are where all the people are, and the most diverse, well-educated, innovative and liberal people are. Also the wealthiest. The math and demographics are unassailable. America belongs to her cities. Or ought to.
Showing posts with label Urban vs. Rural. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Urban vs. Rural. Show all posts
Thursday, November 9, 2017
Monday, March 11, 2013
Red v. Blue states? No, Urban v. Rural counties
So here's Bernstein's Civil War what-if in a nutshell:
Suppose instead that Southern politicians had decided not to leave the Union but to stay and fight—in the halls of Congress. Suppose that they had pursued a politics of obstruction, a political counterpart of trench warfare—blocking every measure, stalling every policy, jamming the works of government to prevent even appointments of federal postmasters in Southern states. What might have happened?The result might well have been a cycle of frustration and resistance that would have made today’s brawls look like child’s play.
This is all moot because the real divide in today's America is not Red vs. Blue States, but Rural vs. Urban, as the article, Red State, Blue City: How the Urban-Rural Divide Is Splitting America, clearly shows: "Partisan lines that once fell along regional borders can increasingly be found at the county level":
The new political divide is a stark division between cities and what remains of the countryside. Not just some cities and some rural areas, either -- virtually every major city (100,000-plus population) in the United States of America has a different outlook from the less populous areas that are closest to it. The difference is no longer about where people live, it's about how people live: in spread-out, open, low-density privacy -- or amid rough-and-tumble, in-your-face population density and diverse communities that enforce a lower-common denominator of tolerance among inhabitants.The voting data suggest that people don't make cities liberal -- cities make people liberal.
Check out these voting maps from 2012 if you don't believe me. Suddenly the Red States don't look so red, do they? Even Paul Ryan admitted it in November 2012.
This truth has tremendous implications for urban development and retail politics alike. If conservative politicians realize -- and I think they do -- that they cannot win over America's cities, then their policy choices will favor rural communities and suburban sprawl over urbanization. But if conservatives try to fight the urbanization trend, either by gerrymandering or by depriving cities of the infrastructure that they need to flourish, then they'll be swimming upstream, to say the least, against global economic trends. And in the process they'll also be restraining America's economic and social dynamism. I put nothing past their selfish desire for political power.
By R.B. Berstein
March 11, 2013 | Daily Beast
By Josh Kron
November 30, 2012 | Atlantic
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