Bush/Kerry Population Density Map

AP | November 5, 2004 | AP

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[wotan]

Perhaps even more interesting would be a map that showed density of votes for Kerry/Bush, maybe by mixing hues for red and blue, then lightening or darkening the result to show population density.

This would show us where Bush's or Kerry's strength really lay. The current map only tell us who won the county, not whether it was by a substantial margin.

[zencycler]

No one lives in Alaska and Hawaii?

[aft_lizard]

I am surprised the red dot I am originally from in Kansas isnt as big as the red dot next to it, since they are bot the same size city.

[cripplecreek]

Michigan looks awfully red for a blue state.

[HardStarboard]

I like the bright red/ bright blue version better - it brings home the point that the vast majority of the geography and communities are Bush countries.

This map is to "mauvie" for me!

[madison10]

Michigan is bogged down by the "great" city of Detroit & it's metro area. It's a curse.

[Chi-townChief]

It all looks like a red "x" in a box to me.

I bet that's how it looks to Kerry and Edwards as well!

[fraidycat]

No, you're not the only one to get ticked off by that. I'm also really ticked off every time I hear Mr. Clinton and Mr. Carter referred to as "president" rather than either ex-president or mr.

Sheesh!

[moehoward]

bump

[FreeRep]

Add the three conservative prairie provinces in conservative central Canada and most of north america would be red.

[BenLurkin]

I'm all in favor the the government selling off what it doesn't really need.

[x]

Bush won nearly every suburb east of the Mississippi.

Is that really true? Kerry carried an awful lot of New England suburbs, plus Westchester, Nassau, and (barely) Suffolk counties in New York, and Montgomery county in Pennsylvania. Intriguing, though, is Bush's victory in some other exuburban New York and Philadelphia counties on the outer fringe of suburbia and (narrowly) Litchfield county, Connecticut.

Astounding statistic: Kerry wins Aquinnah (Martha's Vineyard) with 92% of the vote (208 to 22).

[Iris7]

Jefferson talked about this. It was also a common theme during the Roman Empire when folks tried to see what had gone wrong.

[JerseyHighlander]

Perhaps even more interesting would be a map that showed density of votes for Kerry/Bush, maybe by mixing hues for red and blue, then lightening or darkening the result to show population density. This would show us where Bush's or Kerry's strength really lay. The current map only tell us who won the county, not whether it was by a substantial margin.

The webpage
http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/
The map (big file)
http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/Election2004textured.gif

Guys at AT&T made a really good purple county by county Cartogram.
http://geomblog.blogspot.com/

[truecons]

Valid observation, but there's more to it than that.

As you correctly observed, whether a person lives in a city or rural area is an indicator of their basic philosophy of life. Rural folks, especially those who live on farms or acreages, are much more individualistic, preferring to make their own decisions and accepting the consequences.

Those who live in cities are more socially oriented, even to the point of letting the group make some of their decisions for them.

That's not to say there aren't exceptions of individualists in cities and vice-versa, but it does indicate a tendency. And especially when a person moves from one to the other it indicates a preference.

There are political considerations. City dwellers are much more supportive of the idea of the group taking care of them, as oppposed to ruralites who understand that away from the crowd they are much more responsible for their own needs.

This helps explain why urban areas are much more liberal than rural. This would not be as big a problem if urbanites were willing to live and let live, but as your post correctly indicates, they are also all to willing to force their preferences on ruralites.

Also relevant is the fact that in agricultural areas the land is a major asset, even to the point in some areas of being the driving force of the economy. This is also reflected in the percentage of taxes collected on property vs. income and sales, and agricultural vs. urban property.

The unfortunate consequence of this is that the urbanites are given much more power over the wealth of an area than their rural counterparts, relative to their contribution. While the value of the property of the average urbanite may be $200,000, for the farmer it may be $2,000,000. Thus, while they each get one vote, the urbanite may contribute only 1/10th to the economy that the ruralite does.

While this may be no different than the general disparity of the rich vs. the poor in a representative system, it presents a serious problem in a welfare state. As long as our government was respecting property rights and sticking to the protection of rights, there was not a major threat of significant redistribution.

But the historical rise of the poor urbanite politically has been concurrent with the abandonment of government as protector of rights and instead seeing its role as a provider of needs and wants. Whenever that happens the urban collectivist is going to be placed at odds with the rural individualist.

This election, fortunately, saw the individualist triumph. But the closeness indicates we may not be so blessed next time. That will depend on how willing we are to fight for our right to make our own decisions and not be forced to pay for the mistakes of those whose decisions are not so wise.

[AuntB]

I agree.

[Torie]

The statement that Bush won nearly every suburb either west or east of the Mississippi is ludicrous on its face. A better statement would be that Bush lost most inner suburbs, and won most exurbs, with the area inbetween mixed. I think what the poster meant is that Bush won most rural counties and small town counties, which is what the map shows (albeit outside New England).

[txhurl]

Salvadori freaky, dude.