The two of you are discussing an issue that has puzzled me for some time.
Like RS, I've been concerned that it may be liberal RAT's moving into red states for economic reasons, and that the southward and westward population shift might lead to those states becoming less red. For example, my own home town of Durham NC has been growing like crazy, fueled largely by out of state immigrants coming for econonic reasons. Atlanta and Austin also come to mind. And though we can argue the causes (and even whether correlation implies causation), there does appear to be an unmistakable link between population density and RAT voting patterns, and as redstate populations grow, they also grow denser.
I'd like to think that WW's comment about the type of person who'd emigrate to a red state is true. Certainly I'd think very hard about emigrating to a blue state. And yet I'm concerned that he may be whistling past the graveyard. Is there any data on the voting habits of people who move from blue states to red states?
Is there any data on the voting habits of people who move from blue states to red states?
I think the "electoral shift" that the article refers to is strong evidence that a significant majority of these folks vote conservative.
I think you have to also take into account the "urban/rural" split. Those liberals moving to places like Research Triangle Park in NC and Austin in Texas will congregate largely in central metropolitan areas, which are already strongly Democrat. The conservatives will more likely end up in the "burbs" and small towns around such areas, where they are less apparent on a day-to-day basis, but show up strongly during elections.
Partly true of Houston, too, where there is some major "cultural imperialism" going on, with New York architects designing the most recognizable buildings in town, making some of them deliberately resemble New York skyscrapers of the 20's and 30's, and with importation of a City Planning Department head from New York City (he lives in a high-rise condo close in, is that "urban animal" enough?) and a mass-transit administratrix from New Jersey.
They even re-timed the traffic lights Manhattan style -- it's "more efficient", you know. Yeah, right. Anything to be more like New York.
Like sinking the City a quick $2.5 billion or so in debt, to spend on ....."projects". Like a light-rail line everyone knows we don't need, for about $1.2 billion. Like "public art" all over the place, and another $1 billion's worth of new sports palaces for all three major sports -- leaving the Astrodome sitting there, disused and still costing us debt service on the $30 million or whatever it is we still owe on that structure's 1988 major overhaul. Plus another $3 billion or so in near-year light-rail additions.
Oh, and why did we need the new sports venues, seeing that the Astrodome and the Summit ("Compaq Center") weren't exactly falling down? Well, not enough luxury boxes to keep the social gradient steepening....not a sharp enough demarc between the grandees and the hoi polloi. We need more social stratification and snottiness, like New York. So we build new sports complexes, while the old ones are still in good condition and performing their functions.
Someone is making a hell of a lot of money off this City, which is also a very New York thing to do.