The Realignment of America

Wall Street Journal ^ | May 8, 2007 | Michael Barone

[Lorianne]

In 1950, when I was in kindergarten in Detroit, the city had a population of (rounded off) 1,850,000. Today the latest census estimate for Detroit is 886,000, less than half as many. In 1950, the population of the U.S. was 150 million. Today the latest census estimate for the nation is 301 million, more than twice as many. People in America move around. But not just randomly.

It has become a commonplace to say that population has been flowing from the Snow Belt to the Sun Belt, from an industrially ailing East and Midwest to an economically vibrant West and South. But the actual picture of recent growth, as measured by the 2000 Census and the census estimates for 2006, is more complicated. Recently I looked at the census estimates for 50 metropolitan areas with more than one million people in 2006, where 54% of Americans live. (I cheated a bit on definitions, adding Durham to Raleigh and combining San Francisco and San Jose.) What I found is that you can separate them into four different categories, with different degrees and different sources of population growth or decline. And I found some interesting surprises.

Start with the Coastal Megalopolises: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago (on the coast of Lake Michigan), Miami, Washington and Boston. Here is a pattern you don't find in other big cities: Americans moving out and immigrants moving in, in very large numbers, with low overall population growth. Los Angeles, defined by the Census Bureau as Los Angeles and Orange Counties, had a domestic outflow of 6% of 2000 population in six years -- balanced by an immigrant inflow of 6%. The numbers are the same for these eight metro areas as a whole.

[blam]

As Exurbs Exude Comfort, It's No Surprise Cities Are Shrinking

Middle Class Flight from the dirty, high crime cities.

[Mobile Vulgus]

The problem I have with Barone’s analysis is that he seems to assume that the inner areas he ids as GOP (Which they are now) will STAY GOP with this influx of city folk who are heavily Dems!

Won’t their coming to those areas make it begin to drift Dem?

[ckilmer]

More Americans killed by illegal aliens than Iraq war, study says

When you start digging into the numbers the only ones that can be sourced with the feds are the number of American murdered in 2005: 16692
I have seen federal numbers for illegals held in jail ranging from 19.3% to 27% of the federal prison population.

Here's a sampling of USA cities wanted for murder. What you'll see is that in big USA cities like LA or NYC most of the murderers are Hispanic. Unknown are the % of illegals. In smaller cities the FBI will post the nationalities of the murderers. About 25% of the most wanted are illegals wanted for murder. This number agrees with the percentage of illegals incarcerated in federal prisons. +-25%

Pictures of top 10 most wanted in LA. Up until recent stories about crime in LA posted by the LA Times--the pictures included the nationality of the murderers. They were all foreign nationals and mostly Mexican.

Wanted for Murder in New York City.

Chicago wanted for Murder


Philadelphia wanted for murder

San Francisco wanted for Murder


New Orleans wanted for Murder

Pictures of suspects wanted for murder in Washington DC

FBI USA 10 most wanted. (two of 10 are Mexican nationals)

There are currently no exact numbers on the number of Americans killed by illegals. Part of the reason is that the government deliberately obscures the number. I talked on the phone with the head of statistics for the US Bureau of Prisons. He said his office wasn't allowed to publish the number of illegal alien murderers. Rather they were forced to put legal and non legal residents in the same category. I talked to ICE. They put out detailed numbers on illegal child molestors. However, they put out nothing on illegal murderers.

Part of the reason for the silence on the matter is that there is evidence to suggest that most Americans being killed by illegals are black--as is the suggestion in this LA Times Article.

All that said, it could be argued that if you include the number of illegals in state and local prisons the number of illegals in jail shrinks to 6% of the total prison population. Never the less if you multiply 16692 (the number of americans murdered in 2005) * .06 (illegal alien percent of total prison population) * 4 (the number of years the US has been in Iraq). The result is that more americans (4006) have been killed by illegals than have been killed in the Iraq war.



To look at other USA cities go here http://stlouis.fbi.gov/ and replace stlouis with the city you want.

[mountainlyons]

It looks like global warming would make the north more livable.

[Jack Black]

Previously posted:

here on the 7th by Minority Republican.

Commentary on it is posted: here from last thurdsday by Bill Gram-Reeefer and here in article based on Hugh Hewitt radio interview of Barone.

List of other Barone articles here