--and the economy:
Posted on 01/04/2015 12:01:43 PM PST by SeekAndFind
The new Congress that starts work this week is the latest reminder of America’s stark political divisions: The parties in Washington are more polarized than they have been in decades, the partisanship gap between rural Republicans and urban Democrats has grown, and the battle for suburban voters keeps intensifying. Much less is said, however, about the equally significant economic division between conservative “red states” and liberal “blue states.”
Blue states, like California, New York and Illinois, whose economies turn on finance, trade and knowledge, are generally richer than red states. But red states, like Texas, Georgia and Utah, have done a better job over all of offering a higher standard of living relative to housing costs. That basic economic fact not only helps explain why the nation’s electoral map got so much redder in the November midterm elections, but also why America’s prosperity is in jeopardy.
Red state economies based on energy extraction, agriculture and suburban sprawl may have lower wages, higher poverty rates and lower levels of education on average than those of blue states — but their residents also benefit from much lower costs of living. For a middle-class person , the American dream of a big house with a backyard and a couple of cars is much more achievable in low-tax Arizona than in deep-blue Massachusetts. As Jed Kolko, chief economist of Trulia, recently noted, housing costs almost twice as much in deep-blue markets ($227 per square foot) than in red markets ($119).
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
In my area municipalities are grasping for young taxpayers, not “artists”, who will buy homes and breed American children for the school system. Without them, the state is quickly turning into a Third World country with an American minority in the schools. As a result, the remaining Americans see little reason on spending the outrageous amounts we do on out public schools - and the young Americans see no reason at all to buy homes/settle down in NJ.
But you'd be so much happier in Buffalo, Newark or Baltimore than you are in backward Ohio...
Ah, we begin the games with demography, cost of living, etc. The more germane question is how well do conservative voters live in states run by conservatives. The fact that there are many impoverished democrat voters in conservative states who are condemned to poverty because of degenerate cultural practices should not enter into the calculation, in my opinion.
Lol you mean Camden isn’t a nice place to live? Such low property prices too. What’s the problem in Camden?
What? I have to travel to places like Massachusetts and Rhode Island from time to time and they are liberal hell holes. Degenerate Practices? Get a grip.
Yes! There are intrinsics that money cannot buy which are very important to the quality of life..I very much agree with your statement.
The robotics dot com boom will restore the production of goods locally. Robots cost about the same to operate anywhere. Outsourcing production to other countries was a temporary but useful step to getting rid of our non-robotic factory capacity.
High speed internet pulls the rug out from under cities. Knowledge workers can work and collaborate anywhere there's internet. They can get a higher education, find a spouse, enjoy entertainment, and order any product from anywhere in the world. That's why cities are emptying out of knowledge workers. Cities are increasingly scrambling to import warm bodies from third world counties, else the city government retirement program ponzi schemes implode.
Reread what I wrote. Typically these types of articles are meant to focus on states like Mississippi or Arkansas and compare them to Vermont. There are a slew of demographic factors that enter into comparing one state (region, county, etc.) to another.
there is no life in blue states, merely existence
Red Counties outnumber blue counties in Calufornia and are the Best places to live. lowest crime rates and you dont have to suck exhaust all day....
Screw the blue
Commie red blue states couldn't survive 3 days without the long distance transmission of electricity, food, water, oil, gas, and manufacturing from conservative areas, not to mention the conservative military members protecting the dainty cities from nuclear strikes and terrorists. Driving up the taxes on conservatives will just increase the prices city dwellers will have to pay. Conservatives aren't making all that stuff and burying all that city trash for just their personal benefit.
Is there life in conservative counties in liberal states.
Yes, but no voting power. The entire state of NY is under the control of the very weird people of NYC.
It is worse in Massachusetts but we survive. As a matter of fact, the Commonwealth has a bit of an anomaly where the most rural areas are quite liberal. There are not too many areas like that outside Massachusetts and Vermont.
You don’t make any sense. I can live anywhere I choose.
You have been distorted by TV.
Be it San Diego, Savannah or Anchorage.
perhaps, till the population migrates south and west
--and the economy:
RE: Now here I was at a grocery store near Dallas, yet the guy was totally sold on California. Seemed on the ball, as well.
One thing Cali has that most other states in the country other than Hawaii does not have — GREAT WEATHER.
That’s something that’s very hard to compete against and will NEVER change.
I have openly denounced Richard Florida in my Urban Planning and Public Policy classes...to me he is nothing more than a charlatan who tells political leaders of dying—or at least drifting—cities what they want to hear (or what will keep the can rolling downhill for them a little longer) for a big fee.
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