HOW AMERICA REALLY LIVES - At a conference on cities and political diversity in Pittsburgh a few years ago, a gentleman from Philadelphia was proudly ticking down the demographic menu offered in his big-city community. He paged through the atlas of countries represented in his neighborhood as proof that the central city had become a model of peaceful, vibrant, and democratic heterogeneity.
I asked, “Well, how many Republicans do you have there in your diverse neighborhood?”
“Oh,” he sputtered, “there aren’t any Republicans!”
We cluck about our growing “diversity”—I often see multi-colored “Celebrate Diversity” bumper stickers here in hip Austin, Texas—but that’s not really the way most of us live. Yes, many neighborhoods have greater ethnic diversity than ever—and live more harmoniously with such diversity than ever—as the gentleman from Philadelphia seemed to suggest. But this demographic diversity masks an increasing homogeneity of belief within the communities in which we live.
There are two things going on. Between places across the country—Manhattan and Harlan County, Kentucky, for instance—we are differing more than ever in how we act, think, and vote. But within the places where we live, there is increasing conformity in how we act, think, and vote.
It’s this combination—of increasing conformity within our immediate surroundings and increasing inequality in education, income, and even life expectancy between different regions of the country—that is making it harder for states, and the nation, to function.
Political segregation
Statistician Robert Cushing and I have written a lot about the political segregation that is taking place in the country. Over the past three decades, most places, as measured by voting in presidential elections, have become increasingly Republican or Democratic.
Half the nation now lives in a county where, in elections that are very close nationally, the local results are landslides. This is true even though we are citizens of a country that is split down the middle politically.
The country has a wider range of political beliefs than it used to have—far different from the “tweedle dum, tweedle dee” political party conformity of the 1950s and early ’60s—but, again, these differences are between, not within, communities. (The rest of Bill Bishop’s Zocalo column … including how America segregates by way of life … here)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 77
Pub: Sept 25, 2012