I know a lot of people who like to be "bothered" by what they call "segregation". That is, that white people tend to want to live among themselves. It really upsets some of these folks that white people would dare do such a thing. Of course in their total focus on whatever it is white people are doing, they fail to notice the various Asian communities. In fact it seems that the folks I come into contact with have no interest in integrating Asian communities. I suppose that's the old "white is right" philosophy in play. I've often commented to these folks that if a group of people volunteer to
freely associate with each other how is it "segregation"? Segregation,
as I've written about before, implies a power and coercion on the part of one party (or a third). Freely moving into a particular community is not coercion and therefore not Segregation. Even
if the origins of that community did begin in segregation.
So NPR has an article in which
they state what should be the obvious. People with like minds (and backgrounds) tend to live together. Of course they are talking Democrat and Republican, but don't be naive, this applies to far more than politics.
States themselves have , with most legislatures and governorships controlled entirely by one party. As a result, not only are blue and red states tracking different courses on just about every issue, but some people are seeking to escape their states.
But if Americans are sorting themselves into like-minded communities, are they doing so on purpose? In other words, are people voting with their feet by consciously moving to states or counties that reflect their own partisan preferences?
Researchers at the University of Virginia and the University of Southern California suggest that, yes, they may be.
Republicans have held an iron grip on governorships in a lot of states, even as their national counterparts are suffering the lowest approval ratings ever. Witness the re-election of Chris Christie in NJ. In what should be seen as particularly shocking, that Republicans got 20% of the African-American vote in NJ. That is like hitting a grand slam in the world series. Black folks simply do not vote for a Republican in that kind of numbers. Anywhere.
Similarly I have pointed out that in NJ, though Obama took the state in 2008 (and 2012). It was on the strength of urban voters in Passiac, Essex and Bergen Counties (as well as Trenton). The rest of the state is red, red, red. And when you look at the election returns across the country, Democrats do very well in urban areas and do very poorly in rural areas. It is only because of the population densities of urban areas that the democrats can do well.
Of note, these red rural areas are very very white. And these white areas have far less crime of all types than their urban counterparts. therefore they do not respond to gun legislation hysteria which seeks to make them pay for the actions of largely urban (and non-white) dwellers. And from what I'm reading in various blogs, there is a migration of like minded whites out of what they consider liberal states and moving into the northwest (Hello Colorado).
People then tend to end up living among people who are more or less like them, in terms of economic status, shopping preferences and the like.
But the U.Va. and USC researchers, in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Experiment Social Psychology, suggest that increasing numbers of people want to live among people who share their ideology as well. People are motivated to move away from communities where they don't fit in and try to find areas that are more congenial.
Really? People
want to live among people who share their ideology. Shocking! Shocking!!
"It is natural for people to desire communities where they share a worldview with their neighbors," writes the team, led by Matt Motyl, a doctoral candidate in psychology at U.Va.
Natural you say?
"The desire to live near people of the same ideological group," the study authors concede, may be less important than jobs, safety and clean air, but they conclude it's "relevant" nonetheless.
What if the ideology concerning safety like say "gun control laws" drives the decision to live near people with the same ideology?
Torben Luetjen, a German political scientist who has been studying liberal and conservative enclaves in Wisconsin. "America has split into closed and radically separated enclaves that follow their own constructions of reality."
And when this happens in a country what usually happens?
