It really blows me away that anyone could excuse California's catastrophic loss of population - which equals loss of influence in Congress and a shrinking tax base amongst a host of other ills. Yet, no matter what, they'll try. Good on Noah for calling this out.
I don’t dispute that there’s too much left-flavored nimby-ism out there, but Long Island, where I live, also has a right-flavored version that essentially amounts to the belief that building will turn Long Island into something too much like NYC, which many of these Republican LI-ers make a point of rejecting and having “escaped from.” Put them together with the left nimbys and you have a formidable tandem.
Noah hints at that in his piece. The red states are primarily just backfilling empty land, something that California and New York did decades ago. Land that only recently became livable due to omnipresent air conditioning. It wasn't until 1980 or so that air conditioning became a thing in the majority of new builds. It took until 1990 to reach 75%. And that's just for new home builds.Then you also have the lag of retrofitting existing home stock (which often won't even have ducting for central air conditioning).
So they're mostly just on the same exact trajectory but a few decades behind the curve.
Austin and Miami are building lots of high rise residential buildings and not backfilling empty land. Air conditioning has been common for decades, and I don’t think it is a big factor in housing starts in the last few years. Seattle, Minneapolis are building high-rise residential and their housing costs are not rising as fast. But look at most of San Francisco - high rises are prohibited or blocked, same in Silicon Valley - lots of offices, but most residential is single family expensive houses. Los Angeles has high rises downtown and to a lesser extent Century City, but lots of square miles with the tallest residential being 5 stories.
Fellow Long Island resident. Can’t agree enough with this. Housing is absolutely one of those issues where “blue state” vs “red state” is super unhelpful.
My own Long Island experience; getting push polling from my local GOP representative asking me if I support Kathy Hochul “destroy the suburbs” housing plan. Mailers from local GOP whose message was as you say, keep NYC out of the suburbs. And oh yeah, they sent multiple mailers with changed messages in part because the first one they sent to me was super not even hiding “dog whistle” bigotry about “those people” coming to the suburbs. I know there is a lot (correct) push back that NIMBY is not all about race but man I can’t begin to tell you at least some of it is (what do you think Trump’s “protect Long Island housewives” tweet was subtly referring to).
I’d also add something else to my point that “Blue state” vs. “Red state” is unhelpful for this issue. Noah’s contention that Texas and Florida gaining residents will benefit GOP in 2030 is not at all clear. In Florida, possibly yes given how many new arrivals are retirees moving to places like “The Villages”. But in Texas? Addition House members representing Austin is probably leading to more Democratic representatives. Given people generally are moving to cities/suburbs of cities, not at all clear this will lead to more GOP House members in 2030 (especially considering Texas has been drifting slowly but surely to being a purple state)
Back in 2002, my Dad was involved with some work-force-housing planning in Nassau Co. The plan was affordable 2 bedroom condos/townhouses to prevent larger families overwhelming the local school systems (workers don't need/deserve families!). I don't think it ever got off the ground/survived the zoning commission.
At some point we should probably talk about how a ton of NIMBYism is driven by our system of allocating education budgets based on property taxes - ie roughly the most regressive way possible.
similar story where I am North of NYC (Hudson Valley)... Preventing large developments and low-income housing is the main thing the limited Republicans lean into hard, and the liberals secretly don't care enough to fight about the issue. After all, who wants to crowd the schools, or risk traffic and crime? So things stay very much the same year after year...
Beyond just Blue States, it seems like failure to build is a disease among most progressive groups globally. It's definitely been going on since the mid-20th century, for example, the left wing in Japan has been protesting Shinkansen construction since the very first line was being built, even if it's only gotten cripplingly bad more recently.
Why is it that people who push for progress on decarbonization oppose the infrastructure and factories to get us there? Why is it that people who push for progress on homelessness oppose the homes to house them in?
What can be done to convince people willing to embrace the future to also embrace the future in the built environment?
In the U.S., the word "gentrification" is like the "WOLVERINES!" cry in "Red Dawn."
It's become a thought-terminating cliche among movement-poisoned leftists and street litigators.
Joe Cortright of the City Observatory has done excellent research to show that gentrification, as activists frame it, does not occur. In other words, a wealthier (read: whiter) cohort comes in and replaces a poorer (and non-white) incumbent resident base. But data throughout the U.S. shows it rarely ever occurs.
The more urgent problem urban areas are facing, and persist for decades, is that there are neighborhoods that are declining in population and income. The bad parts of town are getting worse.
Isn't there rampant gentrification in California, only it's not so much whites displacing blacks and Latinos, as Asians displacing blacks, Latinos and working-class whites?
If you go by Joe Cortright's arguments on his City Observatory blog, cityobservatory.org, the very idea of gentrification itself is actually quite seldom experienced, with data to prove it.
The pressing problem is concentrated poverty, and this is far more widespread because it is everywhere, and spreading.
Cortright: "We and others have assembled comprehensive data on neighborhood change in US cities. It shows that gentrification is extraordinarily rare (over 4 decades, perhaps 10 percent of poor neighborhoods experienced gentrification, defined as having a poverty rate fall from twice the US average to anything less than the national average). Statistically, the far more striking fact is the persistence and growth of concentrated poverty. Poor neighborhoods that don’t gentrify steadily lose population (down an average of 40 percent over 40 years), and the number of high poverty neighborhoods in major US metro’s has tripled. Americans in poverty today are more likely to live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. Research shows that all of the negative effects of poverty are amplified by having lots of poor neighbors."
Fortunately leftists have rarely had any power in Japan (even though they have a literal communist party - with less than 5% of Diet seats) so they can’t use laws to realize their nimbism. Narita Airport’s expansion was held up for years by protests a coalition of affected farmers and communists that included violence and bombings (which is why when you drive in to Narita airport the police used to check all passports, or did 20 years ago).
At least actual German leftist supporters of pro-nature/degrowth throw in pro-nudism along with their anti-nuclear, anti-GMO, nimbyism to make it less boring.
Pretty sure most anti-vax people (at least up to Covid shots) are also in the hippy-dippy lefty types, at least all the ones I've ever met or read about are.
I did research in 2000 for a vaccine company about the start of the anti-vax movement. Even back then anti-vaxxers came from both sides of the political spectrum. The key signifiers were they were more likely to homeschool and less likely to trust authority figures.
Yes! "Conspirituality pipeline". I'd include a good segment of libertarians. Putin fostered anti-vax groups well before the Trump years, one of the many attempts to upset our society. This particular angle paid off well as we now have former progressives working for RFK Jr and railing against money for Ukraine to fight off Russia. I travel in these circles and at least in my experience, it's a small portion separating from Democrats, and when they do, it's more toward libertarianism than "swinging right". Personally, I am pro-science and deeply appreciate vaccines, but I've distanced myself a bit from the left and the label "progressive" as many have "lost the plot" as Noah wrote, and fail to take a big-picture view.
There's a tendency for a person who might believe in at least one woo, fringe idea or conspiracy fantasy to accumulate more of those beliefs over time, and such individuals to be attracted to one another and cross-pollinate said ideas.
I've noticed that too among the more activist and militant subcultures of leftists. I got close to them in the 2000s during antiwar activism and grew disillusioned when protests failed to stop the Iraq invasion.
I've moved to the mainstream wing of the blue tribe over time. Luckily many others my age have too. The wars have wound down, at great loss of life and treasure on all sides, and politics have moved on as has society.
A few though think the world is frozen in place to oh around 2004 and see current events through that lens. To paraphrase Kirk Lazarus from "Tropic Thunder": Everyone knows you never go full Taibbi.
Indeed. Like many other reversals. Dems go from peace party to war party, pubs the other way around. Dems go from free speech to censorship, pubs go other way around. It's hard to keep up some times
Sir, if you wish to continue this conversation, I must insist that you use dictionary definitions of words on Planet Reality. Your cooperation is appreciated.
Headline: Book bans are on the rise in U.S. schools, fueled by new laws in Republican-led states
"In a report published Thursday by PEN America, the nonprofit free speech organization cited 1,477 instances of books being prohibited during the first half of the 2022-23 academic year, up 28.5% from 1,149 cases in the previous semester. Overall, the organization has recorded more than 4,000 instances of banned books since it started tracking cases in July 2021."
...
"Forbidden books are largely by and about people of color and LGBTQ individuals, the group found. Of the books removed in the first half of this school year, 30% are about race, racism or include characters of color, and 26% have LGBTQ characters or themes — all at a time when library shelves are becoming more inclusive and representative of society."
"Texas school districts had the highest number of bans in PEN America’s report, with 438 removals. Florida had 357 bans, followed by Missouri, with 315 bans. In Utah and South Carolina, there were more than 100 bans."
Headline: "Everything You Need to Know About the Right-Wing War on Books"
"Since 2021, book banning—specifically, blocking access to books in schools and libraries—has become an organized movement, one backed by a powerful network of politicians, advocacy groups, and conservative donors."
Censorship chiefs listed: Govs. Ron DeSantis, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Greg Abbott; Moms for Liberty
Despite the group's name, many of its members are not mothers and are in fact against liberty. Of course the leader of a group cracking down on sex would be a hypocrite; she engaged in a sex act with two people that she herself would go on a scorched earth campaign to destroy the life of someone were they not White, straight or blonde.
Tell me, David, how your tribe squares that circle.
From my observation, you are speaking about a very small part of "the left", if by left you mean the part of the country to the left of center, which is probably more than half of our country. The overlap is also with libertarians.
I must correct Noah on a minor point. Houston has made a persistent effort in the last dozen years to house its homeless population. When I first moved here, things were pretty bad. Now, other cities send delegations to study what we are doing.
Actually, during the 20 years that I have lived here the price of housing in Houston both rental and purchase has gone up significantly. I don't know where to find statistics, but I believe the percentage of income that must be dedicated to housing has increased. Obviously, things are not as bad as California, New York, or the DC area.
I have attributed it to the trend toward fancier and bigger housing. People don't seem content with small and simple any more.
I lived in The Woodlands (suburb north of Houston) from 1997 to 2022 in the same house. My home's value was pretty much stable until the mid-teens, then skyrocketed in 2020. So, "inflation adjusted" values probably are same or lower for that period but it may be a different picture if you only went back 5 or 10 years. The big metro areas in Texas are starting to fill up unless you want to go far, far away from the urban centers. Cost of living is increasing, too. Where the big opportunities going forward, in my opinion, will be forward-thinking red states with underdeveloped metro areas that encourage businesses to locate there and/or have a lifestyle advantage that attracts remote workers.
I live in Northwest Arkansas now, and it is booming here. There are a lot of other places you wouldn't think of that are doing well, too (check out the blue clumps on that map). Political narrative drives the media and the national conversation, but jobs and quality of life drives where we choose to live and raise our families. Those blue state idealogues are missing out by saying they would never move to a place like this. They would like it here, and if they came they could help change that political narrative. We have a big country.
According to the map Noah posted, Houston and Dallas are losing people - perhaps just to suburbs?
We have a nephew who left California for a Dallas suburb for two reasons: a good job (he is a civil engineer) and cheaper housing (they could not afford to buy in Orange Co., where they both grew up). The "no income tax" part is also nice, since offsets two or three mortgage payments each year. But, they do not like the summer heat. Can't have everything.
You can see that the red dot of Houston is surrounded by a much larger blue Suburban belt of increasing population. I was kind of surprised to see that the center of Houston was red.
I live in what is regarded as a close-in neighborhood, 5 miles from the city center. and every open patch of land and many patches of land formerly devoted to light industry are being filled in by row houses and 3-story apartment buildings.
According to Bing, the Houston metro area has gone from 5.4 million to 6.7 million in the last ten years.
I also have an (now ex) SIL who moved from Calif to San Antonio earlier this year. Her motives were to live near one of her sisters, plus less expensive housing, plus she is rather conservative politically and felt like fish out of water in California. So far, she is happy with the move, although she travels back several times a year to visit her kids and grand children.
That's what I meant by "just to suburbs". Yes, Houston and surrounds have have grown tremendously over the past couple of decades. SA-Austin and Dallas-FW metro area, too.
Any ideas why central Houston would be Republican? Normally I wouldn't expect a central city to be more conservative than its suburbs: does Houston's centre have a lot of oil men there?
The red coloration on the map represents a place that is losing population—the blue represents a place that is gaining population. You could note that large parts of California are depicted as red. On this map, the red/blue coloration has nothing to do with politics.
TJ, the tankies and wild eyed radicals don't vote Democratic. They're the ones playing the "both parties are equally bad" purity card.
The Democratic Party as an institution is really good about not litigating intersectional identity politics in the public policy realm. There are many voters who hold x-idpol views, but they'll usually turn out for Democrats in the end (remember, higher incomes and higher education track with higher levels of political participation in all participatory democracies) and aren't likely to engage in hostage-taking over praxisizing a theory.
The NIMBYs are much harder to deal with since they are politically active, are well-heeled donors and even hold power as elected officials or precinct committee members.
That's another benefit: the more housing you build, the more representatives you get. I believe the Representatives and electors accumulate at the same rate, and in blue state they'd be all blue.
New representatives wouldn’t all be blue in blue states. Unless you manage to get the population to mix homogeneously like in Massachusetts, some of the new representatives will be red. But only a fraction of them.
Swing states should also build more housing! But when the controlling legislatures are purple or red, this motivation isn't useful -- it would just lead to votes against housing.
2. That said, interstate migration tells a big story. And I’d argue it’s more damning than Noah claims. If these trends continue the Dems will have an uphill climb to win. Red states will get more electoral votes. This will be seen as a vindication of the red state model. Combine that with the GOP’s willingness to disregard elections they dislike...
3. In general, most locales in the USA don’t care to attract people. The MI state government has formed a task force to address the shrinking population, but I’d bet that most of the major recommendations aren’t followed. I haven’t seen many people (other than maybe Abbott and DeSantis) crowing about how their policies are attracting so many people to their city/state.
4. You don’t get to blame the voters for rejecting you when you aren’t bothered enough to run your own backyard properly.
5. The USA seems to have undergone a Great Forgetting - we’ve forgotten how to build/permit housing, we’ve forgotten how to build transit at a reasonable cost (or how to scrounge the will to build anything at all), we’ve forgotten how to reform our immigration system (done most recently in the 90s), we’ve forgotten how to pass more than 1 major piece of legislation per term (thanks filibuster)...
6. I’d bet a major permitting issue for transmission lines is the surfeit of local governments. You have to get permits from Bumfuck County, Cousinblow Village, Shithole Township etc etc. We have way too much local government. The party of small government should insist on consolidating them to reduce costs. Except muh sacred municipal government...
Jerusalem Demsas wrote about Point 6. It is a problem because voter engagement is very low for sub-state level races. Not only are elections low turnout, but most residents could not even name their mayor or city councilmember or county representative.
Canada had a very interesting approach in the provincial levels. In Ontario, usually when a Progressive Conservative is in charge, they make government bigger. In essence, they dissolve smaller municipalities into a larger city. Toronto absorbed its neighboring suburbs around the turn of the 21st century. Hamilton absorbed the smaller city of Dundas and a large amount of open space. There are also Region governments, that associate cities, like Toronto's neighboring suburbs Missisauga (where Pearson airport is) and Brampton into the Peel Region. It's a suburb with 1.3 million people.
Another good Canadian idea is congruent districts for the federal parliament and in the province.
There are basically two ways to reign in suburban intransigence: annexation or statewide power. In California, I think cities are reluctant to pull in a lot of households (i.e., mouths to feed) so we're FINALLY using state power to overrule them.
I do have family in Toronto who live in the annexed suburbs you describe, though.
I regularly visit the Bay Area with groups of execs from around the world. After they've marveled at Apple, Stanford, exciting startups, etc, they suddenly discover the homeless and poverty. Not only the homeless, but the "normal" families that can't make ends meet, and rely on food banks to get through the month. Or live in RVs on El Camino Real, in front of the Stanford campus. When they ask me how this dichotomy exists, the billionaires next door to the homeless, the mega-mansions down the street from the tents, and I reply NIMBYism, no one believes me. Thank you, Noah, for providing data that will help explain this.
Many red states are doing well when it comes to renewables but some of the data presented for CA and TX is not consistent with the data at the EIA. Further, some of the wind comparisons you make are simply because the red states happen to have the best potential for wind energy, https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/wind/where-wind-power-is-harnessed.php .
Based on the EIA data in 2022, CA had 17.5 GW of utility solar that generated 38.8 TWh while TX had 11.4 GW that generated 22.4 TWh. They are not equal as suggested by the graphic referenced to Bullard. It also important to understand that solar generation in CA represents 19% of their total generation while the TX percentage was 4.3%. Due to this difference in penetration practically all new solar in CA has battery storage while only one forth of solar in TX has battery storage, i.e., the potential for expansion in TX is greater because solar without generation costs less, https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/04/21/texas-solar-is-booming-but-batteries-are-not-included-2/#:~:text=In%20the%20next%20three%20years,solar%20projects%20have%20batteries%20included.
I guess what I am suggesting is that I think it is valuable to do some fact checking and have a deeper appreciation of underlying differences when making comparisons.
The problem with the question of believing in climate change is that it ends up being a political question. When it is frame differently, the numbers go up. Willer and Feinberg demonstrated this in several studies.
Batteries make solar expensive (look at electricity rates in CA : $0.30/kwh vs TX: $0.15/kwh ) and in Texas there is higher daytime demand in the summer compared to coastal (populated) California. Plus Texas has much more available gas for peaker plants. I imagine we would be doing much better if more than 10% of Democrats realized people care more about their energy costs than keeping the global average temperature in 70 years below 1.5°C.
Your prices off according to the EIA, https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ , CA is 22 cents / kWh and TX is 10 cents / kWh but many other blue states that have net-zero goals like NM, electricity costs are identical to Texas. Everything is expensive in CA.
Texas is switching to renewables because it is cost effective not because of policy, although, they are probably taken advantage of incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act. The energy transition is happening but state incentives based on the realization that climate change is real and serious are helping to accelerate that process. In 2031 when the last coal plant shuts down, New Mexico's generation will be 75% renewable.
Illinois has been pushing community solar as a scheme to increase solar capital investment, but doesn’t seem to be as robust a program as it should be. I’m sure it’s a land use issue.
One the one hand blue states don’t build and the cost of housing is driving population shifts. On the other hand red states don’t provide services, adequate public education, health care, etc. and have higher mortality rates.
And most people in Texas actually have a higher tax burden than Californians. Only the top 40% of earners in CA pay more than if they were in Texas, the bottom 60% pay more in Texas—and if you look at the benefits the states provide their poor, the net transfers are even better for most people in California. Crime is lower too. Noah nailed it—housing costs are the problem.
Those taxes pay for things. And BTW Red states have homeless people. They arrest them after passing laws making homelessness illegal (laws against "camping") and/or run them off or give them one way bus tickets to blue states. There was a whole documentary about the homeless in Nashville, TN called "Tent City, USA."
There's something in the article I'm not understanding.
I agree the lack of building is bad. But if people are migrating from blue areas to red areas.... Why does that result in more Republicans in Congress instead of a state becoming purple or blue?
Newcomers will vote red because blue states drove them to red states. (See: Ted Cruz's victory in 2018 and Ron DeSantis bringing a majority of Florida brown voters to the GOP.)
The U.S. has never seen a leftward swing nationally since 1932.
The 2018 senate race was an interesting one. Exit polls showed that people who moved to Texas in the 80s and 90s supported Cruz by a lot - but people who moved to Texas after 2008 supported Beto by just as much, while people who were born in Texas were close to evenly split.
It may once have been the case that conservatives were the ones mostly moving to Texas. But it doesn’t seem to be true recently.
Are American Latinos becoming more conservative in part because in the 1970s (for example) they were reacting against the right-wing tyrannies that then dominated much of Latin America, while today there are only a few tyrannies left in that part of the world, most of which (Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela) are left-wing?
That seems to be the case in Florida. Cubans are the largest Latino nationality in Florida, and Venezuelans have been immigrating to Florida in greater numbers during the Chavez and Maduro governments. Conservative Puerto Ricans tend to move to Florida and Texas as well.
Most Americans lately do not move,even within states, so these changes are just a few percentage points, not enough to change an entire states voting base.
His presidential campaign is like ... well, there was an old Simpsons episode where Homer's buffoonish dancing at a minor league baseball game earn him a job as its mascot. He becomes an attraction and gets noticed by Capital City, implying a major league team. The fans reject him and he returns to Springfield to his nuclear power plant job.
DeSantis's presidential campaign is epically bad. He'll be in history books for being a failure as a candidate for his party's nomination. It's epic because after November 2022 DeSantis had a hot hand. He ran the table in Florida, continues to be one of the most popular governors in the U.S. (read his popularity ratings within Florida if you want to despair for humanity) and there's no stopping GOP dominance in Florida.
He will either be Trump's VP pick (you read that correctly), to be a Dick Cheney to Trump's Dubya, or work on his comeback like Ronald Reagan.
I don't think this is really true. As far as we can tell under 5% of people change their political affiliation when they move to a state of the opposite.
Sure, this is a bit imperfect because a Democrat could move to a blue city in a red state. And vice versa for a Republican. But the base numbers are so low that I think our default assumption should be that people don't change their party affiliation just moving to a new state.
Keep in mind that party affiliation is a formality and doesn't have any bearing on vote results, what give their states their redness and blueness.
You have a population of X voters who move from one state to another in a given year. They move to subsidiary state units, like counties or in states that don't have them, cities (like Virginia, where counties and cities exist side by side rather than cities being subordinate to counties). You can also use U.S. House districts.
These subsidiary state units or House districts can be classified as blue or red depending on whether they voted for Democrats or GOP, as well as how many previous elections the party has won. There are a few units that are called bellwethers, which are districts that happened to vote for the winning candidate. The press declares that the bellwether voters are the ones who "decided" the election.
There are four movements: red-to-blue, red-to-red, blue-to-blue and blue-to-red. The sum of these four should add to 100%. If the modal movers are red-to-red and blue-to-blue, this sorting would not change the political movement in the destination state. It does make movement in the origin state, however. This is why the GOP does well in the rust belt; in declining areas, you have an older White cohort that's not going to retire or relocate for work in the sun belt. For blue-blue movers, it can allow for a declining urban area to have younger, more progressive leadership like in Pittsburgh and St. Louis.
Red-to-blue and blue-to-red voters, regardless of how large each cohort is, do alter the composition of the destination state. They'll flip a crucial district or strengthen the margins of the party in power.
So now I would like to see another study, of what happens to movers from red to blue and blue to red 5 years after they have lived there for a while. How many hated the new place and went someplace else, and is any of that because their neighbours had opposing politics? And how many changed their politics over time?
Any idea how effective the new legislation in CA will be. Starting to sound like they'll only take down some of the barriers but not nearly enough to crush the NIMBYs?
It will be pretty effectively eventually. Even if we wiped out all zoning and NIMBYism today, stuff needs to get built and people have to decide to sell their properties. The passage of the Boomer generation and the build up of cities will probably coincide and, coupled with low fertility rates, we'll see a suburban housing glut. Keep in mind that we saw a housing bubble burst only 15 years ago so we aren't SO supply constrained that the market can't stabilize.
Basically, our housing crisis is an acute-on-chronic disease with each flare worse than the last. But if you treat the underlying disease (downzoning and NIMBY policies), the exacerbations will become more manageable.
Isn't this a good thing for the Democratic party long-term? Sure, you increase the population of red states (the horror), but you're also becoming more competitive in those states. And also blunting the weighting effect of the Electoral College to boot.
Yeah, but being forced to leave a Democratic supermajority state because it's completely unaffordable, only to have a much better quality of life in a Republican state, is hardly a rallying cry to vote Dem.
You know what the best advertisement for your product is? It’s when your product is so bad that people rush to your competitor, then your competitor responds to their new customer base by imitating your best features. I’m certain that the Democratic Party will be well served adopting this strategy and enshittifying every locality and region they’re in charge of.
Although I agree with many of the points Noah makes in this article, he clearly missed the impact that farmland preservation laws have had on housing. This is very evident in the “You want to build a house? Not in my state!” illustration. Always remember this: everything west of the 100th meridian in the U.S. is desert or semi-desert (the small exception being the northwest corner of the U.S.), not suitable for row-crop farming without a lot of irrigation. Conservative Wisconsin is a great example of this. For years now, they have had fairly strict farmland preservation laws that prevent someone from buying an acre of farmland and sticking a house on it. In liberal Oregon, farmland preservation laws have resulted in urban growth boundaries around Portland and other cities in the Willamette Valley, restricting the housing supply. Contrast that with Arizona, Utah and Nevada. No farmland to worry about in those states! Just lots of desert, so buy an acre or two of desert land and stick a house on it (provided you have a reliable water source).
Not unimportant, it is much more complicated to build new housing in a place like Boston - filled with historic neighborhoods, than Texas, where you’re just creating more sprawl.
Not arguing with the premise, which I think is directly correct. But I think ideology has less to do with it than density.
Boston is 4 times as dense as Austin, but Austin has 4 times the population. When your city is limited by “historical” sites and waterways, then ideology may be what prevents you from building vertically, instead of sprawling. Haven driven in both cities, I think Boston is harder to get around in than sprawly Austin, and barbecue beats baked beans also, but not chowdah.
I asked Grok for the silliest historical sites in Boston, and she said:
One of the silliest historical sites in Boston might just be the Skinny House, also known as the Spite House. Built in 1874, this four-story house is only 10.4 feet wide at its widest point, and it was allegedly built out of spite by a man who wanted to block his brother's view of the harbor after an argument. Talk about sibling rivalry! It's a unique architectural oddity that is sure to make you chuckle and wonder about the lengths some people will go to for revenge.
Another site that might tickle your funny bone is the Ether Dome at Massachusetts General Hospital. It's not inherently silly, but it's the place where the first public demonstration of ether as an anesthetic took place in 1846. Imagine the audience's surprise when they saw the patient fall asleep and not feel any pain during surgery. It's a groundbreaking moment in medical history, but it's also kind of funny to think about the reactions of the people witnessing it for the first time.
Lastly, the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 might not be a historical site per se, but it's a bizarre event that's worth mentioning. A massive tank of molasses burst in Boston's North End, causing a wave of molasses to flood the streets at an estimated speed of 35 mph. The sticky disaster claimed the lives of 21 people and injured 150 others. It's a tragic event, but the thought of a tidal wave of molasses sweeping through the city is quite a silly image.
Because I'm an anesthesiologist I had to make my pilgrimage to the Ether Dome while visiting Boston. There is also an ether monument in Boston Public Garden.
Spite House and Ether Dome? Those are cool names for housing and possibly my next jam band.
Out in California, San Diego has a shopping center with a Trolley stop called Hazard Center. (It turns out that south of the tracks, there's also a townhouse community as well.) About a mile southeast of the Capitol, Sacramento has a Midtown neighborhood called Poverty Ridge.
I'm in Sacramento and actually looked at homes in Poverty Ridge when I moved here. The name comes from Poverty Hill where poor people retreated and camped when the city flooded (before an effective flood control system). But the locals just tell everyone it was an entirely ironic name because of the old mansions.
Poverty Ridge became the fancy area in the late 19th century because of streetcar service. Other neighborhoods like Land Park and East Sacramento got annexed in 1911, got streetcar lines, and became even fancier (for example, that blue house in "Lady Bird" is in East Sac).
The first effective flood control system Sacramento implemented was to bury its downtown and build the current "old city" on top of it. This was after Sacramento was designated as the seat of state government. There are tours of the Sacramento Underground.
I liked Old Sacramento and what was referred to as "old city," or collectively Downtown and Midtown, the areas where you tell your address as the intersection of a letter and number like you were playing "Battleship." (Like: Meet me for lunch at 10th & K).
Despite the conventional letter-numbering of street names, Sac got very creative with the alley names between the letter streets, which run east-west and follow alphabetical order. There are Blues, Chinatown, Democracy, Eggplant, Fat (likely named for legendary Chinese restaurateur Frank Fat), Government, Historic, Improv, Jazz, Kayak, Liestal, Matsui (husband and wife congressmembers; Doris succeeded Bob upon his death), Neighbors, breaking the pattern is Carriage Path, resuming the pattern is Powerhouse, Quill, Rice, Solons, Tomato, Uptown and Victorian.
South of the old city I've found River Cats and Banana alleys.
I lol'ed at Kayak and not Kings being the K-letter alley, solidifying the stereotype that the Sacramento Kings don't have fans. :)
Density is one of the biggest factors in the political allegiance of US states, with red states being low-density either because they've been depopulated by deindustrialization (the Rust Belt) or because their urban populations were small prior to the era of mass car ownership (the Sunbelt, which was heavily rural prior to affordable air conditioning).
It really blows me away that anyone could excuse California's catastrophic loss of population - which equals loss of influence in Congress and a shrinking tax base amongst a host of other ills. Yet, no matter what, they'll try. Good on Noah for calling this out.
I don't agree with this stance, but a lot of Californians want fewer people in California. It's not a miscalculation it's an intentional effect.
A good way to have fewer people is to refrain from sex. I wish Californians good luck for their future abstinence paradise!
Ha! They actually have the 9th lowest fertility rate in the country, so they're on the way.
Given the present NIMBYism, loss of population is the only thing that will bring the rent down.
Newsflash - isn't working
I don’t dispute that there’s too much left-flavored nimby-ism out there, but Long Island, where I live, also has a right-flavored version that essentially amounts to the belief that building will turn Long Island into something too much like NYC, which many of these Republican LI-ers make a point of rejecting and having “escaped from.” Put them together with the left nimbys and you have a formidable tandem.
Noah hints at that in his piece. The red states are primarily just backfilling empty land, something that California and New York did decades ago. Land that only recently became livable due to omnipresent air conditioning. It wasn't until 1980 or so that air conditioning became a thing in the majority of new builds. It took until 1990 to reach 75%. And that's just for new home builds.Then you also have the lag of retrofitting existing home stock (which often won't even have ducting for central air conditioning).
So they're mostly just on the same exact trajectory but a few decades behind the curve.
Austin and Miami are building lots of high rise residential buildings and not backfilling empty land. Air conditioning has been common for decades, and I don’t think it is a big factor in housing starts in the last few years. Seattle, Minneapolis are building high-rise residential and their housing costs are not rising as fast. But look at most of San Francisco - high rises are prohibited or blocked, same in Silicon Valley - lots of offices, but most residential is single family expensive houses. Los Angeles has high rises downtown and to a lesser extent Century City, but lots of square miles with the tallest residential being 5 stories.
I thought Seattle had very high housing prices.
High but not bay area high. The building's kept a lid on the rises, but there are some dumb policies here that slow down construction still.
Ouch. I don't think there are many places as high cost as the Bay Area except maybe Manhattan. It was high back in the mid-1980s.
Fellow Long Island resident. Can’t agree enough with this. Housing is absolutely one of those issues where “blue state” vs “red state” is super unhelpful.
My own Long Island experience; getting push polling from my local GOP representative asking me if I support Kathy Hochul “destroy the suburbs” housing plan. Mailers from local GOP whose message was as you say, keep NYC out of the suburbs. And oh yeah, they sent multiple mailers with changed messages in part because the first one they sent to me was super not even hiding “dog whistle” bigotry about “those people” coming to the suburbs. I know there is a lot (correct) push back that NIMBY is not all about race but man I can’t begin to tell you at least some of it is (what do you think Trump’s “protect Long Island housewives” tweet was subtly referring to).
I’d also add something else to my point that “Blue state” vs. “Red state” is unhelpful for this issue. Noah’s contention that Texas and Florida gaining residents will benefit GOP in 2030 is not at all clear. In Florida, possibly yes given how many new arrivals are retirees moving to places like “The Villages”. But in Texas? Addition House members representing Austin is probably leading to more Democratic representatives. Given people generally are moving to cities/suburbs of cities, not at all clear this will lead to more GOP House members in 2030 (especially considering Texas has been drifting slowly but surely to being a purple state)
Texas has 38 congressional districts, with only 12 of them leaning Democratic, adding 3 more will not make it a blue state.
That could be partly due to gerrymandering.
Back in 2002, my Dad was involved with some work-force-housing planning in Nassau Co. The plan was affordable 2 bedroom condos/townhouses to prevent larger families overwhelming the local school systems (workers don't need/deserve families!). I don't think it ever got off the ground/survived the zoning commission.
At some point we should probably talk about how a ton of NIMBYism is driven by our system of allocating education budgets based on property taxes - ie roughly the most regressive way possible.
similar story where I am North of NYC (Hudson Valley)... Preventing large developments and low-income housing is the main thing the limited Republicans lean into hard, and the liberals secretly don't care enough to fight about the issue. After all, who wants to crowd the schools, or risk traffic and crime? So things stay very much the same year after year...
Same thing in northwestern NJ, which is rural and conservative. No Democrats ever win, but people hate it when they build new housing.
Beyond just Blue States, it seems like failure to build is a disease among most progressive groups globally. It's definitely been going on since the mid-20th century, for example, the left wing in Japan has been protesting Shinkansen construction since the very first line was being built, even if it's only gotten cripplingly bad more recently.
Why is it that people who push for progress on decarbonization oppose the infrastructure and factories to get us there? Why is it that people who push for progress on homelessness oppose the homes to house them in?
What can be done to convince people willing to embrace the future to also embrace the future in the built environment?
In the U.S., the word "gentrification" is like the "WOLVERINES!" cry in "Red Dawn."
It's become a thought-terminating cliche among movement-poisoned leftists and street litigators.
Joe Cortright of the City Observatory has done excellent research to show that gentrification, as activists frame it, does not occur. In other words, a wealthier (read: whiter) cohort comes in and replaces a poorer (and non-white) incumbent resident base. But data throughout the U.S. shows it rarely ever occurs.
The more urgent problem urban areas are facing, and persist for decades, is that there are neighborhoods that are declining in population and income. The bad parts of town are getting worse.
City Observatory has many great articles. Here's one: https://cityobservatory.org/talkin-bout-my-gentrification/
Isn't there rampant gentrification in California, only it's not so much whites displacing blacks and Latinos, as Asians displacing blacks, Latinos and working-class whites?
If you go by Joe Cortright's arguments on his City Observatory blog, cityobservatory.org, the very idea of gentrification itself is actually quite seldom experienced, with data to prove it.
The pressing problem is concentrated poverty, and this is far more widespread because it is everywhere, and spreading.
https://cityobservatory.org/talkin-bout-my-gentrification/
Cortright: "We and others have assembled comprehensive data on neighborhood change in US cities. It shows that gentrification is extraordinarily rare (over 4 decades, perhaps 10 percent of poor neighborhoods experienced gentrification, defined as having a poverty rate fall from twice the US average to anything less than the national average). Statistically, the far more striking fact is the persistence and growth of concentrated poverty. Poor neighborhoods that don’t gentrify steadily lose population (down an average of 40 percent over 40 years), and the number of high poverty neighborhoods in major US metro’s has tripled. Americans in poverty today are more likely to live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. Research shows that all of the negative effects of poverty are amplified by having lots of poor neighbors."
Fortunately leftists have rarely had any power in Japan (even though they have a literal communist party - with less than 5% of Diet seats) so they can’t use laws to realize their nimbism. Narita Airport’s expansion was held up for years by protests a coalition of affected farmers and communists that included violence and bombings (which is why when you drive in to Narita airport the police used to check all passports, or did 20 years ago).
At least actual German leftist supporters of pro-nature/degrowth throw in pro-nudism along with their anti-nuclear, anti-GMO, nimbyism to make it less boring.
Pretty sure most anti-vax people (at least up to Covid shots) are also in the hippy-dippy lefty types, at least all the ones I've ever met or read about are.
Anti-vaxxers originated among hippies and overeducated liberals (e.g., Montessori moms). After the pandemic, they swung right and got into Qanon.
I did research in 2000 for a vaccine company about the start of the anti-vax movement. Even back then anti-vaxxers came from both sides of the political spectrum. The key signifiers were they were more likely to homeschool and less likely to trust authority figures.
What was the proportion of anti-vaxxers with left and right politics?
Unfortunately, that statistic did not make it into the publication and I no longer have access to the underlying data.
Yes! "Conspirituality pipeline". I'd include a good segment of libertarians. Putin fostered anti-vax groups well before the Trump years, one of the many attempts to upset our society. This particular angle paid off well as we now have former progressives working for RFK Jr and railing against money for Ukraine to fight off Russia. I travel in these circles and at least in my experience, it's a small portion separating from Democrats, and when they do, it's more toward libertarianism than "swinging right". Personally, I am pro-science and deeply appreciate vaccines, but I've distanced myself a bit from the left and the label "progressive" as many have "lost the plot" as Noah wrote, and fail to take a big-picture view.
"Conspirituality pipeline" sounds like what Rationalwiki calls "crank magnetism":
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Crank_magnetism
There's a tendency for a person who might believe in at least one woo, fringe idea or conspiracy fantasy to accumulate more of those beliefs over time, and such individuals to be attracted to one another and cross-pollinate said ideas.
I've noticed that too among the more activist and militant subcultures of leftists. I got close to them in the 2000s during antiwar activism and grew disillusioned when protests failed to stop the Iraq invasion.
I've moved to the mainstream wing of the blue tribe over time. Luckily many others my age have too. The wars have wound down, at great loss of life and treasure on all sides, and politics have moved on as has society.
A few though think the world is frozen in place to oh around 2004 and see current events through that lens. To paraphrase Kirk Lazarus from "Tropic Thunder": Everyone knows you never go full Taibbi.
Indeed. Like many other reversals. Dems go from peace party to war party, pubs the other way around. Dems go from free speech to censorship, pubs go other way around. It's hard to keep up some times
Sir, if you wish to continue this conversation, I must insist that you use dictionary definitions of words on Planet Reality. Your cooperation is appreciated.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censorship?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld
cen·sor·ship ˈsen(t)-sər-ˌship
1 a: the institution, system, or practice of censoring
b: the actions or practices of censors
especially : censorial control exercised repressively
Examples: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-04-22/book-bans-soaring-schools-new-laws-republican-states
Headline: Book bans are on the rise in U.S. schools, fueled by new laws in Republican-led states
"In a report published Thursday by PEN America, the nonprofit free speech organization cited 1,477 instances of books being prohibited during the first half of the 2022-23 academic year, up 28.5% from 1,149 cases in the previous semester. Overall, the organization has recorded more than 4,000 instances of banned books since it started tracking cases in July 2021."
...
"Forbidden books are largely by and about people of color and LGBTQ individuals, the group found. Of the books removed in the first half of this school year, 30% are about race, racism or include characters of color, and 26% have LGBTQ characters or themes — all at a time when library shelves are becoming more inclusive and representative of society."
"Texas school districts had the highest number of bans in PEN America’s report, with 438 removals. Florida had 357 bans, followed by Missouri, with 315 bans. In Utah and South Carolina, there were more than 100 bans."
https://newrepublic.com/article/175372/banned-books-republican-right-wing-war
Headline: "Everything You Need to Know About the Right-Wing War on Books"
"Since 2021, book banning—specifically, blocking access to books in schools and libraries—has become an organized movement, one backed by a powerful network of politicians, advocacy groups, and conservative donors."
Censorship chiefs listed: Govs. Ron DeSantis, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Greg Abbott; Moms for Liberty
Despite the group's name, many of its members are not mothers and are in fact against liberty. Of course the leader of a group cracking down on sex would be a hypocrite; she engaged in a sex act with two people that she herself would go on a scorched earth campaign to destroy the life of someone were they not White, straight or blonde.
Tell me, David, how your tribe squares that circle.
From my observation, you are speaking about a very small part of "the left", if by left you mean the part of the country to the left of center, which is probably more than half of our country. The overlap is also with libertarians.
I must correct Noah on a minor point. Houston has made a persistent effort in the last dozen years to house its homeless population. When I first moved here, things were pretty bad. Now, other cities send delegations to study what we are doing.
https://www.governing.com › housing › how-houston...
Aug 30, 2023 — Over the past dozen years, Houston has driven down its homeless population by 64 percent, including a 17 percent reduction last year.
Wait, how is this a correction? Houston is doing great!! :-)
Actually, during the 20 years that I have lived here the price of housing in Houston both rental and purchase has gone up significantly. I don't know where to find statistics, but I believe the percentage of income that must be dedicated to housing has increased. Obviously, things are not as bad as California, New York, or the DC area.
I have attributed it to the trend toward fancier and bigger housing. People don't seem content with small and simple any more.
I lived in The Woodlands (suburb north of Houston) from 1997 to 2022 in the same house. My home's value was pretty much stable until the mid-teens, then skyrocketed in 2020. So, "inflation adjusted" values probably are same or lower for that period but it may be a different picture if you only went back 5 or 10 years. The big metro areas in Texas are starting to fill up unless you want to go far, far away from the urban centers. Cost of living is increasing, too. Where the big opportunities going forward, in my opinion, will be forward-thinking red states with underdeveloped metro areas that encourage businesses to locate there and/or have a lifestyle advantage that attracts remote workers.
I live in Northwest Arkansas now, and it is booming here. There are a lot of other places you wouldn't think of that are doing well, too (check out the blue clumps on that map). Political narrative drives the media and the national conversation, but jobs and quality of life drives where we choose to live and raise our families. Those blue state idealogues are missing out by saying they would never move to a place like this. They would like it here, and if they came they could help change that political narrative. We have a big country.
According to the map Noah posted, Houston and Dallas are losing people - perhaps just to suburbs?
We have a nephew who left California for a Dallas suburb for two reasons: a good job (he is a civil engineer) and cheaper housing (they could not afford to buy in Orange Co., where they both grew up). The "no income tax" part is also nice, since offsets two or three mortgage payments each year. But, they do not like the summer heat. Can't have everything.
You can see that the red dot of Houston is surrounded by a much larger blue Suburban belt of increasing population. I was kind of surprised to see that the center of Houston was red.
I live in what is regarded as a close-in neighborhood, 5 miles from the city center. and every open patch of land and many patches of land formerly devoted to light industry are being filled in by row houses and 3-story apartment buildings.
According to Bing, the Houston metro area has gone from 5.4 million to 6.7 million in the last ten years.
I also have an (now ex) SIL who moved from Calif to San Antonio earlier this year. Her motives were to live near one of her sisters, plus less expensive housing, plus she is rather conservative politically and felt like fish out of water in California. So far, she is happy with the move, although she travels back several times a year to visit her kids and grand children.
That's what I meant by "just to suburbs". Yes, Houston and surrounds have have grown tremendously over the past couple of decades. SA-Austin and Dallas-FW metro area, too.
Any ideas why central Houston would be Republican? Normally I wouldn't expect a central city to be more conservative than its suburbs: does Houston's centre have a lot of oil men there?
The red coloration on the map represents a place that is losing population—the blue represents a place that is gaining population. You could note that large parts of California are depicted as red. On this map, the red/blue coloration has nothing to do with politics.
I wish more people would read Noahpinion
The world would be a better place for it
I think you have to get voters to read these guys too. Politicians can lead on some issues but they also need to be responsive.
TJ, the tankies and wild eyed radicals don't vote Democratic. They're the ones playing the "both parties are equally bad" purity card.
The Democratic Party as an institution is really good about not litigating intersectional identity politics in the public policy realm. There are many voters who hold x-idpol views, but they'll usually turn out for Democrats in the end (remember, higher incomes and higher education track with higher levels of political participation in all participatory democracies) and aren't likely to engage in hostage-taking over praxisizing a theory.
The NIMBYs are much harder to deal with since they are politically active, are well-heeled donors and even hold power as elected officials or precinct committee members.
Build More Electoral Votes! (In other words, Build More Housing)
It'd be pretty nice, instead of focusing on the presidency, to create an impenetrable wall of Dems in the House by building more blue housing.
That's another benefit: the more housing you build, the more representatives you get. I believe the Representatives and electors accumulate at the same rate, and in blue state they'd be all blue.
New representatives wouldn’t all be blue in blue states. Unless you manage to get the population to mix homogeneously like in Massachusetts, some of the new representatives will be red. But only a fraction of them.
Oops, you're right of course.
Actually, for maximum political effect, you would build housing in swing states first!
Swing states should also build more housing! But when the controlling legislatures are purple or red, this motivation isn't useful -- it would just lead to votes against housing.
As you point out, there are all kinds of local complications when it comes to building houses. Actually, I was mostly cracking a joke.
Or they could just try better governance all around to motivate people to live there, if that is a goal. I know, I know, I crack myself up.
1. The American population is generally declining, because a) we don’t have enough kids and b) our immigration system sucks https://www.politicalorphans.com/our-population-has-shrunk-since-the-election/
2. That said, interstate migration tells a big story. And I’d argue it’s more damning than Noah claims. If these trends continue the Dems will have an uphill climb to win. Red states will get more electoral votes. This will be seen as a vindication of the red state model. Combine that with the GOP’s willingness to disregard elections they dislike...
3. In general, most locales in the USA don’t care to attract people. The MI state government has formed a task force to address the shrinking population, but I’d bet that most of the major recommendations aren’t followed. I haven’t seen many people (other than maybe Abbott and DeSantis) crowing about how their policies are attracting so many people to their city/state.
4. You don’t get to blame the voters for rejecting you when you aren’t bothered enough to run your own backyard properly.
5. The USA seems to have undergone a Great Forgetting - we’ve forgotten how to build/permit housing, we’ve forgotten how to build transit at a reasonable cost (or how to scrounge the will to build anything at all), we’ve forgotten how to reform our immigration system (done most recently in the 90s), we’ve forgotten how to pass more than 1 major piece of legislation per term (thanks filibuster)...
6. I’d bet a major permitting issue for transmission lines is the surfeit of local governments. You have to get permits from Bumfuck County, Cousinblow Village, Shithole Township etc etc. We have way too much local government. The party of small government should insist on consolidating them to reduce costs. Except muh sacred municipal government...
Jerusalem Demsas wrote about Point 6. It is a problem because voter engagement is very low for sub-state level races. Not only are elections low turnout, but most residents could not even name their mayor or city councilmember or county representative.
Canada had a very interesting approach in the provincial levels. In Ontario, usually when a Progressive Conservative is in charge, they make government bigger. In essence, they dissolve smaller municipalities into a larger city. Toronto absorbed its neighboring suburbs around the turn of the 21st century. Hamilton absorbed the smaller city of Dundas and a large amount of open space. There are also Region governments, that associate cities, like Toronto's neighboring suburbs Missisauga (where Pearson airport is) and Brampton into the Peel Region. It's a suburb with 1.3 million people.
Another good Canadian idea is congruent districts for the federal parliament and in the province.
There are basically two ways to reign in suburban intransigence: annexation or statewide power. In California, I think cities are reluctant to pull in a lot of households (i.e., mouths to feed) so we're FINALLY using state power to overrule them.
I do have family in Toronto who live in the annexed suburbs you describe, though.
The Great Forgetting would make a great title for a future book :-)
Number 6 sounds like you’re from Chicagoland https://www.illinoispolicy.org/reports/too-much-government-illinois-thousands-of-local-governments/
I regularly visit the Bay Area with groups of execs from around the world. After they've marveled at Apple, Stanford, exciting startups, etc, they suddenly discover the homeless and poverty. Not only the homeless, but the "normal" families that can't make ends meet, and rely on food banks to get through the month. Or live in RVs on El Camino Real, in front of the Stanford campus. When they ask me how this dichotomy exists, the billionaires next door to the homeless, the mega-mansions down the street from the tents, and I reply NIMBYism, no one believes me. Thank you, Noah, for providing data that will help explain this.
Many red states are doing well when it comes to renewables but some of the data presented for CA and TX is not consistent with the data at the EIA. Further, some of the wind comparisons you make are simply because the red states happen to have the best potential for wind energy, https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/wind/where-wind-power-is-harnessed.php .
Here is the EIA site where you can access historical state data for electricity capacity and generation, https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/ .
Based on the EIA data in 2022, CA had 17.5 GW of utility solar that generated 38.8 TWh while TX had 11.4 GW that generated 22.4 TWh. They are not equal as suggested by the graphic referenced to Bullard. It also important to understand that solar generation in CA represents 19% of their total generation while the TX percentage was 4.3%. Due to this difference in penetration practically all new solar in CA has battery storage while only one forth of solar in TX has battery storage, i.e., the potential for expansion in TX is greater because solar without generation costs less, https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/04/21/texas-solar-is-booming-but-batteries-are-not-included-2/#:~:text=In%20the%20next%20three%20years,solar%20projects%20have%20batteries%20included.
Also, the per capita energy use in TX is 2.5 times higher than in CA, https://solarpower.guide/solar-energy-insights/states-energy-use-per-capita .
I guess what I am suggesting is that I think it is valuable to do some fact checking and have a deeper appreciation of underlying differences when making comparisons.
Imagine how much better we could be doing if more than 29% of Republicans believed climate change was real and caused by man! https://news.gallup.com/poll/474542/steady-six-say-global-warming-effects-begun.aspx and https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/texas-a-state-of-denial
The problem with the question of believing in climate change is that it ends up being a political question. When it is frame differently, the numbers go up. Willer and Feinberg demonstrated this in several studies.
Do you have a reference?
Moral reframing: A technique for effective and persuasive communication across political divides
Matthew Feinberg, Robb Willer . Social and Personality Compass. Volume13, Issue12
December 2019
Batteries make solar expensive (look at electricity rates in CA : $0.30/kwh vs TX: $0.15/kwh ) and in Texas there is higher daytime demand in the summer compared to coastal (populated) California. Plus Texas has much more available gas for peaker plants. I imagine we would be doing much better if more than 10% of Democrats realized people care more about their energy costs than keeping the global average temperature in 70 years below 1.5°C.
Your prices off according to the EIA, https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ , CA is 22 cents / kWh and TX is 10 cents / kWh but many other blue states that have net-zero goals like NM, electricity costs are identical to Texas. Everything is expensive in CA.
Texas is switching to renewables because it is cost effective not because of policy, although, they are probably taken advantage of incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act. The energy transition is happening but state incentives based on the realization that climate change is real and serious are helping to accelerate that process. In 2031 when the last coal plant shuts down, New Mexico's generation will be 75% renewable.
Illinois has been pushing community solar as a scheme to increase solar capital investment, but doesn’t seem to be as robust a program as it should be. I’m sure it’s a land use issue.
One the one hand blue states don’t build and the cost of housing is driving population shifts. On the other hand red states don’t provide services, adequate public education, health care, etc. and have higher mortality rates.
And most people in Texas actually have a higher tax burden than Californians. Only the top 40% of earners in CA pay more than if they were in Texas, the bottom 60% pay more in Texas—and if you look at the benefits the states provide their poor, the net transfers are even better for most people in California. Crime is lower too. Noah nailed it—housing costs are the problem.
Those taxes pay for things. And BTW Red states have homeless people. They arrest them after passing laws making homelessness illegal (laws against "camping") and/or run them off or give them one way bus tickets to blue states. There was a whole documentary about the homeless in Nashville, TN called "Tent City, USA."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-in-republican-counties-have-higher-death-rates-than-those-in-democratic-counties/
There's something in the article I'm not understanding.
I agree the lack of building is bad. But if people are migrating from blue areas to red areas.... Why does that result in more Republicans in Congress instead of a state becoming purple or blue?
Newcomers will vote red because blue states drove them to red states. (See: Ted Cruz's victory in 2018 and Ron DeSantis bringing a majority of Florida brown voters to the GOP.)
The U.S. has never seen a leftward swing nationally since 1932.
The 2018 senate race was an interesting one. Exit polls showed that people who moved to Texas in the 80s and 90s supported Cruz by a lot - but people who moved to Texas after 2008 supported Beto by just as much, while people who were born in Texas were close to evenly split.
It may once have been the case that conservatives were the ones mostly moving to Texas. But it doesn’t seem to be true recently.
Are American Latinos becoming more conservative in part because in the 1970s (for example) they were reacting against the right-wing tyrannies that then dominated much of Latin America, while today there are only a few tyrannies left in that part of the world, most of which (Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela) are left-wing?
That seems to be the case in Florida. Cubans are the largest Latino nationality in Florida, and Venezuelans have been immigrating to Florida in greater numbers during the Chavez and Maduro governments. Conservative Puerto Ricans tend to move to Florida and Texas as well.
Most Americans lately do not move,even within states, so these changes are just a few percentage points, not enough to change an entire states voting base.
Will Ron DeSantis's fortunes decline now that Covid is no longer a politically salient issue?
Ron DeSantis is termed out as governor.
His presidential campaign is like ... well, there was an old Simpsons episode where Homer's buffoonish dancing at a minor league baseball game earn him a job as its mascot. He becomes an attraction and gets noticed by Capital City, implying a major league team. The fans reject him and he returns to Springfield to his nuclear power plant job.
DeSantis's presidential campaign is epically bad. He'll be in history books for being a failure as a candidate for his party's nomination. It's epic because after November 2022 DeSantis had a hot hand. He ran the table in Florida, continues to be one of the most popular governors in the U.S. (read his popularity ratings within Florida if you want to despair for humanity) and there's no stopping GOP dominance in Florida.
He will either be Trump's VP pick (you read that correctly), to be a Dick Cheney to Trump's Dubya, or work on his comeback like Ronald Reagan.
Many voters vote the way they do, not out of personal conviction for stated policies or ideals but because they vote the way their neighbours do.
I don't think this is really true. As far as we can tell under 5% of people change their political affiliation when they move to a state of the opposite.
Sure, this is a bit imperfect because a Democrat could move to a blue city in a red state. And vice versa for a Republican. But the base numbers are so low that I think our default assumption should be that people don't change their party affiliation just moving to a new state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/02/marjorie-taylor-greene-national-divorce-partisan-voting/
Keep in mind that party affiliation is a formality and doesn't have any bearing on vote results, what give their states their redness and blueness.
You have a population of X voters who move from one state to another in a given year. They move to subsidiary state units, like counties or in states that don't have them, cities (like Virginia, where counties and cities exist side by side rather than cities being subordinate to counties). You can also use U.S. House districts.
These subsidiary state units or House districts can be classified as blue or red depending on whether they voted for Democrats or GOP, as well as how many previous elections the party has won. There are a few units that are called bellwethers, which are districts that happened to vote for the winning candidate. The press declares that the bellwether voters are the ones who "decided" the election.
There are four movements: red-to-blue, red-to-red, blue-to-blue and blue-to-red. The sum of these four should add to 100%. If the modal movers are red-to-red and blue-to-blue, this sorting would not change the political movement in the destination state. It does make movement in the origin state, however. This is why the GOP does well in the rust belt; in declining areas, you have an older White cohort that's not going to retire or relocate for work in the sun belt. For blue-blue movers, it can allow for a declining urban area to have younger, more progressive leadership like in Pittsburgh and St. Louis.
Red-to-blue and blue-to-red voters, regardless of how large each cohort is, do alter the composition of the destination state. They'll flip a crucial district or strengthen the margins of the party in power.
I had never heard of that study, and I don't live in the USA. It is hard for me to think about only having 2 options. non-paywalled wapo article here:
https://archive.is/oOgjh
Thank you.
So now I would like to see another study, of what happens to movers from red to blue and blue to red 5 years after they have lived there for a while. How many hated the new place and went someplace else, and is any of that because their neighbours had opposing politics? And how many changed their politics over time?
Any idea how effective the new legislation in CA will be. Starting to sound like they'll only take down some of the barriers but not nearly enough to crush the NIMBYs?
It will be pretty effectively eventually. Even if we wiped out all zoning and NIMBYism today, stuff needs to get built and people have to decide to sell their properties. The passage of the Boomer generation and the build up of cities will probably coincide and, coupled with low fertility rates, we'll see a suburban housing glut. Keep in mind that we saw a housing bubble burst only 15 years ago so we aren't SO supply constrained that the market can't stabilize.
Basically, our housing crisis is an acute-on-chronic disease with each flare worse than the last. But if you treat the underlying disease (downzoning and NIMBY policies), the exacerbations will become more manageable.
Isn't this a good thing for the Democratic party long-term? Sure, you increase the population of red states (the horror), but you're also becoming more competitive in those states. And also blunting the weighting effect of the Electoral College to boot.
Yeah, but being forced to leave a Democratic supermajority state because it's completely unaffordable, only to have a much better quality of life in a Republican state, is hardly a rallying cry to vote Dem.
You know what the best advertisement for your product is? It’s when your product is so bad that people rush to your competitor, then your competitor responds to their new customer base by imitating your best features. I’m certain that the Democratic Party will be well served adopting this strategy and enshittifying every locality and region they’re in charge of.
Thank you for magasplaining Democrats' problems.
Now tell us the story about your tribe's bottom-of-the-pack health and education outcomes.
Thank you for incorrectly assuming I’m a Republican. Now please keep quiet, adults are talking here.
You splained.
Although I agree with many of the points Noah makes in this article, he clearly missed the impact that farmland preservation laws have had on housing. This is very evident in the “You want to build a house? Not in my state!” illustration. Always remember this: everything west of the 100th meridian in the U.S. is desert or semi-desert (the small exception being the northwest corner of the U.S.), not suitable for row-crop farming without a lot of irrigation. Conservative Wisconsin is a great example of this. For years now, they have had fairly strict farmland preservation laws that prevent someone from buying an acre of farmland and sticking a house on it. In liberal Oregon, farmland preservation laws have resulted in urban growth boundaries around Portland and other cities in the Willamette Valley, restricting the housing supply. Contrast that with Arizona, Utah and Nevada. No farmland to worry about in those states! Just lots of desert, so buy an acre or two of desert land and stick a house on it (provided you have a reliable water source).
Not unimportant, it is much more complicated to build new housing in a place like Boston - filled with historic neighborhoods, than Texas, where you’re just creating more sprawl.
Not arguing with the premise, which I think is directly correct. But I think ideology has less to do with it than density.
Boston is 4 times as dense as Austin, but Austin has 4 times the population. When your city is limited by “historical” sites and waterways, then ideology may be what prevents you from building vertically, instead of sprawling. Haven driven in both cities, I think Boston is harder to get around in than sprawly Austin, and barbecue beats baked beans also, but not chowdah.
I asked Grok for the silliest historical sites in Boston, and she said:
One of the silliest historical sites in Boston might just be the Skinny House, also known as the Spite House. Built in 1874, this four-story house is only 10.4 feet wide at its widest point, and it was allegedly built out of spite by a man who wanted to block his brother's view of the harbor after an argument. Talk about sibling rivalry! It's a unique architectural oddity that is sure to make you chuckle and wonder about the lengths some people will go to for revenge.
Another site that might tickle your funny bone is the Ether Dome at Massachusetts General Hospital. It's not inherently silly, but it's the place where the first public demonstration of ether as an anesthetic took place in 1846. Imagine the audience's surprise when they saw the patient fall asleep and not feel any pain during surgery. It's a groundbreaking moment in medical history, but it's also kind of funny to think about the reactions of the people witnessing it for the first time.
Lastly, the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 might not be a historical site per se, but it's a bizarre event that's worth mentioning. A massive tank of molasses burst in Boston's North End, causing a wave of molasses to flood the streets at an estimated speed of 35 mph. The sticky disaster claimed the lives of 21 people and injured 150 others. It's a tragic event, but the thought of a tidal wave of molasses sweeping through the city is quite a silly image.
Because I'm an anesthesiologist I had to make my pilgrimage to the Ether Dome while visiting Boston. There is also an ether monument in Boston Public Garden.
Spite House and Ether Dome? Those are cool names for housing and possibly my next jam band.
Out in California, San Diego has a shopping center with a Trolley stop called Hazard Center. (It turns out that south of the tracks, there's also a townhouse community as well.) About a mile southeast of the Capitol, Sacramento has a Midtown neighborhood called Poverty Ridge.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Poverty+Ridge,+Sacramento,+CA/@38.5695999,-121.4865582,15.75z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x809ad0e5ce721639:0x1341a96a9304112c!8m2!3d38.5638097!4d-121.4813228!16s%2Fg%2F1tgn9w76?entry=ttu
Apparently, what constitutes poverty is a Victorian-style house on a tree-lined street with a BMW or Tesla parked out front.
I'm in Sacramento and actually looked at homes in Poverty Ridge when I moved here. The name comes from Poverty Hill where poor people retreated and camped when the city flooded (before an effective flood control system). But the locals just tell everyone it was an entirely ironic name because of the old mansions.
Poverty Ridge became the fancy area in the late 19th century because of streetcar service. Other neighborhoods like Land Park and East Sacramento got annexed in 1911, got streetcar lines, and became even fancier (for example, that blue house in "Lady Bird" is in East Sac).
The first effective flood control system Sacramento implemented was to bury its downtown and build the current "old city" on top of it. This was after Sacramento was designated as the seat of state government. There are tours of the Sacramento Underground.
http://sachistorymuseum.org/tours/underground-tours/
I haven't done one of the museum's Underground tours yet. But have been to Old Sac where you can see the layers.
I liked Old Sacramento and what was referred to as "old city," or collectively Downtown and Midtown, the areas where you tell your address as the intersection of a letter and number like you were playing "Battleship." (Like: Meet me for lunch at 10th & K).
Despite the conventional letter-numbering of street names, Sac got very creative with the alley names between the letter streets, which run east-west and follow alphabetical order. There are Blues, Chinatown, Democracy, Eggplant, Fat (likely named for legendary Chinese restaurateur Frank Fat), Government, Historic, Improv, Jazz, Kayak, Liestal, Matsui (husband and wife congressmembers; Doris succeeded Bob upon his death), Neighbors, breaking the pattern is Carriage Path, resuming the pattern is Powerhouse, Quill, Rice, Solons, Tomato, Uptown and Victorian.
South of the old city I've found River Cats and Banana alleys.
I lol'ed at Kayak and not Kings being the K-letter alley, solidifying the stereotype that the Sacramento Kings don't have fans. :)
Density is one of the biggest factors in the political allegiance of US states, with red states being low-density either because they've been depopulated by deindustrialization (the Rust Belt) or because their urban populations were small prior to the era of mass car ownership (the Sunbelt, which was heavily rural prior to affordable air conditioning).