Will the urbanization of a state's cities make it more democratic over time?

[InquilineKea]

It's a thought (since urban areas are much more democratic than rural areas).

With the exception of Vermont, the states that are trending most in the Democratic direction tend to have rapidly expanding suburbs (Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina, etc). In the past (20 years ago), they were states like California, Illinois, and Washington.

Meanwhile, what about states that are trending in the Republican direction? Are their metro areas not expanding as quickly? (perhaps relative to the size of their rural areas?) Wisconsin and Minnesota come in mind. As does much of the mid-South (excluding Texas).

And as suburbs expand, many of them develop more urban characteristics. So maybe the extrapolated future growth of a state's cities (relative to its rural areas), and especially the urbanization of its suburbs, might be a good way to predict its long-term partisan trend.

Still, most of the *fastest* growing suburbs tend to trend Republican (the ones that tend to expand into wilderness). There was a list of them some time ago - Douglas County, Colorado was definitely one of them. It's just the suburbs that are urbanizing (increasing their population densities) that might be trending Democratic (although I need more information about this).

EDIT: The fastest growing cities that I could find were Dallas, Atlanta, San Antonio, Houston, and Raleigh. A lot of people move there due to their jobs, so it's hard to say whether these immigrants would have a Democratic or Republican direction (maybe they might decrease the average Democratic votes of people in cities). But on the other hand, they might develop more "urban" values once they get these jobs (especially the high-tech ones). But of those fastest growing cities, it's hard to predict the long-term trends of their associated states. Texas trended Democratic a little in 2008, but it may have been because Bush went off the ticket (and also because of Latino immigration). And Georgia significantly trended Democratic in 2008, but that was just for one election cycle.

[memphis]

There are tons of areas with rapidly expanding GOP suburbs. The places growing the fastest usually have GOP suburbs. Think sunbelt.

[ottermax]

Your ideas are quite interesting and I've shared those thoughts about urbanization. Urban areas just favor more liberal policies because people need more government services in more densely populated spaces. Ex: guns make far less sense in an urban setting, public transportation is more effective, etc.

My theory is that these new urban areas will become more liberal, but so will the Republican party. Already there is a sharp split between urban and rural areas in America, and I believe that it will continue to be polarized until the Republican party changes. The biggest setback to Democrats is that the compact density of liberal voters in central urban areas means that gerrymandering is easier. That's why the current set of districts inherently favors Republicans because the Democrats are crammed into super strong Democratic districts.