Mississippi Suburb Counties

[walleye26]

Rankin, DeSoto, and Madison are all (what I’d consider) suburban counties, yet they behave quite differently. Rankin seems to remain Titanium R. Madison has moved rapidly left, and even voted for Hood in last years governor election. DeSoto is moving a bit left, giving Espy 40% in 2018 and Hood 38%.
What are the differences between these three counties? Is it education? Cultural differences (Memphis vs Jackson)? I know Madison county is pretty well off and educated (by Mississippi standards). Are certain counties much more/less white or black? Why are they behaving differently?

[Tintrlvr]

Rankin, DeSoto, and Madison are all (what I’d consider) suburban counties, yet they behave quite differently. Rankin seems to remain Titanium R. Madison has moved rapidly left, and even voted for Hood in last years governor election. DeSoto is moving a bit left, giving Espy 40% in 2018 and Hood 38%.
What are the differences between these three counties? Is it education? Cultural differences (Memphis vs Jackson)? I know Madison county is pretty well off and educated (by Mississippi standards). Are certain counties much more/less white or black? Why are they behaving differently?

Historically, DeSoto and Rankin were quite similar. Both were places where the population was mainly lower-middle to middle class white people who had moved out of the city. They had low educational attainment and wealth for a suburb, and the main motive their populations had in moving out of their respective urban counties was to get away from black people (or, if just moving to the urban area for the first time, to avoid living near black people).

DeSoto has started to change recently because the black population has been increasing significantly. This isn't terribly surprising as the same thing happened to the areas in southern Shelby County just over the state line earlier, which are now monolithically black but 20-30 years ago looked similar to DeSoto County. Long-term, DeSoto County is probably headed towards being a majority black exurb, and eventually it will flip to voting for Democrats, possibly by large margins in another 20-30 years.

This hasn't happened so much in Rankin County because Jackson is a smaller city with less growth and suburbanization in the black population, but you could start to see it happen over the next decade (Rankin is at least 15-20 years behind DeSoto in this regard, though.)

Madison is very different from both DeSoto and Rankin. It includes the relatively upmarket suburbs of Jackson (at the southern end of the county), and its suburban whites are more middle to upper-middle class as compared to Rankin or DeSoto. (The equivalent areas of the Memphis metro are within Shelby County, in the east-center of the county.)

Madison County has always been relatively competitive because there is a large rural black population in the north of the county, though unlike the suburban areas, which are growing, the population in the north of the county is steady or declining. That population has in recent years been outvoted by the suburban white population, but the balance of power may shift if the wealthy suburban whites become somewhat less monolithically Republican, and there is a clear floor to the Democratic vote in Madison County due to the demographic polarization.

Because Madison County is relatively more wealthy and expensive (in its suburban zones) than DeSoto or Rankin Counties, it is relatively less likely to experience black suburbanization in the same way, similar to other near-core wealthy white suburban areas across the South, including east-center Shelby County as mentioned above, notwithstanding that it actually has the largest black population (mostly rural and very poor) among the three right now.

There is a degree of geographic and historical determinism to all of this. Madison County is relatively wealthier because it is directly adjacent to the historically wealthier parts of Jackson in the northeast of the city, similar to east Shelby and east-central Memphis, while Rankin and DeSoto are relatively less wealthy because they are directly adjacent to less wealthy parts of their respective cities. Ultimately, even when people move within a metro, they tend not to change their orientation within the metro (i.e., which direction from the city center they live) because of their established commuting patterns, desire to stay close to friends and relatives and communities, etc., so which areas were wealthy 100 years ago determine to some degree which areas are wealthy now.

[Del Tachi]

Good post above, but I'll have to point out a few areas where I think there's some additional nuance

1.  Madison County is undergoing significant "Black suburbanization" - a lot of neighborhoods in Ridgeland centered around Northpark Mall (immediately adjacent to the City of Jackson, from the Natchez Trace south to the county line, east of Hwy 51) are majority Black at this point.   This increasing diversity is what's powering Madison County's new competitiveness. 

The truly elite areas of Metro Jackson remain in NE Jackson (and mostly south of Hanging Moss Creek, not directly adjacent to Madison County).  Considering the expected low level of educational attainment for Mississippi Blacks its probably the case that Hinds County Whites are more educated than Madison County Whites (the county-wide estimates for college-attainment are 47.7% vs 29.1%, but Hinds is over 70% Black - this guess is somewhat tempered by the fact that Hinds County Blacks are probably the most educated Blacks in Mississippi, however).  The truly elite neighborhoods of Jackson (Eastover, Belhaven) are immediately adjacent (over a bridge) to Flowood, in Rankin County.

2.  The geographic determinism involved doesn't have so much to do with the adjacency of elite Jackson areas with Madison County (because they aren't) but the limited number of Pearl River crossings between Hinds and Rankin County.  Initial suburban growth from Jackson "fanned" out into Madison County easier because it wasn't choked by having to cross the Pearl River, which makes Madison County denser and (increasingly) more Black than Rankin County.  "Crossing the River" will remain an important symbolic gesture in Metro Jackson for generations to come (there are only two road crossings between Hinds and Rankin County).

Since you brought up DeSoto, I'll also note that you can see the influence of rivers very starkly in Greater Memphis.  Crittenden County, Arkansas (i.e., West Memphis) has never developed the same suburban character as DeSoto because you had to cross the Mississippi River.  DeSoto and Madison (not DeSoto and Rankin) are the analogues, and I would place them on similar trajectories. 

[OneJ]

1.  Madison County is undergoing significant "Black suburbanization" - a lot of neighborhoods in Ridgeland centered around Northpark Mall (immediately adjacent to the City of Jackson, from the Natchez Trace south to the county line, east of Hwy 51) are majority Black at this point.   This increasing diversity is what's powering Madison County's new competitiveness. 

 

In addition to this, there's also a small yet notable and growing Hispanic population in Ridgeland largely residing in those same apartments.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

1.  Madison County is undergoing significant "Black suburbanization" - a lot of neighborhoods in Ridgeland centered around Northpark Mall (immediately adjacent to the City of Jackson, from the Natchez Trace south to the county line, east of Hwy 51) are majority Black at this point.   This increasing diversity is what's powering Madison County's new competitiveness. 

 

In addition to this, there's also a small yet notable and growing Hispanic population in Ridgeland largely residing in those same apartments.

If you had to guess, what is the next time Madison County actually votes D on presidential level?

[Del Tachi]

1.  Madison County is undergoing significant "Black suburbanization" - a lot of neighborhoods in Ridgeland centered around Northpark Mall (immediately adjacent to the City of Jackson, from the Natchez Trace south to the county line, east of Hwy 51) are majority Black at this point.   This increasing diversity is what's powering Madison County's new competitiveness. 

 

In addition to this, there's also a small yet notable and growing Hispanic population in Ridgeland largely residing in those same apartments.

If you had to guess, what is the next time Madison County actually votes D on presidential level?

Possibly in the next 2008-type environment, where MS would be within 10 pts

[Adam Griffin]

(there are only two road crossings between Hinds and Rankin County).

This makes sense by Southern standards (reminds me of the old Fulton/Cobb line), but seemed kinda extreme to me at first glance. Google shows there are 7 crossings (I-20, highways 25 & 80, & Old Brandon, Moncure, Florence-Byram and Spillway Roads; the last I guess you can say is effectively Madison-Rankin), though. To be fair, 4 of these are within a four-mile linear stretch along a 25-mile linear county boundary (and 3 are within less than a mile; 2 more are at the northern and southern extremes), so your point still stands.