Suburban gains: Demographic Change or Newly Liberal Whites

[lfromnj]

Probably a bit inaccurate, I doubt white votes in rest of Metro were 90% R, that seems a bit too far even for a deep southern city but good point. How did you estimate white vote? Im guessing you probably overestimated hispanic vote share ?   Also for atlanta I would exclude the actual precincts with the 400 road itself as those are quite low income IIRC.

The rest of metro for Atlanta 08 seems a bit too D too IMO.


For Chicago I feel like your definition is far too narrow for the "favored" quarter as there are plenty of more rich areas like most of Dupage or northern Will etc.


Still thanks for the post .

Another interesting test for Georgia(is it Demographics vs white vote swing) is to check the 2016  senate(yes senate) vs 2008 presidential within Atlanta. If Barksdale did worse than Obama it was white vote swing but if he did better it was demographical swing. For example East cobb was +30 Mccain but +40 Johnny Iskason. On the other hand all Gwinett was McCain +10 and Iskason +4.

[lfromnj]

What is your definition of "favored quarter" since you place San Bernardino in it but not Orange County?

He said SB is not a favored quarter and neither is Tarrant.Parts of Tarrant are favored quarter although most of the swing in Tarrant from 2008 >2016 is mostly Demographical and the white vote in Tarrant was probably pretty neutral.

[lfromnj]

What is your definition of "favored quarter"

Favored quarters are basically the wedge of a city radiating out from it's core that's the wealthiest. Usually one side of Downtown had the rich people to start with so "big ticket" growth all went that direction and employment centers followed. Today, they are usually places where the Fortune 500s, out of state transplants, and cultural attractions end up. For example, in Atlanta, the favored quarter goes north of Downtown which is why you have all the secondary CBDs in a line (Midtown, Buckhead, Perimeter Center, increasingly Alpharetta) going that way while you don't see the same development in other directions. The same applies to Philadelphia going west (Downtown, University City, King of Prussia/Radnor) or Houston going west (Downtown, West Loop neighborhoods, Uptown, Energy Corridor), etc. You know them when you see them.

The best example to use here would be Charlotte NC btw as that is literally a wedge. Surprised you forgot to mention that one, infact NC is an interesting state in general to do this as you can check all 4 big cities for their obvious UMC quarter and the advantage is you still get the very conservative southern parts outside of Wake county but you also have lower Hispanic population which can throw off your numbers quite a bit.

 I don't think you should have done Chicago really IMO, there are just far too many UMC areas within the Chicago metro and don't forget Obama 08 did have a boost in Chicago metro which kept areas like Dupage barely swinging D from 2008 to 2016. I might have considered looking at Will County within chicago as thats a more interesting place IMO or look at Southern Lake County vs Northern.  The industrial cities in the north kept the vote pretty close in 08.

[lfromnj]

Here we go for Portland to see an area without any major demographical trends.

Basically Clackamas county Oregon is a barely D trending suburban county of Portland in the SE. With the exception of Happy Valley in the east it can generally be characterized by a dividing line between West of the River and East of the River. West are the richer areas and East is the working class areas.

We can look at the 2 cities of West Linn and Oregon city which basically show the divide the best. Both places are near equally white being 88% and 90% CVAP so thats nice to see.

West Linn went from Obama +20 in 08 to Clinton +25, while Oregon City started as Obama +9 to Clinton +0.  Reminder these are 2 demographically equivalent cities separated by a simple river. As expected the slight demographical difference is Oregon city has a few more Hispanics while West Linn has a few more Asians .

[lfromnj]

Chicago UMC part definitely ends before Waukegan/North Chicago which are more post-industrial cities that have kept their poplation up due to the replacements with Hispanics.
I would say extend a straight West from New Trier to Barrington instead.Barrington is the only red Town in NW Cook.

I would have also excluded the town of Denton IMO from the Dallas metro.