The fastest-growing parts of the United States are formerly rural counties on the metropolitan fringe, beyond the edge-city office centers, and are now filling up with family-sized subdivisions, outlet shopping malls, and booming mega-churches. Though many of these are within the boundaries of major metro areas, these counties tend to vote strongly Republican; and, with their growth, they have produced Republican majorities almost large enough to offset the Democratic margins in heavily black or culturally liberal central cities.
We see this in Minnesota too. The suburbs 25 miles outside of Minneapolis are growing like crazy and favored the GOP heavily. The Democrats made gains in older suburbs, but not enough to offset the growing Republican trends in edge-cities or growing conservative trend in rural areas (where liberals on social issues are being voted out of office). The local DFL party is still reeling from a near statewide GOP sweep in 2002
