Polarization of neighborhoods

[Husker]

I was browsing the public library yesterday and came across a new book called The Big Sort. In this book, Bill Bishop argues that counties and neighborhoods are becoming more polarized. I decided to put this to a test using 2008 presidential election data from the last 3 places I've lived.

The table below shows the percentage of precincts in all 3 cities that were decided by less than 1 percent, between 1-5%, between 5-10%, between 10-20%, etc... Looks like Lincoln is the least polarizing place I've lived and Memphis is the most. I should point out that Memphis is including the suburban areas of Shelby County.

 

Lincoln   Norman   Memphis % within 1%   3.1   2.3   0 % within 5%   19.3   5.0   1.6 % within 10%   39.6   20.5   4.3 % within 20%   69.3   59.1   10.6 % over 20%   30.7   40.9   89.4 % over 35%   13.0   5.0   78.4 % over 50%   1.6   4.5   64.3

This table shows the cumulative percentage of the percentage of precincts that fell into a given category:

Lincoln   Norman   Memphis McCain >50%   0.0   2.3   6.7 McCain >35%   2.1   9.1   15.7 McCain >20%   7.3   34.1   23.1 McCain >10%   19.8   52.3   26.3 McCain > 5%   29.7   54.5   27.8 McCain > 1%   39.1   59.1   28.6 McCain < 1%   40.1   59.1   28.6 Tie   40.6   59.1   28.6 Obama < 1%   42.2   61.4   28.6 Obama > 1%   49.0   65.9   29.4 Obama > 5%   59.4   72.7   30.6 Obama > 10%   76.6   93.2   33.7 Obama > 20%   89.1   97.7   37.3 Obama > 35%   98.4   97.7   42.4 Obama > 50%   100.0   100.0   100.0

[bgwah]

Looks like Lincoln is the least polarizing place I've lived and Memphis is the most. I should point out that Memphis is including the suburban areas of Shelby County.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and wager this has entirely to do with the racial make-up of those two cities.

[Husker]

The racial makeup is certainly a very large factor. However, there is a section of Memphis that is predominantly white and predominantly liberal. Combine all black precincts voting 95-100% for Obama, a few white liberal precincts going for strongly for Obama, and the suburban areas/East Memphis going overwhelming for McCain, and you get a tiny fraction of the city with "middle" ground.

Lincoln on the other hand does not have an area of the town that is predominantly minority. The 15% of our population that is in the minority is dispersed throughout a handful of neighborhoods. Norman was somewhat similar in this regard, although it is interesting to note that Norman didn't allow blacks to stay overnight before the 1960's.

Norman and Lincoln both had about the same portion of the city where Obama won by 10-20 percent (i.e., neighborhoods with a significant college influence). The difference is the majority of working class voters and about half of the wealthy voters in Lincoln voted for Obama, while this number was much smaller in Norman. Some of that has to do with the makeup of the cities. Norman functions as a college town and a suburb while Lincoln is a decent sized independent city that happens to house a university. Plus, social conservatism plays a much larger role in voting in Norman (the same can be said for most white areas in Memphis) while people here are much more middle of the road on the social issues.

Anyway, I'd love to see this done for other areas of the country.

[memphis]

Midtown, the "liberal" white area is pretty small. There are easily 4 white people in Cordova or East Memphis for every one in Midtown. It absolutely goes without saying that voting patterns here are racial with blacks going 95/5 Dem and whites going 75/25 GOP. This is true whether or not the canididate running for president is black.

[Husker]

Midtown, the "liberal" white area is pretty small. There are easily 4 white people in Cordova or East Memphis for every one in Midtown. It absolutely goes without saying that voting patterns here are racial with blacks going 95/5 Dem and whites going 75/25 GOP. This is true whether or not the canididate running for president is black.

Yeah, I was just pointing out that there are some liberal whites in Memphis. I'm not from Memphis or the South, but I get a little irritated when people automatically assume that someone from down there is a racist conservative.