Talk Elections

Just something I'm wondering. Why is it that the nuttiest people move to exurbs? Not even mainstream conservatives either, but hardcore right wing extremists. Why are only these people the ones who like having to drive an hour to work and back?

More time to listen to conservative talk radio   :P

Well, I live in an exurb, and there aren't very many teabaggers around...

Glendale's not an exurb, just a suburb. Palmdale is an exurb.

Do you not understand what an exurb is? You live like 20 minutes from downtown LA, stop being ridiculous.

Although this entire thread is ridiculous so your post fits right in.

Thanks for the correction.

Still, I don't think Palmdale is full of teabaggers.  Is it?

Palmdale probably has close to the most Republican white vote in all of California, save maybe Bakersfield, which also has some crazy exurbanites (although it's mostly not exurban). It just also has a substantial black and Hispanic vote.

Apple Valley might be a better example.

BRTD is right that these sorts of places are magnets for hard rightwingers. I think it has to do with people who move there being affluent enough to complain about paying taxes but idealize rural living enough to want to live somewhere with a lot of open space. And they probably have something of an antisocial streak (and sometimes racist or other bigoted streak, although not always or even more often than occasionally), too, wanting to live far from others. Megachurches mitigate this a little bit, but megachurches are a very antisocial experience of religion appropriate for the antisocial nature of exurbia.

The definition of exurb is a community beyond the suburbs typified by higher income and education level and a high proportion of commuters. To the extent that these values correlate to members of the Tea Party then the question is almost tautologous.

California doesn't really have many of these type of places since basically any fast growing area in it gets tons of Hispanics...actually I guess there's Placer County. Think of there.

My theory is that it involves a desire to own a big house and the whole "ALL PRODUCTIVE AMERICANS OWN HOUSES, IT'S THE AMERICAN DREAM BLAH BLAH BLAH" nonsense. They can't afford to own a big house in the city or even an inner suburb, so they move far away to where there's lots of land and real estate is cheap so they can buy their hideous McMansion at the price of a house half the size in the city. Meanwhile people who are wealthier but don't care about owning houses and rent a nice condo in the city are obviously more liberal.

White flight from the suburbs is my guess.

The more interesting general question is "why do different types of settlement vote as they do?" Unfortunately, like many partisan questions it inevitably spirals down to hackery. According to Republicans, exurbs vote Republican because they're full of affluent people who want good schools and safe communities for their kids. According to Democrats, exurbs vote Republican because they're full of insular, bland whites who want to keep their kids away from minorities. There's probably truth to both statements, except both sides will always play up the story that satiates their preconceived world view.

Yeah. In amidst the slightly strange stuff, all the important stuff has been said already.

     I think it has more to do with a general discontent with the liberal nature of cities. The people who move to exurbs dislike cities & want to get away from them; they're just not wealthy enough to retire yet & get away from them completely.

But why don't they move to a more inner suburb?

Why does anyone live anywhere except the best possible place for them? Because it's cheaper. If no-one wanted to live in exurbs, prices on exurban property would decrease until some would.

I agree. I live in Dallas and a lot of freeper types live in McKinney, Frisco, Prosper; even as far north as Celina. Many of them take the 30-40 minute commute to Dallas to work.

People who live in the city are used to having crossing guards at every street corner, so they accept nannystatism.  They reason that were it not for the state, they would be limited to their own block and couldn't work or get food.  They have effectively become both physically and mentally crippled.

Those who live in the exurbs, realize that after they drive down to the mailbox to pick up their mail, that they can keep on going and drive to the Walmart or their job at the munitions factory.  They become empowered and self-reliant.

We need to figure out a way to add a gas tax to people who engage in this sort of behavior.

Presumably they built those roads themselves.

In the Sacramento area, there aren't many big houses in nice neighborhoods in the nearer suburbs.  If you've got money and want space, you move out to EDH, Cameron Park, or one of the nicer (read: "out in the country") areas of Elk Grove, Rocklin, Lincoln, or somewhere like that.

Most of the suburbs that were decent but affordable (Pocket, Elk Grove, Natomas) are becoming run-down, higher-crime rental areas.  People with money and nice things want to avoid that.

But then why don't more liberal middle class people move there? For example take Richfield and Fridley. Both are bland middle class suburbs very close to the city. Both tend to be pretty Democratic. Yet they have similar incomes and demographics to most of Michele Bachmann's district. There's really only one difference: The houses in them are much smaller.

Why does anyone care who lives where?

You are aware of the very purpose of this site right?

I prefer to call Megachurches "Challs" as in, Church-malls.  Many Challs now have coffee shops and other things inside of them.  Bow down to their God:  He that hateth the poor and the brown and the librul.

You know what's funny is if you compare liberal non-denominational churches to conservative ones. They tend to be polar opposites on things like size and all that. Pretty much everyone in the Christian hardcore/punk/indie scene tends to hate those "chall" things hugely. In fact an attempt to bomb one of them in Burleson, TX is the only act of terrorism I can think of committed by liberal Christian extremists.

What could possibly motivate people to have bigger houses? How could that factor possibly affect voting patterns?

The type of mentality I discussed here:

Might they have simply have more children?

Then why are they so strongly against public schools and things like SCHIP?

I don't condone terrorism, but we need more of these people IMO.

Because they might feel that the corresponding tax reductions or alternative policy (like school vouchers) and perceived superiority of private schools would make them and their children better off.

Also, a lot of them aren't really opposed to public schools when push comes to shove. That's more of a think tank idea than a grass roots one. This is why Bret Schundler never succeeded in NJ, the suburban folks did not agree with that part of his Jersey City agenda. They're opposed to supporting other people's public schools with their tax money.

To be honest, when I'm visiting the Bad Place, I'm essentially in the exurbs.  I don't like it, but on the other hand I don't mind it. 

Its like this - the Bad Place is so bad that there isn't really much difference for an idle, reasonably well off person living in the exurbs or a better place (city center), simply because there really isn't anything very worthwhile in the entire metro area.  The entire metropolis of over two million is devoid of interest or value. 

There are only two things I find sufficiently worth having to trouble myself about in the Bad Place, when stuck there, and those are 1) Ethnic food, and 2) the obvious.  Since I don't work or have any duties or responsibilities, and I have free gas and spending money, there's really no great downside to driving for 45 minutes to get whatever it is I want.  The only real inconvenience is if I get #2 from an 'out-call', I have to rent a hotel room, something I'm loath to do, and not just because of the expense.

Because our culture is lurching towards paranoia and isolation.  People are afraid of other people, big groups of people, and big buildings out of a fear of other people.  People have come to believe that they will be victimized by criminals or terrorists if they spend too much time out in the world.  It's a part of our culture now and you can see that in a lot of aspects of TV and movies.  Most sitcoms take place IN the house now rather than out in the town.  The city sitcom trend of the '90s is pretty much over and now (surprise) people are watching shows about terrorism and murder instead.  The people that are watching those shows and scaring themselves shitless about the world are also the libertarian "back off" types because of that fear and paranoia.

Excellent observations, and I couldn't agree more.  This negative characteristic of american society is especially noticable because here in Thailand we still have 'real life' - street life, people actually out eating amongst one another, meeting, etc, in close proximity.  Most Thai people include 'the streets are so empty, its depressing!' as one of their many criticisms from their experiences studying abroad in the Bad Place, Britain, or Australia.

If that were true, then there wouldn't be any shopping malls, or WalMarts, or bars, or churches, all of which can be found in any exurb.

Everyone in this thread needs to take a little refresher course in causation vs. correlation, but clearly BRTD is right and the "teabagger types" ought to move in right next door to him.

After they cleared the forests, tamed the rivers, and broke the sod.

Of course there are going to be some, and mostly ones that require as little interaction as possible like WalMart.  Like what opebo was saying though, the streets are largely empty and communal gathering places are nonexistent.  There's no desire among people in general to connect to others in their community because those communities are being replaced by cookie cutter developments with cookie cutter families in them, all of which could be any given person in any given area.  Everywhere in suburban America is turning into the same town.

Well statistically the two are probably one in the same. Good schools and safe communities are generally in what we might call bland areas, and minorities typically populate in inner cities, where schools aren't as good and commnities have high crime. It's the 1950s white flight to the suburbs all over again.

Well, I know I didn't sign up here to read your rants about exurbs and suburbs. That's for sure.

You mean they drive down the driveway to get the mail delivered by the United States Postal Service, then drive on the roads and highways paid for by the local, state, and federal governments before arriving at Wal-Mart, a corporation that takes advantage of umpteen tax benefits and liberal trade pacts with various nations in order to import cheap products to sell to exurbanites before they drive, once again, on government roads to arrive at the munitions factory, whose biggest customer is the United States Defense Department... which uses the arms produced at the factory to start conflicts in nations with which we have ideological disagreements with, that they too might adopt a democratic form of government that can hold the people in check and keep them from being a threat to the United States.

Seriously Jim.. I hope that entire post you made was 100% facetious.  You'd find if we got rid of all subsidies, exurbanites would find their way of life far too expensive and they'd be stuck in a mediocre apartment bloc with all the undesirables and libruls.

Maybe you should double-check your premises.

If there was only 1st class mail, it would be much more expensive to deliver than now.  The volume made up by direct mail advertising thus provides a subsidy for 1st class mail.  Why would someone bother advertising to people who have no income?  So it is the productive members of society in the exurbs that are attractive to advertisers that make 1st class postage affordable.

Highways are paid for largely with usage fees in the form of gasoline and other taxes, except for the part that is skimmed off to subsidize mass transit for those in the inner city, who either are not productive enough to purchase a car, or have lost the cognitive ability to drive a car.

The munitions factory also produces goods for dual use, for hunting and self protection, so that the yeoman exurbanite can directly put food on his family's table, and not have to rely on the state police agencies for protection.

if you have read the book "The Big Sort" then you will have the answer to the OP's question.

That's pretty much it. People have exercised their right to live whereever they want and its generally with people just like them. Crazy rednekcs want to live where there are other crazy rednecks.
Exurbs, especially ones in the south plains, probably have the highest rates of both people who both make $50,000.00 a year (80th percentile for individuals, 45th for households) and have been convicted of a felony. Most of which convictions arise from when a gun is pulled over kids crossing their fence or some guy staring at their trophy wife.

Here's a random stupid thought: do people who drive to their mailbox which is 2 minutes walk away from their house tend to vote for the Right more than those who walk to it?