Geography isn't studied much these days, and demographics are frequently misunderstood. But if the Democratic Party wants a front-row seat in the nation's political future, it had better take tutorials on both.
Many have pointed out the problems Democrats have winning voters on issues such as religion, the war on terror, and values. But one of the most basic lessons of the 2004 election lies in the Democrats' startling loss in the country's suburban heartland. This
includes not only peripheral areas in the red states, but also those in key swing states like Ohio, as well as in a host of still marginally Democratic states like Wisconsin, Minnesota, and even California.
Think of places like San Bernardino-Riverside, just east of Los Angeles, the fastest-growing big metropolitan area in the nation, or sprawling suburbs like Scott County, outside Minneapolis. These areas are now tilting Republican. As the Los Angeles
Times reported, 97 of the 100 fastest-growing counties in the nation went for President Bush; almost all are exurbs. The percentages are higher in counties with the largest numbers of young white children; in these "new Mayberrys," reports demographer
William Frey, Bush won 60 percent or more of the vote.
A closer look at the local level shows the demographic peril that faces Democrats. The greater Minneapolis area, traditionally a bastion of liberal sentiment, is a good example. In 2004, the Democrats did very well indeed in the Twin Cities, capturing roughly 60
percent of the vote. But they lost most of the fast-growing surrounding suburban counties -- Sherburne, Wright, Scott -- by about the same amount: Their opponents got 60 percent. Two decades ago, these results might not have been so disturbing. But now the suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul are three times as populous as the Twin Cities themselves.
It's not surprising, then, that well-educated, high-tech Minnesota -- the home of Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and Paul Wellstone -- is shifting from a Democratic base state to a swing one.
A similar process may be looming in the most important state, California. Since the early 1990s, the Bay Area and Los Angeles County have had enough heft to guarantee a strong majority for most Democratic candidates. Yet these areas now represent an increasingly
small portion of the state's population, compared with big suburban areas like San Bernardino-Riverside, Orange County, and San Diego, plus the heavily suburbanized Central Valley cities. In 2004, these areas were critical in recalling Gov. Gray Davis and electing Arnold Schwarzenegger; they remain the heart of Schwarzenegger's political
base.
Bush will never be as popular as the Terminator, but, largely as a result of the growing impact of these areas, the president vastly improved his performance in California in
2004, cutting the Democrats' overall margin by 300,000 votes and adding 2.5 percentage points to his total. He did this in a state the Republicans had all but abandoned.
What's behind all this is the great demographic shift that is sweeping the nation. Since 1950, more than 90 percent of metropolitan growth in the United States has taken place in the suburbs -- first in the rings around the large Eastern and Midwestern cities, and later in the Sunbelt. In 1950, center cities contained close to 60 percent of the nation's population; today, that figure is down to 25 percent and dropping. In almost all regions of the country, the suburbs are creating most of the jobs, including the more highly paid
ones. In contrast, traditional core cities -- Boston, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Philadelphia -- have been suffering the most anemic job growth.
Unless the Democratic Party can appeal to suburban and exurban voters, it will be swimming against an inexorable historical tide. Of particular concern to Democrats is the fact that this suburban expansion increasingly includes two populations the party has
long hoped would revive its fortunes: immigrants and educated professionals. But the suburban migration of these groups is bringing a political shift with it. As immigrants (Hispanics, Indians, and other Asians) are drawn to decent schools and affordable homes, and knowledge workers are drawn to office parks and biotech belts, they are voting increasingly Republican. In places such as Phoenix, Latinos are voting 40 percent or more for the GOP, far more so than their counterparts in denser coastal cities. As analyst Gregory Rodriguez has pointed out, Hispanics in California's suburban areas also tend
to vote Republican far more than those who live in East Los Angeles.
The urban delusion. Yet today, many of the core supporters of the party -- particularly those in the larger urban areas -- view the suburbs and exurbs as
virtually another country, one they neither respect nor understand.
"Democrats are the party of urban America," proclaimed The Stranger, a
Seattle-based alternative daily in a widely circulated article titled "It's the Cities, Stupid." It called on Democrats to adopt an exclusively pro-urban agenda, suggesting a political approach catering to city-dwellers at the expense of those living in "the soulless sprawling suburbs" and in rural America. The highly urbanized Kerry voters, wrote The Stranger, are "the real Americans" who reject "heartland values like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia." The suburbanites and small-town denizens, the writer continued, are places where "people are fatter and dumber and slower."
Apart from the politically poisonous arrogance of these comments, they also make the fatal error of not understanding that Democrats have no choice but to learn to work with -- indeed to harness the energies of -- these demographic and geographic trends. Democrats need to be reminded that, far from contradicting Democratic core values, the
suburban trend actually reflects the oldest traditions of their party.
Historically, the aspirations of today's suburbanites embody core ideals of the Democratic Party and, more broadly, of progressive politics. The goals of financial independence, ownership of a plot of land to call one's own, a life in a community of manageable scale are the working-class dream, always championed by Democrats. After all, the expansion of landownership opportunities was fundamental to the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian founders of the party. America's great distinction from Europe, Thomas Jefferson wrote, lay in the fact that here, "most of the laboring class possess property."
Building a suburban strategy. If suburbs and outer-ring exurbs are the political future, how do Democrats appeal to them? First, Democrats don't need to
start from scratch. In the 1990s, they were well on their way toward developing a suburban-friendly message and agenda. It was reflected in the "quality of life" approach to economic issues, the question of balancing work and family, and in growth-management issues. Unfortunately, after the 1990s boom ended, Democrats abandoned this effort, in part because the chattering class and political consultants believed
that quality of life was a luxury message that no longer made sense, once "real" economic problems had re-emerged. Not only did this derail a positive political development in terms of Democrats' ability to speak to suburban concerns; it also ceded the smart growth
message to those who were, in fact, anti-growth and anti-suburban.
That's why the basic hostility or indifference toward suburbanites common among some party elites needs to be removed from the party's message. Then, it will take some significant and sustained study to understand these constituents and figure out how to
deliver policies that might win over at least a larger portion of suburban voters.
A good place to begin is with homeownership. A national poll in 2004 found that the majority of Americans believed the government should provide incentives for people to buy homes. By wide margins, those polled also asserted that homeownership
increases the well-being of children and makes people more likely to engage in community affairs.
Expanding homeownership, then, should be one of the bedrock principles of the Democratic Party. This can be particularly effective in holding on to voters who are seeking to buy homes. In some states, notably California, diminishing prospects for homeownership are chasing people out of the state; one out of four California citizens, according to one recent poll, is considering leaving simply due to housing prices.
Since most people do not want to move, finding ways to increase the supply of affordable housing, particularly near where people work, would be very popular. The promotion of middle-class homeownership is fundamentally an American progressive position that
should be adopted as a key Democratic position, even if it offends some environmentalists and new urbanists.
This can be accomplished by identifying the party -- on the local and national level -- with initiatives that help people make the initial down payments for houses. This is particularly important, given the large size of such investments in many states. Policies
should also be developed to increase the supply of housing, including single-family units, by turning over surplus federal properties, such as discarded military bases, to developers of middleclass housing.
In addition, Democrats also need a much stronger orientation to the values of suburbanites. Studies reveal that suburbanites tend to be more active in communities of faith than do their urban counterparts. This does not make them intolerant troglodytes, but it does mean the party should tread carefully in areas such as gay marriage and take a firm stand against perceived threats to families and community norms -- such as pornography or the promotion of violence.
Finally, in addition to not offending suburban values or dismissing suburban lifestyles, Democrats should focus on suburbanites' aspirations. Suburbia, which some Democrats consider an expression of selfishness, is really about people creating new possibilities for
themselves and their families. But it's also true that suburbs have failed in many ways, and Democrats should address those failures. For example, the sometimes excruciating commutes -- never contemplated by turn-of-the-century progressives who promoted
suburbs as "garden cities" that were a healthful alternative to the industrial core -- have weakened family life and made the workday unnecessarily longer.
Similarly, the mind-numbing ugliness of many retail and commercial areas, the lack of civic identity and sacred places that link residents to their past, can be added to the shortcomings of contemporary suburban sprawl. All too often the fight against sprawl means the imposition of exclusionary zoning -- the protection of estates and the now ubiquitous "ranchettes" -- rather than the sensible purchase of public space for public use.
Here, Democrats, certainly on the local level, can favor policies that create the right conditions for open-space purchases and the creation of "suburban villages" in town centers. Such projects, which do not seek to overturn the single-family house as the basis of suburban communities, add needed diversity of housing stock and provide new opportunities for first-time buyers, as well as for people without children.
These policies represent the cutting edge of a new, more suburban- and family-oriented Democratic Party. Democrats have no choice but to embrace these and other approaches
that appeal to suburbanites, unless they wish to live out the next decade as the marginalized party of the urban self-righteous.
