A Tale of Two Maps

[R.A. Hettinga]

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Tech Central Station  

A Tale of Two Maps

By Patrick Cox
 Published 
 11/17/2004 

The now familiar map of the United States, separated into red and blue
states, makes the point, graphically, that the coastal population centers
tend to vote Democratic while fly-over country leans Republican.

Unfortunately, the map's binary either/or electoral college nature
overestimates the philosophical division within the country while failing
to show the extraordinary degree to which Americans' voting behavior
reflects the degree to which their own neighborhoods are more or less
crowded.

A far better illustration, devised by Princeton University mathematician
Robert Vanderbei, uses shades of purple to indicate the spectrum of
election preferences within counties.

Here is a map, executed by Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman
of the University of Michigan using his procedure:

<http://www.techcentralstation.com/images/111704AAA.gif>

Here is a map showing U.S. population density in 1990:
 
<http://www.techcentralstation.com/images/111704A.gif>
Comparisons of these two maps make startlingly obvious the extent to which
population density predicts voter behavior. Though not a perfect match, the
relationship is undeniable -- and ultimately enigmatic.

What, we are led to ask, could explain this relationship? How does the
number of live humans per square mile either influence or reflect political
philosophy?

The standard, rather unexamined, assumption is that rural America has more
traditional cultural values that are associated with the Republican Party.
These include religious, family and pro-military values. Urban population
centers and surrounding environs, on the other hand, are associated with
more progressive values associated with Democratic Party. These values are
assumed to be more secular, progressive and anti-military.

While this may be an accurate description, no one, to my knowledge, has
provided a convincing explanation for the differences between lower and
higher density regions. Why would, after all, city life cause one to
embrace liberal political views? Why would life in the country yield a
conservative perspective? What, specifically, are the causative factors?

There has been a surfeit of speculation about psychological factors, but
relatively few specifics and even less evidence. Urban areas do have higher
crime rates and, while this attribute is widely recognized, there is little
real analysis of such as a causative factor in political attitudes. One of
the few efforts even to quantify the correlation of population density and
crime rates comes from John R. Lott and David Mustard who studied the
impact on crime rates of Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun laws -- which is
higher in rural areas.

One of the very few studies to actually examine the effects of population
density on behavior and attitudes is "Measuring Helping Behavior Across
Cultures" by Robert V. Levine of California State University, Fresno.
Levine found, through a series of interesting tests, such as feigning a
blind person trying to find and retrieve a lost letter, that

"Far and away the best predictor of helping was population density. Density
was more closely tied to the helpfulness of a city than even
characteristics like crime rates, the pace of life, economic conditions or
environmental stressors like noise and air pollution. Overall, people in
more crowded cities were much less likely to take the time to help. New
York City was Exhibit A. Crowding brings out our worst nature. Urban
critics have demonstrated that squeezing too many people into too small a
space leads to alienation, anonymity, de-individuation and social
isolation. Ultimately, people feel less responsible for their behaviors
toward others -- especially strangers. Previous studies have shown that
city dwellers are more likely to do each other harm. Our U.S. results
indicate that they are also less likely to do them good, and that this
apathy increases with the degree of city-ness."

This, of course, is only one study and may not take into account other less
observable forms of "helping" so it may not be safe to read much into the
author's conclusions.

Another fascinating and easily verifiable correlation may be tied only
indirectly to the characteristics of population density. The red states,
that voted for Bush in both of the last elections, it seems, are net
receivers of federal tax revenues.

In 2002, Dean Lacy of Ohio State University and the Hoover Institution.
published "A Curious Paradox of the Red States and Blue States: Federal
Spending and Electoral Votes in the 2000 Election." He found that,

"Thirty of the U.S. states reap more in federal spending than their
citizens contribute to the federal government in taxes. The other 20 states
provide more in taxes than they receive in spending. In the 2000 U.S.
presidential election, George W. Bush won most of the states that are net
beneficiaries of federal spending programs, while Al Gore won most of the
states that are net contributors to federal spending. A state's ratio of
federal spending to tax dollars, particularly non-defense spending, is a
statistically and substantively significant predictor of Bush's margin of
victory across the states. A state's per capita federal tax burden is also
associated with the election result: states with higher tax burdens gave
higher vote margins to Gore. Compared to Clinton's state-by-state vote
shares in 1996, Gore did worse in states that gained in federal spending
per tax dollar from 1998 to 2000."

Even more specifically, Lacy wrote that, "Put another way, Bush's margin
goes up by 2 percentage points for every additional dime of federal
spending in a state per dollar of taxes paid by that state."

The same results held, in principle, in the Bush/Kerry election, and much
has been made of this odd fact by those who want to characterize red states
as welfare recipients. It is an odd charge, however, that the states that
tend to oppose transfer payments politically benefit most from them
financially.

One possible explanation of this seeming contradiction is that it is caused
by progressive taxation and higher urban area incomes. Though the cost of
living is higher in the cities than it is in rural areas, taxpayers with
nominally higher incomes naturally pay more taxes. Most federal programs,
however, are paid out based more on the basis of population statistics,
regardless of income levels, leading to an outflow of revenues from
high-income states to low income states.

The case can also made that the cost of delivering services to states with
low population densities is greater than it is in urban population
concentrations. It is, for example, easier to deliver mail to rows of
consecutive mailboxes on city streets than it is to drive to a series of
far-flung farmhouses. It is also true that labor and other costs are also
lower in rural areas, so it is probably not safe to assume federal programs
are actually higher in rural areas. Additionally, many significant
programs, such as agricultural subsidies, are unaffected by the demographic
scattering.

I think it is more likely that the net-recipient status of the red states
reflects the fact that, in order to secure the support of states whose
populations tend to resist transfer payments, supporters of redistributive
programs are often forced to buy off red state approval for government
spending programs. Still, these characteristics fail to explain the
differences in the underlying differences in political attitudes between
concentrated and dispersed populations.

All modern differences between rural and urban American life may, in fact,
be irrelevant. They could, rather, be holdovers from more traumatic times.
As I've lived and worked in both heartland farm country, in Idaho and
Florida, as well as and some of America's largest cities, including New
York and Boston, I am skeptical that current differences would yield the
radical differences in political philosophies that we now observe. The
caricatures put forth by both sides, of insular hicks in trailer houses and
cowering victims in crime-ridden row houses, do not reflect the experiences
of most people.

Less than a hundred years ago, though, the contrasting challenges of city
and farm life were far more tangible. One data point is that, before the
development of penicillin at the beginning of the first World War, a
compound fracture, which was a not uncommon consequence of being thrown
from a wagon, resulted in death about half the time. On the other side of
the demographic divide, big city politics were often remarkably brutish and
intrusive.

Victor Davis Hanson, if I understand him correctly, posits that the legacy
of America's farmer/warrior past has had an enduring impact on America's
traditional political views, now emanating primarily from the heartland.
One might expect, if this is true, that those who live in closest proximity
to agricultural activities and communities would maintain more of these
traditional attitudes. George Bush's use of the symbols of agriculture,
cowboy boots, big belt buckles and pickups, obviously appealed to these
people.

If Hanson is correct, however, demography may very well be destiny, as
technology has decreased radically the portion of our population that is
involved, even peripherally, in agriculture. Moreover, the cultural
connection between the modern descendants of agricultural families may soon
fade because, as Thomas Sowell suggests, culture lasts only two or three
generations, and there are fewer and fewer Americans with agricultural
roots as time passes.

Ninety-nine out of a hundred Americans were engaged in agriculture at the
time of the American Revolution. In 1953, about 15 percent of the U.S.
population, or twenty-three million people, actually lived or worked on
farms, and 54 million lived in areas deemed rural. Now, due to the impact
of technology on agriculture, only 3 million people, or 1 percent of the
U.S. population, live on farms. According to an admittedly revised
definition, the rural population has risen to 59 million but has lagged far
behind urban growth and is now only 21 percent of the U.S. total. This
pattern continues today as growth in rural areas is running at less than a
quarter of the urban rate.

On the other hand, agriculture is clearly not the sole political variable.
In recent elections, residents of suburbs voted more for Republicans than
did residents of more crowded cities -- and they did so in inverse
proportion to their population density.

The statistician's perennial caveat is that "correlation is not causation."
but there is little doubt that there is connection, largely unexplained,
between ideology and demography. Depressingly deterministic as it is, this
correlation, if it continues, may mean that future elections will be
decided by immigration patterns, reproductive rates and technologies that
allow more businesses and workers to locate in suburban and rural locations.

I would be happy to be proven wrong.

- -- 
- -----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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