Like-Minded, Living Nearby
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The Big Sort By Bill Bishop (Houghton Mifflin, 370 pages, $25)
The more diverse America becomes, the more homogeneous it becomes.
No, that’s not a misprint; it is the thesis of “The Big Sort,” Bill Bishop’s rich and challenging book about the ways in which the citizens of this country have, in the past generation, rearranged themselves into discrete enclaves that have little to say to one another and little incentive to bother trying. “As Americans have moved over the past three decades,” Mr. Bishop proclaims, “they have clustered in communities of sameness, among people with similar ways of life, beliefs and in the end, politics.”
{snip}
This hunch and others led Mr. Bishop to write a series of widely discussed newspaper articles, and now, finally, a full-length presentation of the argument. I have always been skeptical about the clustering thesis myself, but there is one simple statistic, rightly seized on by Mr. Bishop, that is difficult to explain away. It is this: In 1976, less than a quarter of the American people lived in so-called “landslide counties”—that is, counties in which the spread between the two major presidential candidates was 20 percentage points or more. By 2004, nearly half of us lived in this kind of politically tilted territory.
How could this be? Well, we know one thing: It isn’t gerrymandering. Nobody redraws the boundaries of a county every 10 years; they often stay the same for a century. Nor does it have much to do with natural population increase, which might push one group or another into a new proportional dominance within a certain geographical area. As it happens, there has been relatively little population growth in most parts of the country. The longer one thinks about it, the more seriously one has to consider Mr. Bishop’s claim: that the local landslide effect has been largely the result of demographic resorting.
Why in recent years and not before? In Mr. Bishop’s view, resorting is what happens when individuals in a society become more affluent, better educated and freer to make their own personal and political choices. But he also believes that the Big Sort has been a form of escape. As the country attracts more and more immigrants, and as large metropolitan areas become multiracial and multilingual, people feel a strong desire to retreat to the safety of smaller communities where they can live among those who look, think and behave like themselves.
{snip}
I accept the validity of this research, but I don’t think it necessarily undermines Mr. Bishop’s thesis. What if voters looked at the candidates in 2004 and decided—in clusters—that one of the nominees was the kind of person that they would like to have as neighbor, tennis partner or fellow-parishioner—and the other one simply wasn’t? This is how Mr. Bishop explains the results in 2004, and he makes a decent case.
Certainly it is a case that the two major parties have come to accept. Soon after the 2000 election, Bush pollster Matthew Dowd reported to Karl Rove that there wasn’t much point in focusing any campaign on independents or moderate voters anymore. The country was too polarized, essentially along the cultural lines that Mr. Bishop lays out. “If you drive a Volvo and do yoga, you are pretty much a Democrat,” Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said in 2004. “If you drive a Lincoln or a BMW and you own a gun, you’re voting for Bush.” Mr. Bishop would agree. He would simply add that the yoga people have clustered in one set of culturally segregated enclaves and the gun owners in another.
{snip}
(Posted on April 23, 2008)
Comments
Yet another book about the obvious.
Posted by Mark Fulton at 5:07 PM on April 23
Bottom line, people like people whom are like themselves. This has been proven time and again. To try and force people of different beliefs, color, etc. into living together is an experiment in disaster. Hence, the 1965 immigration act. Lyndon Johnson’s “great society” has turned into a multi trillion dollar disaster also. The liberals and neo-cons all know this, they are not that stupid. Therefor, they must be purposely and knowingly destroying this country. Hmmmm, know thy enemy. Enuff said!!!!
Posted by at 5:25 PM on April 23
Another thing fueling this is the internet.
A clever catch phrase I have heard to describe this sort of thing is “every place is simultaneously becoming more like everywhere else and more like itself.” The article which I read that quote cites Boulder, Colorado, which, because of its liberal reputation, has drawn more liberals, increasing its liberal reputation, drawing even more strident liberals, to the point where the city has a vegetable rights organization.
A marketing research term called Claritas has this thing down to a science:
http://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20&SubID=&pageName=ZIP%2BCode%2BLook-up
Posted by Question Diversity at 6:15 PM on April 23
wow! Published in the Wall Street Journal! Where are the cries of racist, bigot, hater, etc that occurs whenever people prefer living in a homogeneous neighborhood? Is this a 180?
Posted by Diamed at 6:48 PM on April 23
I think the results would be more interesting if you look at areas smaller than a county. Many people live in large, very diverse counties that are themselves composed of sections that are inner city, urban, suburban and even rural sections. Not all voters in Cook county IL or San Diego CA vote as a block.
Posted by at 6:53 PM on April 23
The 2 political parties are so similar in regards to how they view white people, that the “divide” is a sham. As white people, we should consider all other whites our brothers and sisters, no matter who they’ve voted for in the past, no matter what car they drive, no matter what hobbies they have, etc. We should beware of attempts to divide the race.
Posted by at 6:57 PM on April 23
Many people feel trapped by their careers in the wrong enclave, and can’t wait to retire, not so they can stop working, but so they can escape their neighbors.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 7:17 PM on April 23
The article doesn’t mention the obvious: the self-sorting of races.
Posted by at 7:50 PM on April 23
The real trouble is going to start when these enclaves decide that they no longer have to listen to the federal government on major policy issues because of lack of action in addressing important problems (example: immigration). To be blunt, people of one mind are right. The others are not only wrong, they are evil. That is what is missing from Bishop’s work. The separation is not based on equal but different political views. The separation is between basically good, decent people who want to live a good life….and evil people engaged in something sick.
Right on the cusp of this issue is the realization that good communities succeed while evil ones fail. Soon after the division in basic matters of law happens, there will be INTENSE pressure for the good communities to stop contributing to the federal tax base. Once that happens, there will be….trouble. The other side will start to fall apart. Poverty, violence and mayhem will become the rule, not the exception. The problems will be so severe that they will attempt to take from the rest of us…..and be repelled.
It will be civil war and it will end with the US being two, possibly three countries (if Mexico succeeds in exploiting the situation to create Atzlan). A grim fate but it became unavoidable when this country decided liberalism was tolerable. In retrospect, it would have been better to gather the first liberals, en masse, strip them of citizenship and get rid of them. We didn’t do that and we are all living with the consequences.
Posted by at 7:58 PM on April 23
“But he also believes that the Big Sort has been a form of escape. As the country attracts more and more immigrants, and as large metropolitan areas become multiracial and multilingual, people feel a strong desire to retreat to the safety of smaller communities where they can live among those who look, think and behave like themselves.”
No kidding, what an inexplicably unpredictable “social phenomena?”
Somehow, the predecessors of the current clowns who do yoga in their Volvos when they should be keeping their eyes on the road, decided that they had all the answers. They elected bedwetting sociopaths like themselves to office whenever they could, and saw to it that this country was going to be “integrated.” Then as their desired swath of social “progress” smote entire neighborhoods, cities, counties, and even a few states, they road off on the wake of the people who drive BMWs, and even Volkswagens or Saturns, that did have their eyes on the road.
These “greedy” and “racist” troglodytes, who realized that subsidizing and encouraging indolence, hostility, and entitlement among those “of color” was probably not a good idea and hit the road early on in the 70s through 80s. These incorrigible “xenophobes” who did not, and still do not, accept that morbid altruism and the redistributive socioeconomic/demographic degradation it requires, is of any value. Even if it would “enrich” them in the future with this priceless thing called diversity.
It is a process, that never seems to end with regard to America’s whites (and clearly, this is the American racial group being addressed in this article) and the results are always predictable. The split tends to be about 40% dementedly “progressive” against 40% unrepentantly sane politically, with a remaining 20% stuck impressionably undecided in the middle of these two camps, childishly sucking their thumbs and holding them in the wind. Since the dementedly “progressive” tell a better fairy tale then the unrepentantly sane, the impressionably undecided always side with the former group initially; then as things dissolve into ever strengthening diversity, the alarm clock goes off and the switch is made to the latter and more rational group. Normally, that 20% sees the light long enough to allow sanity to reign 5 to 10 years, and then the process repeats.
Thus, overtime, some municipalities or geographic areas are destroyed while others develop to replace them, only to suffer the same fate unless the lessons of the past hold.
In general, our elections for President of the USA do reflect this. Every 8 to 12 years, a candidate of “change” and a Santa sack, becomes the undisputed revolutionary of his generation. It was: Kennedy in the 60s, Carter in the 70s, Clinton in the 90s, and now potentially Obama in the 2008 cycle.
The only difference being, that unlike: cities, counties, and states, there will not be anywhere else to go when the country turns into a “utopia” of irreversible diversity and Third World (but also fashionable) corruption.
As always, God help us all!
Posted by John PM at 8:08 PM on April 23
I browsed through this book recently at the local library, and it only touches very lightly on the issue of race. The author is timid about dealing with the 900-pound gorilla in the room. Whether you drive one kind of car or another, or practice yoga or own a gun is only touching the surface.
Posted by at 8:27 PM on April 23
“people like living with other people like themselves”
Now this statement, obvious to millions of people of all kinds, will have to be proved by some University’s Psychology department at a cost of 200 million dollars worth of studies. But then, another study at an equal or greater cost will have to be done to see if the result is true,etc.etc.
Posted by Bobby at 9:57 PM on April 23
I can personally attest to the accuracy of this article. It’s going to get even more pronounced in the future. Just wait and see.
Posted by Xenophon at 10:08 PM on April 23
“People like living with other people like themselves.”
Then why do so many white women like living with black men. That’s been my observation.
Posted by LHathaway at 11:04 PM on April 23
Oh really? I always figured that clean cut educated white people enjoyed living amoung minority thugs!
Posted by Trisket at 12:08 AM on April 24
This is why I moved to Iowa, 94% white.
Posted by AvgDude at 12:19 AM on April 24
And why I moved to Jackson County, Kentucky. 99.2% non-hispanic white.
Posted by Hiram at 7:20 AM on April 24
For the record, I have a dear friend who lives in Cambridge, MA, drives a VW Jette and does yoga who comes from an old VA family of Repubicans, votes GOP and rubs shoulders with Greenwich types. I live in NYC’s Village and have never voted for a Democratic presidential nominee, I play golf and tennis, don’t own a car or gun (though I’d like to). My midtown office is about 2/3 Democrats but there are in fact Republicans, most of whom live in CT or Long Island.
I understand what the author is saying, yet one should never assume this is universal. For example, there is an older argument that conservation is in fact, as the word suggests, conservative.
Posted by An Ally in NYC at 9:30 AM on April 24
They sniff around the edges, but never quite get to the whys and wherefores of the matter. They acknowledge that “As the country attracts more and more immigrants, and as large metropolitan areas become multiracial and multilingual, people feel a strong desire to retreat to the safety of smaller communities where they can live among those who look, think and behave like themselves.”
Looking like one’s self isn’t nearly as important as thinking and behaving like one’s self or group. We all know people of another race that speak and think like our own group, and for me, race isn’t an issue when dealing with them, because in my worldview, they behave normally. Unfortunately, most groups behave in a manner that is consistent with the group’s stereotype (that’s why there’s the stereotype), and that is incompatible with my group’s accepted standards and norms of behavior.
Those behaviors are undeniably different, and the big lie is to say that these different group behaviors are all equal. They are clearly not. Some behaviors lead to chaos and failure, and others lead to functional societies… and everyone who has experienced diversity knows it.
Only those who’ve had the privilage of living in near cloistered absence of diversity can cling to the “Everyone’s the same, and race is a social construct” pap. As there become fewer and fewer places for whites to go to be among their own (and the functional communities that attend), there will correspondingly be fewer and fewer whites that still swallow the multiculti lie. I think this will all come to a very ugly head withing twenty years, or we perish as a people.
I read the following about White flight on the Vanishing American site, and it is as accurate an assessment as I’ve read, and I’d add that the only thing that will stop the phenomenon would be war.
From poster c.o. jones on Vanishing American
Here’s what will happen:
Areas that become majority Hispanic will, over time, become more like Mexico. Spanish will be the everyday language spoken by the majority, corruption will gradually inflitrate public institutions and private business alike, with a concomitant erosion of private property rights and increased difficulties enforcing contracts; economic stagnation will occur. Government bureaucracies will balloon, as people look to the government as the employer of last resort.
At that point, you will then have millions of, let’s say, Californians (read: Mexicans and Central Americans) begin to flee to places like Idaho, where things are still functioning, for now anyway, more or less like they used to in most of the Unites States, in other words, where people are productive and jobs are plentiful. The process will repeat itself in Idaho, and eventually the entire country.
If one were to have the ability to produce a map showing population shifts in animation form, and speed it waaay up, what you’d see would resemble two population masses moving from place to place, one appearing to “chase” the other.
Posted by JHD at 10:36 AM on April 24
My problem is that I am surrounded by the leftist, bleeding heart
liberal types. Finding people who are like-minded is becoming increasingly dangerous and tricky. I know they are out there, but locating them is another story.
Posted by Louis from Montreal at 11:06 AM on April 24
Leftist idealism (camouflaged by the LMSM as ‘progress’) keeps our society in a state of instability.
The healthy human being seeks peace and stability, and in a society like ours, which is constantly dragged into mass-consciousness rancor by professional media inciters, university sociopaths, and egocentrically weird politicians, one naturally recoils from the this cacophony of artificial, useless, and irritatingly unending noise.
Hence, the burbs - where it is assumed one may find like-minded rational beings.
Posted by Gary at 1:22 PM on April 24
I drive a hybrid, do yoga, eat vegetarian (mostly), own guns, read Amren, and sing country swing music. I live in a mostly black area (like Schoolteacher pointed out, we often get stuck somewhere due to career), I despise Islam, yet I’m fond of both Christanity and Buddhism.
Where in the world am I supposed to live?
Posted by at 1:25 PM on April 24
>>>Then why do so many white women like living with black men
Do the terms “slut”, “common whore” bring enlightenment? When I was young, the term for a White female like that was also the name of a common barnyard animal — no decent, self-respecting White woman (or girl) would even fantasize against miscegenation, much less actually DO it.
Posted by Fed Up at 1:41 PM on April 24
Gee, it doesn’t take a college professor or rocket scientist to come to the conclusion that people want to be with other like themselves. It is only human nature to want to be with your own people.
Posted by at 2:08 PM on April 24
“Like themselves” does not mean, same race.
When you travel to the richest burbs in America, you find lots of rich people; rich people of all sorts of backgrounds. The rich are the only ones who can afford to price most of those they dislike (Blacks, Latino, Asians) out of the market in their neighborhoods, yet even they have to put up with the occasional black or other minority family, but this is easier for them to take, since they have common economic interests.
With the Middle and Lower classes, neighborhoods are more fragile. A nice quiet (White) neighborhood can go to Hell in a matter of weeks with just a few home sales, or having those homes turned into rentals.
One way to allow for the non-rich to have stable neighborhoods is to repeal the “Fair Housing Act” and restore property owners’ rights to buy and sell to whomever they wish.
Another solution would be to strengthen “Covenant Communities” with restrictive covenants that forbid dogs, boom boxes, working on cars in the front yard, etc. This latter system of creating covenant communities, would promote affordable enclaves of civilized behavior. These enclaves would not be based on race, but on commonly held values. What would result would be environments that would be hostile to White trash or any other form of urban type. Of course, Democrats could have special enclaves, without any covenants, so that they could live up close and personal with every form of detritus that they are always telling the rest of us to be “tolerant” of.
Posted by J. Tyler Ballance at 3:28 PM on April 24
This just adds further evidence to what is common knowledge around here: multiculturalism and integration are unnatural constructs that need to be enforced at the point of a gun.
Posted by ODDL at 6:20 PM on April 24
One of the easiest ways to destroy a White neighborhood is to integrate that community with Afro-Americans and/or Mexicans. That this is so true has been demonstrated hundreds, if not thousands of times since those Civil Rights Acts of 1965 were foolishly enacted.
No, stating this truth is emphatically NOT racism on my part! Far too many people have seen their White neighborhoods invaded by Blacks and Browns, then watched as crime — previously non-existent or miniscule, suddenly shot up and became a harsh reality. Crime and mindless vandalism. Even petty thefts — kids’ bicycles, toys, etc. By Blacks or Mexicans, of course. A neighbor around the corner… caught a little Black kid stealing her daughter’s bike. Took it off him. You guessed it. Two days later, it was stolen again! Would you care to guess the racial identity of the thief?
Not only does the crime rate climb dramatically. But as Blacks get into local government, corruption, misappropriation of public funds, other scandals become quite frequent.
So WHY shouldn’t Whites prefer ONLY WHITES in their cities and towns? We’re not stupid enough to swallow the p.c. dogma. We KNOW what races the majority of thieves, crooks, muggers, rapists, burglars generally belong to.
Posted by Fed Up at 8:35 AM on April 25
“People like living with other people like themselves.”
Then why do so many white women like living with black men. That’s been my observation.
Posted by LHathaway at 11:04 PM on April 23
Why are bitter white men always fixated on this issue? They just can’t seem to let it go. Not that many white women are with black men. No more than say…white men with Asian women. Tough pill to swallow, huh?
Posted by at 8:48 AM on April 25
“Then why do so many white women like living with black men?”
Gee whiz, all that 24/7 controlled governmedia brainwashing propaganda couldn’t have anything to do with it, could it?
Posted by at 9:02 AM on April 25
>>>Why are bitter white men always fixated on this issue? They just can’t seem to let it go. Not that many white women are with black men. No more than say…white men with Asian women. Tough pill to swallow, huh?
Posted by at 8:48 AM on April 25—-
There’s just something naturally repellent about it. If one considers races as subspecies, the more dissimilar the subspecies, the more naturally distasteful the pairing, particularly if one group averages a full standard deviation lower in intelligence tests than the other, and when same group has a much higher propensity for criminal behavior than the other, and on, and on… it is quite a natural thing for members of the higher achieving group to be repulsed when one of their women chooses such a pairing.
Simply put, it disgusts me.
Posted by JHD at 11:56 AM on April 25
“If one were to have the ability to produce a map showing population shifts in animation form, and speed it waaay up, what you’d see would resemble two population masses moving from place to place, one appearing to “chase” the other.”
This has been done, for Southern California, 1940 to 2000:
http://www.usc.edu/schools/sppd/research/census2000/race_census/racecontours/la.htm
Posted by TabuLa Raza at 5:17 PM on April 25
Well, I guess it is just a case of “birds of a feather flock together.” When one goes to almost any public place ones sees groups and the individuals in the groups usually share group characteristics.
As for the white women and black men, perhaps it has something to do with evolutionary biology. Previously white women thought of black men as less evolutionarily successful than white men but recently a minority of them think the blacks may have long-range evolutionary potential. So they go with them.
The times they ar a’changing.
Posted by Vladivar at 5:56 PM on April 25
Intelligent White women who mate with Blacks will find out how little long term evolutionary potential they have when they realize that their mulatto offspring will not be able to get into the nice, upscale, progressive college they had hoped for. B. Hussein Obama is an extreme anomaly. I’m acquainted with a couple smart blonde women with pleasant but dense Black husbands, who have had to accept the fact that their little tan offspring will not get into any college, nor master any useful trade. We all have serious regrets in our lives, but to have brought dullards into the world, not by chance but by choice, is not a burden I envy.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 1:37 PM on April 26
When I was younger, I had this girlfriend. Well, we kind of drifted apart. She ended up marrying a Black, having 3 or 4 kids by him. Then her family (shocked at the miscegenation bit) talked sense into the girl who had broken up with the ex. She gave the mulatto brats up for adoption and tried to “clean” her act up.
She called to see if we could get back together. Well, being very much aware of her past, I flat out told her, I wouldn’t touch any woman who had had sex with a Black. Thanks but NO THANKS! I consider any White woman like that to be forever damaged goods.
Posted by Fed Up at 3:03 PM on April 29