
If You Live Near Other People, You're Probably a Democrat. - danso
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2013/09/if-you-live-near-other-people-youre-probably-democrat-if-your-neighbors-are-distant-republican/7047/
======
lukifer
I've recently become fascinated by the concept that one's political
affiliation tends to sync up with one's dominant survival strategy. If you
rely most on communities and relationships, you tend to be liberal; if you
rely most on authority and hierarchies, you tend to be conservative; if you
rely most on your own skills, you tend to be libertarian.

[http://www.meltingasphalt.com/the-ecology-of-personal-
politi...](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/the-ecology-of-personal-politics/)

~~~
yummyfajitas
I think you are flipping conservatives and liberals. Liberals tend to rely on
authority and hierarchies (the state, and similar authority figures), whereas
conservatives tend to rely on communities and relationships (church, family,
secular community orgs). Or am I misinterpreting something here?

~~~
jmillikin

      > Or am I misinterpreting something here?
    

To be brief, yes.

Conservationism has historically been associated with a strong central
government, under the belief that a selected group of suitable people are
better at governing than the general population. The definition of "suitable"
has changed throughout the years: typical examples are "King chosen by divine
right" or "general with enough troops to seize the capital".

Liberals have emphasized the idea that the general population should have a
loud voice in their own future. In an ideal liberal society, people lead their
own lives according to their own desires, with decisions affecting the entire
group made by group consensus. Authority figures would be temporarily elected
by consensus to lead the group during times of danger, and would step down
once things are back to normal.

Both extremes have been tried during various times in history, and there's a
lot of evidence that we don't yet know how to make either one work. Purely
conservative societies tend to degrade into dictatorships when the wrong
leader comes to power, while purely liberal societies fall apart when they
grow past the size of a small town.

Major modern nations are a compromise between both conditions. A liberal
nation might have a leader with weaker powers elected by direct vote from
every adult. A conservative nation might have a leader with strong powers,
elected by successful businessmen or the aristocracy. Smaller societies tend
to be more extreme than large ones, with successful examples of both
totalitarianism and communism existing in small towns throughout the world.

Among liberals, one of the popular ideas is that everyone should have some
basic quality of life. This can be accomplished either through government
(e.g. taxing according to earnings and then distributing according to need) or
non-government (e.g. church or charities) mechanisms. Strong liberals prefer
the first because it can be more fair and efficient, whereas more moderate
liberals prefer the latter because it gives the donor more choice over who
receives help.

Personally, I lean more towards the liberal side because I feel there is
significant evidence that when a program needs to cover a large majority (say
90+%) of the population, letting it be run by the government will make it more
effective and less costly than letting it be run by a corporation.

~~~
sally85
I'm not sure where you live, but American conservatives favor power in the
states (i.e. decentralization). American liberals favor power in the federal
government (i.e. centralization).

~~~
dragonwriter
> I'm not sure where you live, but American conservatives favor power in the
> states

American conservatives _say_ that in the context of debates over federal
engagement in certain types of government programs as a reason for opposing
them there (which, incidentally, the same conservatives also oppose at the
State level), but not about the kind of programs they support, like, say,
national defense.

The areas that American conservatives make the biggest stinks about state
power are identical to the ones where they make the biggest stink about the
function not being a proper role of government _at all_.

> American liberals favor power in the federal government (i.e.
> centralization).

Er, no, American liberals don't. American liberals are often _characterized_
as supporting centralization by American conservatives when they support the
federal government doing things that American conservatives don't think
government should do at all. (They are, surprisingly enough, _not_ accused by
American conservatives of "opposing centralization" when they _oppose_ the
federal government doing things American conservatives think it _should_ do,
e.g., spending more money than the rest of the world combined on national
defense.)

 _Both_ American conservatives and American liberals tend to conduct
multipronged efforts to get the same general policy preferences adopted at
both state and federal levels (and tend to push all levers of power available,
executive, legislative, and judicial -- and, at the state level, direct
citizen initiative) at both levels.

In addition, American conservatives tend to accuse American liberals of
centralization whenever they push a policy conservatives don't approve of at
the federal level (particularly through legislative action), of seeking to
"overturn the will of the people" whenever they seek to overturn a policy
conservatives approve of through judicial action, of dictatorship whenever
they seek to implement policy conservatives oppose executive action, and of
infringing on the authority of the executive when they seek to implement a
policy conservatives disapprove of through legislative action, at least, when
the executive is in hands viewed as friendlier to conservatives.

------
johngalt
This is just a re-telling of a well known fact. Rural areas tend to be red and
urban areas tend to be blue. Only this is retold with the connotation that
republicans are somehow antisocial.

I'd just like to point out that proximity is not equivalent to interaction. In
my experience social interaction was higher in rural settings. In a small town
you will know all your neighbors, and probably half the people at your local
stores. In a city it's the opposite, strangers abound.

~~~
tomkarlo
We tend to know the same number of people total, so when you're in a more
densely populated area, you're dividing the same number (or even a larger
number) by a much, much larger number of people around you. Maybe it's not
that people in small towns are more social; they just have a smaller pool.

~~~
johngalt
Exactly, the smaller number of total people results in meeting people you know
more often. This is exactly what happens.

I wasn't trying to imply that rural people are different, merely that the
setting creates more opportunities to have social interaction.

~~~
tomkarlo
Having fewer _places_ in town results in meeting people you know more often.
Having fewer people doesn't - your probability of meeting someone is the
number of people you know (which is arguably larger in a city) divided by the
number of places they could be. The number of people you don't know in a place
is mostly irrelevant.

------
tokenadult
The huge amount of scatter around the line of best fit in the scatterplot
shown in the article demonstrates that there is a HUGE degree of uncertainty
in this model. I know plenty of counterexamples to this in my high-density
townhouse neighborhood.

~~~
logicallee
If you're a person in America, you're probably a woman.

~~~
asgard1024
While in China, you're probably a man! Conclusions?

------
mindcrime
As a present-day Urban Libertarian, who grew up as a Rural Conversative (in
name) with some Liberal tendencies (eg, I was a Libertarian all along, but
didn't know it, because I didn't know the term), this seems fairly reasonable
to me. More urban areas tend to attract people from lots of different places,
and you get a blending of worldviews and ideas, which - from what I've seen -
has a generally "liberalizing" effect (using "liberal" here in the "classical
liberal" sense, not necessarily anything to do with modern day Democrats). So
I find that urban areas tend to have more "modern liberal" / "democrat" types,
AND more Libertarians, than more traditionally conservative / rural areas. I
think you also see a lot of "small l" libertarians in more rural areas, who
are very libertarian but maybe don't describe themselves that way for one
reason or another.

------
rayiner
I wonder what the data looks like when you account for the fact that our
biggest, densest cities also have huge minority populations which vote
democrat for reasons that have little to do with population density.

~~~
tomkarlo
I'm pretty sure it maps out the same if you filtered for, say, non-Hispanic
white voters. The curve might shift towards GOP overall, but the correlation
would still be there, because the cities also tend to skew more educated and
that correlates in a positive way with voting DNC.

------
foob
_But you may also be struck by the shape of that trend line (Sen is quick to
note, by the way, that he 's not a statistician). It roughly suggests a
political tipping point somewhere around a population density of about
800-1,000 people per square mile._

My guess would be that this is a linear fit using a least squares
minimization. The fit is dominated by the upper right portion of the plot and
has a relatively arbitrary x-intercept of around -10. Population density going
negative doesn't make sense and shouldn't be a feature of a reasonable model.
There's no tipping point, it's just how the line shows up on a log plot and
it's almost entirely determined by the data with population density much great
than 1000.

I think it would make a more sense to plot population density on the x-axis
because the scatter in the data is really coming from the Cook PVI rather than
the population density and the Cook PVI can be interpreted as a dependent
variable. We know very precisely what the populations are and we can also see
that the magnitude of the Cook PVI scatter looks roughly constant as a
function of population density. After this a simple least squares fit would be
more reasonable to apply but again a line would not fit the data at all. Just
by eye I would say that (Cook PVI)=A _x_ Log[ (Population Density) _x_ B ]
would do a much better job modeling the distribution.

Overall, it's a nice plot to motivate discussion but the fit doesn't really
add anything to it and might even detract from it.

------
downandout
Mother Jones, Huffington Post, or CNN will undoubtedly make a post shortly
entitled "New Study Shows Republicans are Anti-Social and Despise Their
Neighbors". However, all this data shows is that Democrats tend to be on the
lower income side ( see [http://n.pr/QFg1Yo](http://n.pr/QFg1Yo) ). Lower
income people tend to live in higher density areas.

------
saosebastiao
As an urban republican, I find this intuitive, although there is significant
variation from neighborhood to neighborhood even holding density constant.
Even amongst republicans, you still see major policy opinion differences that
are divided by urban vs exurban. I'm hoping the urban variant becomes more
prominent :)

That aside, please please pretty please do not do statistical analyses with
Excel.

------
presidentender
"If you live close to a large number of strangers, you're probably a
Democrat."

"If you know many members of local government personally, you're probably a
Republican."

------
GigabyteCoin
If that statement were true, we will never see a republican government in the
USA again. Considering the fact that more people live in cities than don't,
and this percentage of people has only been rising for the past century:
[http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/aug/18/percent...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/aug/18/percentage-
population-living-cities)

~~~
svachalek
It's pretty early to say that, and a lot of things can change in the meantime.
But for the short term, remember that in the U.S., representation is not
entirely proportional to population. Voters in Wyoming have quite a bit more
influence than those in California due to how the Senate and electoral college
works, and voters in Iowa have more influence than either due to the whole
interaction between media and the election process.

------
ctdonath
I realized this a decade or so ago when digging thru election precinct maps
and noticed how bright the "red/blue division" line was around urban areas.

------
switch007
I've never understood the staunch support of a political party to the extent
that you label yourself one or the other. Is it really like that - people go
out of their way to identify as a party member?

Is it not a hindrance in finding common ground and working together?

On this side of the pond, I find that people "support" a party, rather than
consider themselves a member of one (even if they are).

------
williamcotton
Why don't we have laws that are based on population density? Why don't we have
mathematical formulas written in to the law itself?

------
ck2
What I always enjoy reading, from an intellectual sense and not a "ha ha"
sense, is "awakening" stories when people are raised super conservative and
follow that path - until they have a personal experience that enlightens them
that it's not ideal.

Watching self-discovery instead of being hit over the head with it is always
fascinating.

~~~
johngalt
I enjoy reading that every generation thought that in 50 years there will be
no more conservatives.

Every 20 something thinks with absolute certainty that their political views
wont change with age. And that it's only a matter of time until the rest of
the world catches up to their 'correct' views.

~~~
ck2
The problem with just saying "conservative" is there are fiscal conservatives
and then there are social conservatives.

You think 50 years ago they ever thought there would be gay conservatives?
Conservatives that would support gay marriage? So they aren't socially
conservative, at least not completely.

On the other side, I am not sure how to explain this properly but I find I am
less liberal with age but even more progressive.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Basically, cultural/lifestyle issues, military issues, and economic issues are
intertwined, but largely separate. You can be a "fiscal conservative, social
liberal" proprietarian, and you can also be a "economic social-democrat,
social conservative" (like _most of the working-class population in most
countries_ , by the way). Or you can go "full partisan retard", pick one
"side" of the "spectrum", and take that "side" on every separate spectrum,
thus resulting in the traditional strawmen of "liberals" or "conservatives".

Personally, I've actually become more culturally liberal the further I get out
of university. College liberals are _awful_ and horrendously stupid to boot,
but seeing people who've left their parents' support and still manage to hold
liberal positions drives me towards that position.

Kind of like how conservatives tend to oppose gay marriage right up until
meeting the average actual gay couple, and realizing that, hold on, those
"godless liberals" are _just like us "normal, decent folk"!_

------
thejteam
I'd like to know if more fine-grained data on population density is available.
Congressional districts have a very broad array of population densities within
them. I'd love to have access to density information at the voting precinct
level and see if that correlation still holds.

~~~
ctdonath
Precinct data is available. Depends on your state elections department.
Example data:
[http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/Forsyth/42336/112...](http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/Forsyth/42336/112362/en/reports.html#)

------
sgustard
Except in the military, which is high density but pretty conservative.

Anyway, the usual causation question arises: do people become more liberal as
they gain neighbors? Or do they choose to live somewhere with more neighbors
because they are already liberal?

~~~
oostevo
The military isn't as conservative as many people think -- it's actually a
pretty good representation of the voting preferences of the public at large.

"It is true that the upper echelons of the military tilt right," but "only 32
percent of the Army’s enlisted soldiers consider themselves conservative,
while 23 percent identify as liberal and the remaining 45 percent are self-
described moderates." [1]

For reference, the officer corps of the military only makes up ~16% of the
total number of service members.[2]

[1]
[http://andrewgelman.com/2009/05/05/how_soldiers_re/](http://andrewgelman.com/2009/05/05/how_soldiers_re/)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces#Pers...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces#Personnel_in_each_service)

------
grecy
Fascinating.

I wonder if in the years to come as population density increases, will more
and more people vote Democrat, or will the magic number of 800 people per sq.
mile. simply increase?

~~~
kcorbitt
The density number will almost certainly increase. Both of the major US
political parties are very pragmatic -- they're willing to shift their
platforms as much as necessary to capture a bare majority (if they weren't,
they wouldn't remain major parties for long). So while it's possible that
ideals currently endorsed by the Democratic platform will become more
widespread that only means that the Republicans will shift their stand to
match the majority opinions.

~~~
securingsincity
And certainly much higher population density might breed new political
leanings and attitudes that another party could capitalize on.

------
AutoCorrect
there have been studies discussing density of population and rising mental
illness rates in rats & mice. I wonder if the two are connected?

