Hey, Guys, the Action's Down There

The Washington Post ^ | September 12, 2004 | Joel Kotkin

[logician2u]

But it's not on purely economic issues that the Democrats fail to reach such voters. Suburban dwellers in states from Maryland to New Jersey to New Mexico increasingly see liberal politicians criticizing precisely the places where they are moving. Democrats want to attack suburban sprawl with policies that often drive housing prices out of reach. Look at Portland, Ore., where highly touted "urban growth boundaries" have by many accounts raised housing prices so high that people are fleeing across the Columbia River to Washington state.

In Albuquerque, some city leaders, chiefly Democrats , recently proposed discouraging front garages and backyards -- centerpieces of the middle-class American dream -- in future developments, hoping to further limit new growth of cheaper, "sprawl"-like housing in the largely Latino and working-class city. As a result, most jobs and many upwardly mobile people have been migrating beyond city limits to sprawling, less picky places such as neighboring Rio Rancho.

If the Democrats want to keep the "party of the people" label, they shouldn't be furthering policies that make it harder for people to fulfill the dream of owning a house -- with a yard and decent schools -- in the name of the environment or of preserving "authenticity," both frequently cited by anti-sprawl politicos. They would do well to remember the New Deal. Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman may privately have thought industrialized cities and dustbowl towns were crummy places to live, but they still fashioned their economic appeals to people who lived there.

[logician2u]

This article has a lot to ponder, coming as it does from a Democrat. Kotkin's thesis that the Democrats have abandoned their working-class constituency in favor of the denizens of Malibu and the Hamptons, whose big bucks keep the party solvent, is much the way I see it, too. They talk about labor unions and poverty and such while munching caviar on crackers washed down with fine wine.

The Democrats deserve to lose purely on the basis of their inability to restrain the anti-growth, anti-private property greenies who have taken over the agenda in many areas of the country. (Not that Republicans are innocents in this regard, as too many "smart-growth" Republicans are still in office locally and nationally.) Making it more difficult for people to buy a house for their family goes against everything the Democrats have preached for the last 70 years, but their policies do exactly that. They hurt the working class much worse than those with six-figure incomes who can afford high-priced real estate.

[Bigh4u2]

"If the Democrats want to keep the "party of the people" label, they shouldn't be furthering policies that make it harder for people to fulfill the dream of owning a house -- with a yard and decent schools -- in the name of the environment or of preserving "authenticity," both frequently cited by anti-sprawl politicos."

Like Hillary says "We are going to take things away from you, for the common good."

[grace522]

Good analysis. Well done!

[elbucko]

...anti-private property greenies....

...who live in multi-million dollar homes and their trust funds or at the Wal-Mart parking lot in their 1970's "Gremlin".

However, I do find that putting the garage in front of the house is poor design.

[kitkat]

BUMP

[elbucko]

Like Hillary says "We are going to take things away from you, for the common good."

That sends a chill up my spine because I know she means it.

[brothers4thID]

I must be dreaming such a thought provoking look at political demographic studies came from a Democrat? He actually admitted that Southerners are not troglodytes?

People are moving to where the jobs are. Northern Virginia is now technically in a "labor shortage". Dems moving from the big cities might spend the next 1 or 2 elections after moving to the red states voting as they always have, but we all know what happens to people as they buy a house, have kids and start making a decent wage. And that demographic surge is something the Democratic party will not be able to survive.

[q_an_a]

N. VA and San Diego are two areas with 3% unemployment rates. Hard to not have thw world on a string if you can change jobs any time you wnat.