Marilyn Katz — Republican Death by Demographics

The important message here is not so much about politics as it is about demographics and what that tells us about national and global trends socially, politically, and economically.

The Republican leadership and most political commentators describe us as a nation evenly and forever, divided between red and blue states. We are not. While a  superficial look at the maps of the November 2012 will show the nation as a patchwork quilt of red and blue. If you look further will find something more interesting—we are a nation of blue states and blue cities in those states that are red. In fact in the 24 states that voted Republican, in only four—Alaska, Oklahoma, Utah and West Virginia—did Obama fail to capture the states’ urban areas.

America’s cities and their suburbs, from New York City to Boise Idaho, have always been more progressive than their rural counterparts. What has made them ever more so is the increasing diversity of their populations as immigrants, and racial and ethnic minorities (the only expanding segments of the U.S. population) settle in urban areas.
The nation’s cities and their suburbs produce 85 percent of U.S. exports, are the sites of the nation’s cultural, educational and health care institutions, are the font of virtually all new patents and home to 89 percent of working-age people with a post secondary degree. For the young, born in the city or beyond, for immigrants, for minorities, for the educated, urban areas are where opportunity is and will be found.

And our nation is becoming and will continue to become ever more urban.

Urbanization has been the trend since the beginnings of history lost in the mists of times. Cities were already flourishing by the time of the most ancient extant records. "Civilization" comes from the Latin root civ- signifying a city — Latin civis. The English terms "politics" and "policy" derive from the Greek root pol- also signifying a city or city state — Greek polis. As humanity comes more  civilized it becomes more urban and also more urbane (sophisticated) in that cities have been the centers of culture and creativity.

For example, the developed world is already highly urbanized, the underdeveloped world is not, and the emerging world is quickly urbanizing. The urbanization of China has been nothing short of phenomenal as entire cities are built before people are moved in, just like houses.

The trend toward urbanization means that people are less self-sufficient than they were in the country, but they are more prosperous in terms of goods, education and opportunities. People are more interdependent in cities than in the country, which means that the the tendency is to think more universally and feel more empathetically. These are huge shifts not only demographically and developmentally but also in the rate of evolutionary change, increasing adaptability and coordination.

This shift will bring great changes to all aspects of life, individually, socially, politically and economically as personal attitudes change and institutions are adapted to cultural realities. Moreover, the rate of change is increasing, in many areas of the world exponentially, putting stress on systems to adapt quickly enough.

In These Times
Republican Death by Demographics
Marilyn Katz