Does Migration Reinforce or Change a State's Electoral Trends? (Democrats, liberals, conservative)

[Phil75230]

Migration Isn't Turning Red States Blue

The people at 538 do acknowledge the role of job and educational opportunities in affecting migration patterns. Yet it is an intriguing hypothesis - especially for those with the means, desire, and will to move to a place more friendly with their politics, personality type, interests, etc. In fact, this is partly why I moved to Dallas 13 years ago. While hardly a bastion of leftism, is nevertheless a lot less conservative than where I grew up (north Louisiana). On another thread, I mentioned I wouldn't really like living in the major Northeastern or West Coast cities because I don't want people judging me by my accent - which while hardly Hollywood-type Southern, is still noticeable enough for them to instantly peg me as from The South, with all the presumptions and stereotypes that go with it.

Originally Posted by fivethirgyeight.com

The first problem is that the predominant political trend [/b]of the past two decades has not been consistently better performance by Democrats, but instead [b]greater polarization across partisan and geographic lines.

Originally Posted by fivethirtyeight.com

This fits with the idea proposed in the book “The Big Sort”: People are increasingly living near those who are politically like-minded. A 18-year-old from South Carolina might go to college in Boston if she has liberal political leanings or stay in South Carolina if she’s more conservative. The patterns can be self-reinforcing.

Originally Posted by fivethirtyeight.com

The “Big Sort” hypothesis has its own problems; it’s unclear how the causality works, for example. Does the 18-year-old become more liberal once she gets to California, or is she more inclined to move to California because she was already liberal? (We’ve been a little slippery about this distinction here.) We’ll be on the lookout for further research, especially for data that looks at states rather than census regions.

Is the 538 article right? wrong? to what extent or degree?

[WaldoKitty]

"This fits with the idea proposed in the book “The Big Sort”: People are increasingly living near those who are politically like-minded. A 18-year-old from South Carolina might go to college in Boston if she has liberal political leanings or stay in South Carolina if she’s more conservative. The patterns can be self-reinforcing."

Pure nonsense of course.

Author makes the mistake of comparing a city to an entire state and assuming the entire state is absolutely the same. Assumes that SC would only appeal to "conservatives" and that Boston would only appeal to "liberals" so Author also has succumbed to the same stereotypes about the South. Boston, for example is one of the most racially segregated cities in the USA. Far more so than any city in SC.

Finally, Author, thinks there is a difference between "liberal" and "conservative" in the USA. i.e. He fights the false war of these two.

[Phil75230]

Originally Posted by WaldoKitty

"This fits with the idea proposed in the book “The Big Sort”: People are increasingly living near those who are politically like-minded. A 18-year-old from South Carolina might go to college in Boston if she has liberal political leanings or stay in South Carolina if she’s more conservative. The patterns can be self-reinforcing."

Pure nonsense of course.

Author makes the mistake of comparing a city to an entire state and assuming the entire state is absolutely the same. Assumes that SC would only appeal to "conservatives" and that Boston would only appeal to "liberals" so Author also has succumbed to the same stereotypes about the South. Boston, for example is one of the most racially segregated cities in the USA. Far more so than any city in SC.

Finally, Author, thinks there is a difference between "liberal" and "conservative" in the USA. i.e. He fights the false war of these two.

You have a point there. Even so, would the author's point still hold if the comparision were to Boston and Charleston? Or even Boston or the more "artsy" parts of Columbia, or likewise for Greenville or Spartanburg?
I, for one, think that case would be stronger. In Texas, Austin is the liberal mecca, while those who can't afford its high real estate prices would still settle for the city of Dallas or Houston itself.

Or does this thesis hold more on a "local-local-local" level (i.e. artsy-bohemian areas vs typical upper-middle-class suburbia)?