"Democratic Cities and Republican States" - Wealth and voting debate.

I have often been labeled a republican conservative. Truth be told, I am more of a centrist with strong opinions on both sides of the aisle. My roommate is more left-wing leaning than I am, and loves to debate so we debate a lot, and overall, I find it wonderful since he is very sharp. We were vacationing in Portland, Oregon and he smirked at me and said "This is one of the most prosperous cities in the United States." He started telling me that the Republicans were the entitled ‘takers’ and Democrat run cities were always so clean, nice, and rich giving examples of New York, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco. That the poorest states were Republican and taking way more from the Democratic made social systems. He stated that Democratic policies were to contribute to the financial success of everyone in these Democratic cities, and Republicans still reaped the benefits. Thus the debate began.

I pointed out these cities also had the largest disparity of income with the largest swaths of homeless and unemployed persons with areas which were too expensive for the average American to live in. That places like Portland, and San Francisco have an overwhelming problem with poverty and displaced individuals. It devolved into a debate of Republican Cities versus Democrat Cities, and Republican States versus Democrat states. He pointed out 'of course there is more poverty there, there's more people so there's more of everything'. After a long discussion on our way through Portland traffic and out to the coast I conceded. He won. I had not done enough research on the financial and economic rationale for the financial successes of various geographical areas.

So I started looking and reading, and oh boy is this debate a hot topic. There wasn’t one side that didn’t have skewed data or some sort of slant on how they presented their ‘wins’ for their political allegiances. After hours of reading I decided I would do a simple thing. I found a US Census map which displayed poverty from 2014, and the voting map from 2016 for the county votes. I overplayed them and adjusted the transparency. I found some interesting results. The maps are below, with transitional images between.






Poverty indicators are not the same as wealth and the best I could do for that was find an income county map of the United States from 2016 and put the same presidential voting map over this as well. The maps are below with the transitional pictures between them.






So I started consider cost of living, like, how much of this income were people actually keeping in these areas. Finding a county map of this adjusted or ‘real income’ was next to impossible so I instead started looking at new wealth maps. Places generating more wealth than previously from 2012 – 2016.






Overall, I think my roommate was correct. People who vote Democrat do live in the richest cities in the USA. But it was difficult for me to determine if this was true county-wide, but it appears that people who vote Democrat (especially in metropolitan areas) are making more money, but not so elsewhere. Further people who appear to vote Democrat also live in the poorest counties in the USA. Further wealth generation seems to be overwhelmingly situated in counties that voted Republican in 2016.

What to you all think?

Why don't you actually get some BLS data and present actual numbers instead of using these maps?

a reply to: KaDeCo

A) First off my brothers name is Kade Cox lol


B) great post.. talk about maximum effort..

C) why do you think republicans constantly races bait , conspiracy theorize and such???


To distract from the fact trickledown economics are a joke..

Buisnesses are in the buisness of making profit.. not paying good wAges..

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
a reply to: KaDeCo

A) First off my brothers name is Kade Cox lol


B) great post.. talk about maximum effort..

C) why do you think republicans constantly races bait , conspiracy theorize and such???


To distract from the fact trickledown economics are a joke..

Buisnesses are in the buisness of making profit.. not paying good wAges..

Extremes on both sides are a joke. The rich individuals and corporations need to pay their part, so when trickle down economics want to give them outrageous breaks, it's not helping anyone other than the rich.

On the flip side, just dictating that people pay more (raising minimum wage) will just increase inflation. You can make a company pay more, and they will just charge more to recoup.

Here's the question

Paraphrasing Obama, who built it? Is the way the cities are being managed, have an effect?

I would say New York became a major player during WWI, when London was a little busy. Unless there is a war around New York, it's going to stay a major player. It really doesn't matter who's in charge. Would it be better, if it was Republican or Democrat?

If Silicon Valley started down south, then the wealth map would be different.

@KaDeCo next time you guys go to a big city, go to the places where tourist don't go, then ask your roommate about cleanliness and safety. ...

One thing that never gets factored into this discussion is cost of living. Yes, people in places like California and New Jersey make more money, but everything costs more too.

You can see here what I'm talking about

There's also the argument about the welfare going to red states. One of the reasons for this is because cost of living is low, and corresponding wages are low, but national welfare programs use one-size-fits-all qualifiers. So someone who actually makes what is a decent wage in their low-cost-of-living red state will still qualify for some welfare programs. This is why these programs are better managed at the state level. Same with minimum wage.

"Prosperous" cities? What a joke. Oregon is 13 billion dollars in debt. California is 1.3 trillion in debt.

Any talk of being "prosperous" is fairy tales.

There are two types of Democrat voters in large cities. The first group are the limousine liberals. They tend to be highly educated and well compensated, but not all that sharp politically - think your Alexandria Cortez types.

The other group is the lower classes and "kept poor." Think your typical ghetto voter. Politicians cater to them with promises of more welfare, handouts, etc.

The big difference outside of cities is cultural. The poor outside of cities generally tend to be more self-sufficient. In addition, and is probably the biggest reason they don't vote Democrat, is basically policy preferences. Rural poor may actually prioritize other policies such as the 2nd amendment over welfare whereas that isn't a big issue for city poor.

Most major cities are going to lean left mainly due the fact that is where you are going to find a lot universities, art, etc. Urban areas with a lot of people are just going to be more welcoming to leftists in general.

The reality is that these cities thrive in spite of liberals, not because of liberals. If you peel back the onion, you will find most major cities are up to their eyeballs in debt and fiscal mismanagement largely due to liberal spend policies.

a reply to: KaDeCo

Great OP. Wish I could see the maps better.

Its a very complex topic and one factor that is never addressed because the MSM steadfastly pushes the opposing narative, is that white people with savings and wealth are retiring at a rapid pace. They tend to vote conservative to moderate Republican, and they are moving OUT of the major metro areas to attractive rural locations. Yea, overall, the cties are growing in population, but for the most part what they are attracting is lower paid workers and immigrants and homeless. So for example, San Francisco may be growing in population, but thousands, with money, leave every month. They are replaced by homeless who poop in the streets.

Like I said, its a complex picture compounded by the fact that as the white Boomers leave the cities to small rural towns, they create jobs and their offspring follow on to fill those jobs. In the end the cities are going to look and feel like foriegn jurisdictions.

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: KaDeCo

Great OP. Wish I could see the maps better.

Its a very complex topic and one factor that is never addressed because the MSM steadfastly pushes the opposing narative, is that white people with savings and wealth are retiring at a rapid pace. They tend to vote conservative to moderate Republican, and they are moving OUT of the major metro areas to attractive rural locations. Yea, overall, the cties are growing in population, but for the most part what they are attracting is lower paid workers and immigrants and homeless. So for example, San Francisco may be growing in population, but thousands, with money, leave every month. They are replaced by homeless who poop in the streets.

Like I said, its a complex picture compounded by the fact that as the white Boomers leave the cities to small rural towns, they create jobs and their offspring follow on to fill those jobs. In the end the cities are going to look and feel like foriegn jurisdictions.

A big problem in many areas is that retirees from big cities bring their liberal voting habits. They run from the fusterclucks they created and then continue to vote the same way in new locals... SMDH.

a reply to: Edumakated

In some places, yes. The Limosine liberals, wealthy and white, tend to retire to posh enclaves behind expensive and well manned gates. And new compound communities are being built up in scenic rural destinations around the country. But from what I'm seeing, (anecdotal, I know), for everyone of them there are 5 or more who are more middle class, less wealthy and tending to locate even further out to areas that don't have those amenities but also don't have the way high property taxes.

I see it damned near every day, "refugee" retiree's, fleeing places like Fredricksburg, TX and Kerrville TX because they wealthy make those places virtually unaffordable.

One things for certain.........there's a LOT of hatred and resentment leveled at the rich whites from the middle class/poor whites. And believe me, the wealthy know it!

originally posted by: SocratesJohnson
I would say New York became a major player during WWI, when London was a little busy.

It was well before that, New York was a global player beginning with the opening of the Erie Canal onward.

a reply to: CriticalStinker

Absolutely the extremes of both sides are a joke..

The problem is the GOP has gon full tilt extreme...

While the democrats are still dominated by corporate shills and moderates..

Now I’m not talking about the GOP being dominated by neo Nazis or anything..

They are however dominated by conservative extremists..

While the democrat party has what, 2 people on “far left” meaning those who think we should raise min wage to 15 an hour , go single payer and such..


The rightWING MEDIA AND POLITICIANS MAINSTREAM ALL SAY....

Climate change is a vast conspiracy to pass a carbon tax..

All the media is in a vast conspiracy to discredit republicans..

The FBI , CIA , exc are in a vast conspiracy to set Trump up..

The democrats are “comming to get your guns”.

The democrats want abortion until the last week of pregnancy..

Exc..


All garbage not even one elected official in history has said....

a reply to: JoshuaCox

I think you're going off of what you read from political people online.

I've lived in the south most of my life, most Republicans down here (that I know) are Republicans in that when they vote they go straight ticket because that's what they were taught.

Extremists are few and far between, as are political people. About 50% of people vote on a good day for presidential elections, many of those are independent. You're not left with a lot of registered party voters, and even most of them are moderate.

You're right those views are held by some hardcore concervative, but even some of them know they're just playing the game by saying those things.

A lot depends on cost of living as you move from place to place, so trying to judge on national measures doesn't mean much.

The US average mean income income was $59,055 in January of 2018.

Let's say someone was making that in Kansas City, MO, just because that's where I happen to live. Using a cost of living calculator like this one we can get an idea of the difference in cost from place to place.

Let's say I wanted to live in one of those "nicer" leftist cities. To have the same relative lifestyle that I enjoy in Kansas City at my US mean income, I would need to make $111,776 in San Francisco just to break even in standard of living. I would need to make $144,598 to break even in standard of living in Manhattan, New York.

So as you can see, that mean average doesn't mean squat when you look at the 50% salary increase I would need to just realize the same standard of living from place to place.

Understand, out here in flyover, a low 6-digit income nets you a very comfortable living and while the US average mean isn't rich, it's not unlivable, either. You can definitely be comfortable on it if you've been financially smart, but I don't see how you survive very well on it in those "nice" leftist meccas.

And when I say comfortable, I mean you have the amenities of a city lifestyle without people pooping on your streets.