The Redistribution of the Electorate across Metro Areas

• In Event: Diffusion of Policy and People across the United States

Abstract

In this research, we study intrametropolitan population movement at intermediate ranges of distance. Movement between and among larger cities and towns at greater distances, but still within states, is quite likely to sort residents into pockets of political homophily. These flows are not from a central city to surrounding destinations within the same metropolitan area, but instead reflect movement from one metro area to another. Prominent examples include movement from larger central cities to smaller, secondary, cities within the same state, or from those secondary cities back toward a major metro. Examples might include flows from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, or the reverse; Pittsburgh to Erie, Pennsylvania; Raleigh to Charlotte, North Carolina; or Tampa to Jacksonville, Florida. Places gaining ground in the ongoing intermetropolitan contest for growth will be more affluent but not necessarily more Republican. Conversely, those losing population will be in economic decline but this does not always predict growing Democratic dominance.

Authors

• James G. Gimpel, University of Maryland, College Park

• Andrew Reeves, Washington University in St. Louis

• Jordon Newton, Washington University in St. Louis