Is urban form the root of politics?
Last week's post on the realignment of America, as well as this post and graphic from Richard Florida's blog on a divided America, got me thinking about urban form and political leanings.
Much of the world seems to lean towards communal - or somewhat left-leaning - politics: Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the big coastal cities in the US. These places are often characterized by large, relatively dense cities. When you live in density, what your neighbor does very directly affects you, and so you're more likely to support a more active government that puts a lot of controls and planning in place. And not just land-use regulation and transportation choices, but income redistribution, because the poor and homeless are much more "in your face" in a dense city, and you naturally want somebody to do something about it.
The rural, southern, and western U.S. (except for the coast), plus maybe parts of Australia and western Canada, are a little odd relative to much of the rest of the world because they have lower density - mostly car-based suburban - and lots of space. This seems to foster a more libertarian viewpoint. When all those people aren't on top of you, it's easier to be more strongly for property rights, and think, "sure, let them do what they want, and let me do what I want - no harm, no foul; live and let live." That space creates a higher tolerance for freedom (side note: we're talking economic freedom here, not social freedoms, civil rights and tolerance, which has a completely different set of dynamics where religion and ethnic identities get mixed in, among other factors). It's really no surprise, when you think about it, that 18th-century America was the first place where a nation-state based strongly on liberty was able to to take root: we had truly tremendous amounts of land relative to the population. Why not let everybody do their own thing? It's not going to impact me.
But clearly this is a rare outlier in the world. Libertarianism really lacks much of a base outside of these limited geographic areas. The global population keeps growing and urbanising, creating ever more pressure towards communal politics. Even in the southern and western U.S., larger central cities seem to be moving this direction, including Houston, Dallas, Denver, and Atlanta (some faster than others). Most of these greater metros are still dominantly suburban, but the central cores are feeling the communal pressures which in turn affects the local politics.
What's the future? Really hard to say. There is definitely a renewed movement towards the central cities and density. But suburban sprawl is not stopping. Most of the largest American cities are not growing much, and the domestic migration is definitely towards more mid-sized, suburban, low-density cities like Phoenix, Vegas, Orlando, Charlotte, Austin, San Antonio, and Raleigh-Durham (as the article pointed out). The internet is also enabling people to work from anywhere: some choose the inner city coffee shop, others choose an exurban estate. As I've said before on this blog, rising affluence tends to seek more private space, reducing density. But rising affluence also gets more concerned with aesthetics, and that requires more communal controls. Quite the mix of forces in play.
And of course, we can see these trends playing out in Houston, as a city with a tradition of strong liberty confronts the communal pressures of a densifying core and rising aesthetic concerns. I'm hoping we find some innovative ways of maintaining our libertarian tradition (and the strengths that gives us) while addressing the new communitarian needs with creative free-market approaches, rather than just marching down the same old statist political paths of the older European and coastal cities.