Thread by @AlecMacGillis

This new piece by @dblock94 on why it's in the political self-interest of coastal liberals to care about regional inequality is so damn good that I’m going to shamelessly quote from it at some length here. washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/janua…

1) We talk a lot about growing income inequality between classes. But inequality is also growing between cities: “In 1980, the per capita income in the richest 10 percent of metro areas was 1.4 times greater than in the poorest 10 percent. By 2014, it was 1.7 times greater.”

2) In the 1960s, the 25 richest cities in the country included Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Des Moines. In 2018, “20 of the top 25 were on the East or West Coast. Seven are in California. Minneapolis, which clocks in at number 24, is the only entrant from the entire Midwest.”

3) Meanwhile, the Democrats have a clear problem in the Senate: "Thanks to a 'blue wave' of support, Democrats picked up 40 seats in the House, taking control of the chamber. Yet despite the Dems’ 9-point advantage in the national vote, the GOP gained a net of two Senate seats."

4) Well, points 1, 2, and 3 are linked. “The GOP’s disproportionate Senate representation and the clustering of economic opportunity in elite coastal metro areas are closely related. Democrats won big in cities and suburbs all over the country..."

5) "...but metro areas in traditional swing states away from the coasts generally haven’t been growing much in recent decades, leaving the populations of those states skewing much more rural than they otherwise would."

6) Meanwhile, Dem strength in wealthy metros is, for Senate purposes, essentially wasted. “Democrats managed to flip 4 seats and thus win every House district in fast-growing Orange County, CA....But when it comes to the Senate, it changes nothing. California was already blue.”

7) Coastal concentration does Dems little good in presidential, either. “Trump eked out victories in EC–rich midwestern states like MI, WI & PA. These states still have large metro areas, and Clinton won those regions. But they have grown very modestly or declined in population.”

8) Consider the contrast of WI and MN. In both states, rural voters swung to the right in 2016. But Minneapolis’ economy has grown nearly 10X Milwaukee’s since 1970. “If metro Milwaukee had grown at the same rate as Minneapolis, Clinton would have carried WI by approx 16K votes."

9) Or consider if those cities had grown like Denver, whose growth has turned CO blue. “To avoid watching in horror as Senate slips away forever while EC map becomes ever more daunting, liberals need...to combat the decline of heartland cities—to turn Clevelands into Denvers.”

10) And doing so means recognizing that regional inequality is not inevitable or an accident. “Nothing makes people in St. Louis or Milwaukee any less talented than people in San Francisco or Washington, D.C.” It's “the result of nearly 4 decades of policy choices in Washington.”

11) What sort of choices? Weakening anti-trust enforcement. Allowing airlines to decrease service to many interior cities. Broadly, “giving large banks & other corporations in elite coastal cities free rein to acquire rival firms headquartered in cities in America’s interior..."

12) ...which has "stripped those interior cities of what were once their economic engines, even as it has enriched the already wealthy coastal megalopolises.”

13) Fixing this also helps liberals personally, “by making it easier for talented people to stay with family and friends where they grew up, or to move wherever else they might like to go, rather than being channeled to a handful of overly expensive, traffic-choked megacities.”

14) When we debate housing costs, we overlook regional inequality. “It’s not that they have too many white-collar working professionals moving into once-affordable communities. It’s they have too many white-collar working professionals, period. Stagnant cities don’t have enough.”

15) Bottom line, “if the party can’t find policy levers to boost growth rates—and hence the # of Dem voters—in purple & red state metro areas, they'll have hard time overcoming the R advantage in Senate and EC. Yet almost no one on left talks as if they understand this reality.”

16) Instead, they often bask triumphant. “It'd seem obvious that liberals should be keenly interested in promoting policies that would equalize geographic opportunity. Yet what you tend to hear instead is smug satisfaction about the economic superiority of liberal big cities.”

17) How much would Dems benefit from stronger, bigger heartland cities? Get this: even white voters w/o college degrees—Trump’s base—lean Dem when they live in cities. “Even if you look at white non-college voters, the closer you get to the city, they tend to be more Democratic.”

18) In conclusion, Dems “need to vigorously enforce policies that make America’s purple & red state metro areas too big & too vibrant for Republicans to ignore or suppress.” But that requires caring about regional inequality—even if you live in a city at the winning end.

-30-

Minor correction here: the growth rates being contrasted are for metro population size, not GDP.