New Geography

Category: Politics

  • Bye Bye Boomers

    By Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais

    The formal ratification of the outcome of the primary elections at the party’s national conventions marks more than just the beginning of a new era in American politics. It signals the demise of Boomer generation attitudes and beliefs as the dominant motif in American life.

    After 16 years of Baby Boomer presidents, first Bill Clinton and then George W. Bush, primary voters in both parties rejected quintessential Boomer ideologues (Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee) in favor of candidates who were explicitly opposed to Boomer-style politics. Although Barack Obama is chronologically a very young Boomer, he signaled, in a March 2007 Selma, Alabama speech, his desire to break with the divisive politics of an earlier, “Moses” generation. Instead he embraced the beliefs of this century’s “Joshua” generation, Millennials, born between 1982 and 2003. For his part, John McCain is a member of the older Silent Generation, born between 1925 and 1945 and has constantly exhibited that generation’s style, positioning himself as a political maverick who attempts to bridge ideological gaps to achieve larger goals.

    But the big break is with the Boomer generation. Unlike Boomers, Millennials have been raised to play nice with each other and find win-win solutions to any problem. Boomer (and Generation X) parents sat toddler Millennials in front of the television set to watch “Barney” and absorb each episode’s lesson of self-esteem and mutual respect (even as they bolted from the room, sick from the sweetness of it all). With the show’s “my friend is your friend and your friend is my friend” lyrics hard wired into their psyche, Millennials have a strong desire to share everything they do with everyone else.

    The arrival of social network technologies enabled Millennials to create the most intense, group-oriented decision-making process of any generation in American history. This generation’s need to make sure the outcome of both minor decisions, like where to hang out, and major decisions, such as whether go to war, reflects both a penchant for consensus and team work which will become the future benchmarks for American political life.

    In contrast Senator Clinton made a definitive—if sometimes a bit too strenuous—case for a Boomer style of leadership in her primary campaign, emphasizing the value of her experience and wisdom. Governors Huckabee and Romney’s approach, for their part, stridently insisted upon the need to preserve the superior set of traditional values .

    Now it’s time to encourage the Boomers to take their well-deserved retirement, and offer the opportunity for newer, Gen X leaders and their values. This may be difficult for many Xers, who will need to overcome their own lack of understanding of, and in some cases outright disdain for, the youngest generation. Humorists Steven Colbert and John Stewart, both quintessential Gen Xers, recently demonstrated their risk-taking mindset by mocking Millennial attitudes as demonstrated by Senator Obama’s rock star reception in Berlin. The failure of their Millennial audience to laugh at the joke, or buy into Senator McCain’s attempt to suggest it somehow made Obama less qualified to be President, demonstrates the challenge the Millennial zeitgeist will pose for those seeking to become the nation’s leaders.

    The change from Boomer to Millennial style is already becoming evident in other areas of American life as well. At the 1968 Olympics, as the Boomer inspired, idealist era began, African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the gold and bronze medalists in the men’s 200-meter race, raised a black-gloved fist in a protest for black power as the Star Spangled Banner was played to celebrate their victories. Forty years later, Jason Lezak, captured the values of the new Millennial era as he explained how he was able to swim the fastest 400-meter freestyle leg in history to bring gold to his teammates. “It’s the Olympics and I’m here for the USA . . . .I got a supercharge and took it from there. It was unreal.” Lezak was joined at the award ceremony by his Millennial teammate, Cullen Jones, only the second African-American to ever win a gold medal in swimming. In sharp contrast to Smith and Carlos forty years earlier, Jones happily celebrated the victory of his team and country.

    Ultimately the 2008 election will turn on which candidate can bring these new attitudes and beliefs to bear on the number one issue facing the country—the economy. Unlike Boomers, whose focus was on economic growth to support their workaholic personalities, Millennials are more concerned about economic inequality and believe government has a key role to play in bringing about a greater degree of economic fairness. Almost 70 percent of Millennials express a preference for “a bigger government that provides more services,” compared to only 43 percent of older generations who agreed with that statement.

    Connecting the current sorry state of the American economy and its dependence on foreign oil with the other favorite concern of Millennials, global warming, is an even better way to win this generation’s support on economic issues. Whoever is elected this year will need to reshape America’s economy in line with Millennial expectations of inclusiveness and fairness as dramatically as FDR’s New Deal created a new economic framework for the Millennial’s generational forbearers, the GI Generation.

    The Broadway musical, “Bye Bye Birdie,” captured the end of the conventional era of the ‘50s, as the onslaught of Rock n’ Roll pitted child against parent and ushered in an age that celebrated rebellion in all its forms. The confrontations between Boomer “Meathead” (Michael Stivic) on “All in the Family,” with his tradition bound father-in-law, Archie Bunker, captured his generation’s desire to overturn the establishment using the power of ideas to persuade the recalcitrant of the error of their ways.

    Now it’s time to realize new values are ascending. Millennials generally get along great with their parents and celebrate the wholesome values of “High School Musical,” where boys and girls of all types come together to defeat those that seek to win only for their own personal ambition. Those nominated in the next two weeks at their party’s convention should heed this lesson. To gain the presidency, the winning ticket will have to appeal to the Millennial sense of pride and teamwork in meeting the challenges the country faces.

    Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais are co-authors of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics published by Rutgers University Press.

  • Minority America

    Recent news from the Census Bureau that a “minority” majority might be a reality somewhat sooner than expected — 2042 instead of 2050 — may lead to many misapprehensions, if not in the media, certainly in the private spaces of Americans.

    For some on the multicultural left, there exists the prospect of America firmly tilting towards a kind of third world politics, rejecting much of the country’s historical and constitutional legacy. Some left-leaning futurists, like Warren Wagar envision a nation of people fundamentally torn by “racial conflict.” By mid-century, Wagar sees an America suffering from a “gigantic internal struggle” that will eventually lead to its ultimate decline.

    The xenophobic right, probably much larger but no less deluded, sees the similar potential for mischief, where American values are undermined by what 19th century Nativists called “ a rising tide of color.” It is part of a scenario that the likes of Pat Buchanan and Samuel Huntington envision as the rise “revanchist sentiments” along the nation’s Southern border.

    Yet in reality America’s ability to absorb newcomers represents not so much a shift in racial dominance but a new paradigm, where race itself begins to matter less than culture, class and other factors. Rather than a source of national decline, the new Americas represent the critical force that can provide the new markets, the manpower, and, perhaps most important, the youthful energy to keep our city vital and growing.

    You can see this in all sorts of geographies. The most dynamic, bustling sections of American cities — places like the revived communities along the 7-train line in Queens, Houston’s Harwin Corridor, or Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley — often are those dominated by immigrant enterprise. At the same time many of our suburbs are becoming increasingly diverse, a sign of decline according to some urban boosters but in reality just another proof of the ability of suburbs to reinvent themselves in a new era.

    Even small communities have been enlivened by immigrants, where refugees often have an even greater impact than they do on the biggest cities. In the 1990s, newly arrived Bosnians and Russians in Utica, New York were widely seen as sparking new growth and jobs in a stagnating community, bringing values of hard work and sacrifice. “How long before they become Americanized?” asked the head of the local Chamber of Commerce. “Right now all we know is we love them, and we want more.”

    This is where America’s future diverges most clearly from that of its competitors, both the older industrialized societies and the newly emergent powers. In recent decades Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, Indonesia, across the former Soviet Union, and the former Yugoslavia — became more constricted in their concept of national identity. In countries such as Malaysia, Nigeria, India and even the province of Quebec, preferential policies have been devised to blunt successful minorities. Because of such policies, sometimes accompanied by lethal threats, Jews, Armenians, Coptic Christians, and Diaspora Chinese have often been forced to find homes in more welcoming places.

    Europe, too, has received many newcomers, but to a large extent its society and economy have proven far less able to absorb them — a far different result than one would expect from a supposedly enlightened society widely admired by American ‘progressive’ intellectuals. This is particularly true of the roughly twenty million Muslims who live in Europe, but who have tended to remain both segregated from the rest of society and economically marginalized.

    In European countries, it is often easier for immigrants to receive welfare than join the workforce, and their job prospects are confined by levels of education that lag those of immigrants in the United States, Canada or Australia. And in Europe, notably in France, unemployment among immigrants — particularly those from Muslim countries — is often at least two times higher than that of the native born; in Britain, as well, Muslims are far more likely to be out of the workforce than either Christians or Hindus.

    Similarly, European immigrants often separate themselves from the dominant culture. For example, in Britain, up to forty percent of the Islamic population in 2001 believed that terrorist attacks on both Americans and their fellow Britons were justified; meanwhile, ninety five percent of white Britons have exclusively white friends.

    In contrast, only one-quarter of whites in a 29-city U.S. survey reported no interracial friendships at all. This measure of racial isolation ranged from a low of eight percent in Los Angeles to a high of 55 percent in Bismarck, North Dakota. Overall, it’s clear the integrative process in the United States, which over the past century has experienced the largest mass migration in history, is well advanced.

    This contrast is particularly telling when looking at Muslim immigrants. In the United States, most Muslims — themselves from diverse places of origin — are comfortably middle class, with income and education levels above the national average. They are more likely to be satisfied with the state of the country, their own community, and prospects for success than other Americans.

    More important, more than half of Muslims — many of them immigrants — identify themselves as Americans first, a far higher percentage of national identity than is found in western Europe. More than four in five is registered to vote, a sure sign of civic involvement. Almost three quarters, according to a Pew study, say they have never been discriminated against. “You can keep the flavor of your ethnicity,” remarked one University of Chicago Pakistani doctorate student in Islamic Studies, “but you are expected to become an American.”

    Even if immigration slows down dramatically, these groups will grow in significance as we approach mid-century. By 2000, one in five American children already were the progeny of immigrants; by 2015 they will make up as much as one third of American kids. Demographically, the racial and ethnic die is already cast. The forty-five percent of all children under five who are non-white will eventually be the 20-somethings having children of their own. Whether they achieve a majority by 2043 or 2050, many of these Americans are likely to share more than one ethnic heritage.

    So rather than speaking about growing separation and balkanization we are witnessing what Sergio Munoz, a Mexican journalist and long-time Los Angeles resident, has described as the “the multiculturalism of the streets.” Street level realities differ from those seen by political reporters or academics. People still talk about the South, for example, and its racial legacy. Years ago economic leaders in southern cities like Dallas, Atlanta and Houston recognized that to preserve institutionalized racism would be bad for business. By the mid-2000s these very cities, were seen as among the best places for black businesses and families.

    The remarkable progress on race, even in the Deep South, has in many ways forged the path for the new Americans, including Mexican-Americans and Chinese-Americans who have also faced discrimination. More important, the road to economic success, unobstructed by institutionalized racism, will be even more open for their children.

    This does not mean that there remains a great deal of confluence between particular ethnicities and higher rates of poverty. Massive immigration has brought to many cities, such as New York and Los Angeles, large numbers of poorly educated and non-English speaking newcomers. Critics may be correct that current policies tend to foster too much immigration among the less skilled. Although newcomers often increase their wages over time, the influx of even newer arrivals tends to keep wages for groups such as Latinos consistently below native levels, and likely depresses wages for the least skilled natives.

    Immigrants by their very nature constitute a work in progress. In the move to highly skilled positions — including in the blue collar sectors — the average immigrant income grows and the percentage of children who finish high school or enter college tends to rise (in some groups more decisively than in others). Rates of homeownership also rise with time, reaching native levels after about three decades.

    What is too often missing today is a focus on how to spur this upward mobility. This requires less racial “sensitivity” sessions and cultural celebrations, and more attention to the basics that create a successful transition to the middle class — like decent schools, public safety, better infrastructure, skills training as well as preservation and development of high paying blue as well as white collar jobs.

    The bottom line is that neither political nor the cultural arguments about immigration are central to everyday life: Concepts such as “ethnic solidarity,” “people of color” or “cultural community” generally mean less than principles such as “Does this sell?” “What’s my market?” and, ultimately, “How do I fit in?”

    In essence, if the economy can continue to work and expand over the coming decade, America’s increasing racial diversity not only will do no considerable harm, but lay the basis of a more remarkable, unique and successful nation in the decades to come.

    Joel Kotkin is the Executive Editor for Newgeography.com.

  • Emerald City Emergence: Seattle and the New Deal

    Seattle voters, if not the city’s newspapers, were strong supporters of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal in the 1930s and 1940s. As in many parts of the country, New Deal programs had a profound effect on Seattle and Washington state.

    Seattle was a city dependent on industry and trade, and was hard hit by the Great Depression. The most famous and highly visible manifestation was the creation of a large shantytown worker settlement called Hooverville, spurred by the Unemployed Citizen’s League located on city land just south of downtown (where giant football and baseball stadiums are now!). The city burned it down after a week, the workers rebuilt it, the city burned it down again, and it was again rebuilt, this time with tin roofs. It was occupied until the end of the Depression. Its first mayor was a Jesse Jackson, who served as liaison to City Hall. A special census of 1934 counted 632 residents in 490 dwellings.

    Even before then, Seattle and the state of Washington were already infamous for their radicalism, having spawned the only general strike in the nation’s history (1919), and the Centralia and Everett massacres, (1916, 1919) in which company goons fought with IWW (International Workers of the World) workers. Seattle also had an early history of public ownership, notably municipal power starting in 1902.

    Not surprisingly, then, the prospect of federal-sponsored programs, jobs and some constraints placed against the perceived excesses of Big Capital was highly appealing and resulted in huge victories for Roosevelt and the Democrats in 1932, 1936 and 1940. In 1916, Anna Louise Strong, a communist, was elected to the Seattle School Board. Indeed, James Farley famously referred to “the 47 states and the soviet of Washington.” Seattle and Washington’s most successful and powerful political leader, Warren Magnuson, began his congressional career in 1936 from Seattle’s first district, and remained an unreconstructed New Dealer until his retirement from the Senate in 1981.

    Another powerful figure was Dave Beck, who took over the local Teamster’s Union in 1936. Beck played a critical role in forging a less confrontational relation to capital than the more radical Harry Bridges of the Longshoremen.

    Within the City of Seattle and suburbs, the WPA left an enduring legacy: bridges and retaining walls and drainage systems, parks and playgrounds, roads and trails, sewers, recreational facilities and programs, sewing for the needy, airports, streetcars, low income housing, and programs for musicians, artists and writers. For example the Federal Artist Project employed the well-known artists Kenneth Callahan and Morris Graves.

    New Deal activities across the rest of the state were even wider and larger in scope. The greatest New Deal project by far was the Bonneville Power Administration, the Bureau of Reclamation’s construction of dams along the Columbia, culminating in the giant Grand Coulee Dam that drove the development of the Columbia Basin irrigation project, the nation’s largest. Seattle City Light’s J.D. Ross became the first director of Bonneville Power.

    The WPA and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps – also known as the “forest army”) also completed hundreds of less spectacular but amazingly successful and lasting projects in the national forests and parks, and communities across the state. Perhaps most amazing was the government’s direct sponsorship of several rural utopian communities.

    Today, although the real liberal voices of the New Deal era are now gone, the Seattle region remains somewhat “left” by national standards. But its radical, egalitarian soul has been largely lost. In 1975 Seattle was one of the nation’s most egalitarian cities, a legacy of the New Deal and its powerful, well-paid blue collar economy. Today it is now one of the most unequal!

    Of course, this does not stop the local establishment and media from viewing itself as “progressive.” In 2008, there are no Republicans on the Seattle City Council, and no Republican from any Seattle district and few that hail from suburban districts in the Washington state legislature.

    But the meaning of “progressive” today is utterly foreign to what it connoted in New Deal days. The metropolis is very highly planned, under the Growth Management Act, but the goals and policies are entirely by and for the affluent professional class: subsidies of opera houses, stadiums, replacement of public housing by “integrated developments” with high shares of market rate units. There’s an unfortunate concentration of transportation investment in astoundingly expensive rail transit, which would mainly serve affluent commuters to downtown Seattle and a density-oriented strategy to replace single family homes, many smaller homes from the ‘20s and ‘30s, with miles of family-unfriendly apartment towers. It all boils down to encouragement of drastic gentrification, with wide displacement of the poor and minorities to suburbs south of the city, and tight urban growth boundaries, resulting in severe housing price inflation, while preserving “open space” for 20 acre suburban estates! And, I believe, the most regressive tax structure of all 50 states.

    One has to wonder what the New Dealers back in the 1930s and 1940s would think of our proudly “progressive” Seattle politics today. Likely not much.

    Richard Morrill is Professor Emeritus of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Washington. His research interests include: political geography (voting behavior, redistricting, local governance), population/demography/settlement/migration, urban geography and planning, urban transportation (i.e., old fashioned generalist).

    The photo is of a retaining wall built by the WPA at the Cascade School in Seattle. Courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives Photograph Collection.

  • Progressives, New Dealers, and the Politics of Landscape

    One of the greatest ironies of our time is the fact that today’s leading progressives tend to despise the very decentralized landscape that an earlier generation of New Deal liberals created.

    Franklin Roosevelt and his successors from Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson sought to shift industry and population from the crowded industrial centers of the Northeast and Midwest. They did this through rural electrification based on hydropower projects, factories supplying the military and federal aid to citizens seeking to buy single-family homes in low-density suburbs.

    This is precisely the environment – which brought so much opportunity and improved living conditions to so many – that today’s progressives so often despise. Since the 1960s, environmentalists, for example, have waged a campaign against the great dams that symbolized New Deal economic development policies. Artificial lakes that generate electricity for millions of suburban homeowners and businesses, and have brought an end to devastating, cyclical floods, are condemned by progressives for having wiped out local fauna and flora. And it goes without saying that the middle-class swimmers, picnickers and motor-boaters that enjoy government-created lakes on weekends are… well, vulgar.

    Similarly, the defense plants that the Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy-Johnson administrations scattered throughout the country are often lambasted as emblems of the fascistic “military-industrial complex,” part of a wicked “Gun Belt.” In fact, industry is increasingly seen as undesirable by today’s Arcadian progressives, who appear to believe that it would have been better to leave the farmers of rural America as quaint specimens of authentic folk life.

    But nothing riles the progressives of today than the low-density, single-family home suburbs made possible by New Deal liberal homeownership policies. Since the 1950s, intellectuals on the left have been bemoaning the alleged cultural sterility and conformity of the suburbs. Now anti-sprawl campaigners allege that the suburbs are also destroying the planet.

    So the question is: How did the American left, in a short period of time, come to repudiate the New Deal and the American landscape it created? The answer is simple: today’s center-left, which calls itself progressive rather than liberal, is not the heir of New Deal liberalism. It is the heir instead of early twentieth century elite Progressives, who were shoved aside and marginalized during the heyday of New Deal liberalism.

    The original Progressives were overwhelmingly professionals and patricians of old Anglo-American stock in the Northeast and Midwest, many of them the children of Protestant clergymen, teachers or professors. They despised the nouveau riche of the Gilded Age, but also tended to view European immigrants and white and black Southerners as benighted primitives.

    Their vision of the ideal society, influenced by the Hegelian Idealist culture of Bismarckian Germany, was one in which a university-trained elite ran everything with minimal interference by ignorant voters and crass politicians. As heirs of the moralistic Northern Protestant Whig and Republican traditions, these Progressives also had a strong interest in the social engineering of private behavior, from prohibition to eugenic sterilization.

    From Reconstruction until the Depression, Progressive moralism and elitism alienated European immigrants and rural Southerners and Westerners alike. This benefited the industrial capitalists of the dominant Republican party. Franklin Roosevelt created a powerful, but fundamentally unstable, Democratic majority by adding many former Republican Progressives to the old Democratic coalition of Northern white “ethnics” and white Southerners.

    Yet in the process Roosevelt helped undermine many of the signature initiatives of the progressives, starting with the repeal of Prohibition, a policy loathed by German and Irish Catholic voters. It signaled a repudiation of the Whig-Republican-Progressive ambition to use the federal government for moral reform and social engineering. (FDR’s tactical appeasement of Southern segregation had a similar tactical logic).

    Another goal of Progressives, economic planning, died with the collapse of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) in the first Roosevelt term. Jettisoning the Progressive dream of a planned economy run by technocrats, the Roosevelt administration instead focused pragmatically on state-capitalist public infrastructure projects like the Tennessee Valley Association (TVA) and the Lower Colorado River Association (LCRA).

    Plans for an all-powerful executive civil service subordinate to the White House – a progressive reform that FDR unwisely favored – were rejected by a Congress jealous of its prerogatives and suspicious of executive power. Finally, nanny-state supervision of the poor, another Progressive theme, found little sympathy among New Deal Democrats, who preferred universal social insurance to means-tested public assistance, and preferred employing the able-bodied poor in public works to what FDR called “the narcotic” of the “dole.”

    The New Deal ultimately left little of the old Progressive project but created what could be considered a Golden Age that lasted until the 1970s for the white lower middle class majority. Progressive intellectuals and activists, however, sensed that they had been marginalized. Over-represented in the prestige press and the universities, they increasingly denounced what they saw as the vulgarity of the New Deal’s constituency.

    The assault on the suburbs was one of the most powerful expressions of this discontent. It was led by two figures. One was Jane Jacobs, the romantic chronicler of dense urban life, and its villain in New York’s highway-building Robert Moses. A rival school, headed by Jacobs’ enemy Lewis Mumford, sang the praises of planned “organic” villages – “highwayless towns” connected by “townless highways.” The Mumfordian strain of Progressive planning is represented today by the New Urbanism, with its hyper-regulated low-rise pedestrian communities.

    The resurgent progressives also clung to their vision of a society in which an enlightened, nonpartisan elite governs the ignorant masses from above. The Civil Rights Revolution, and the era of judicial activism that followed, permitted progressives to transfer power from the elected political class to the federal judiciary. By the 1970s and 1980s, federal judges were regulating practically all aspects of American life. Social engineering schemes like busing for racial balance and race-based affirmative action, which “color-blind” New Deal liberal opponents of segregation like Hubert Humphrey and Lyndon Johnson opposed, now became critical pillars of progressive ideology.

    The New Dealers had been ardent conservationists, but their conservationism focused not only on nature but also the well-being of people. New Deal soil conservation and agricultural productivity policies allowed the amount of land in cultivation to decline, freeing up vast tracts of land for wilderness or habitation. Farmers, middle class suburbanites and nature all gained.

    This approach is repudiated by most contemporary progressives, who know nothing about farms except that they are cruel to livestock. By the 1970s many progressives abandoned liberal conservationism for radical environmentalism, which seeks to protect nature by separating it from humanity and industry. Radical environmentalism tends to shade into misanthropy, as in the proposal by two New Jersey environmentalists to turn much of the Great Plains into a human-free “Buffalo Commons.” (Curiously, nobody seems to have proposed evacuating New Jersey in order to create a “Migratory Bird Park.”) The radical Green goal of “rewilding” North America by creating “wildlife corridors” from which humans are banned repudiates the New Deal liberal vision of allowing working-class Americans to enjoy the scenery of national parks.

    So in every respect except racism and opposition to immigration, today’s progressives are genuine heirs not of the New Deal liberals but of the capital-P Progressive economic planners and social engineers of the early twentieth century. Even their social base is the same as in 1908 – college-educated professionals, particularly those in the nonprofit sector and education, like public school teachers and academics.

    This class – enlarged ironically by New Deal liberal programs like the G.I. Bill and student loans – has been increased in number by upwardly-mobile Americans to whom mass university education imparts a blend of the worldviews of old-fashioned Northeastern progressives and the old Bohemian left-intelligentsia. This enlarged college-educated professional class has allied itself with African-Americans and Latinos in the identity centered post-McGovern Democratic party.

    With perfect symbolism, the two bases of the alliance of white progressives and nonwhite Democrats – college campuses and inner cities, allied against the middle-class and working-class suburbs – correspond to the alternate urban utopias of Lewis Mumford and Jane Jacobs respectively, if we consider the college campus to be a Mumfordian paradise.

    With good reason, then, today’s progressives despise the suburban, middle-class America created by yesterday’s New Deal liberals. Today’s progressives may invoke the New Deal, but they are the heirs not of mid-century liberals like Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson but rather of the Progressive social engineers who believed that enlightened elites should alter both the built environment and human behavior to meet their social goals. Some things never change.

    Michael Lind is the Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. He is the author, with Ted Halstead, of “The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics” (Doubleday, 2001). He is also the author of “Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics” (New America Books/Basic, 2003) and “What Lincoln Believed” (Doubleday, 2005). Mr. Lind has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and The New Republic. From 1991 to 1994, he was executive editor of The National Interest.

  • Urban America: The New Solid South

    By Joel Kotkin and Mark Schill

    Ever since the 1930s, most urban areas have leaned Democratic. But in presidential elections, many remained stubbornly competitive between the two parties. As late as 1988, for example, Republican nominees won Dallas County and made strong showings in the core urban counties of Cook (Chicago), Los Angeles and King (Seattle).

    Today, America’s urban areas have evolved into a political monoculture that increasingly resembles the “solid South” that provided a base for Democrats from the late 19th century to the 1960s. Since 1972, the year of the Nixon landslide, the Democratic share has grown 20 percent or more in most of the largest urban counties.

    As a result, places where Republicans such as Ronald Reagan could once win a respectable share of the vote — including San Francisco, Philadelphia and New York City — by 2004 were delivering 80 percent or more to the Democrats. Even in the losing year of 2004, Democratic nominee John F. Kerry won almost every city of more than 500,000 people.

    This fall, Barack Obama, a resident of Chicago, can comfortably expect to triumph in virtually every major urban county, often by ratios of 2-to-1 or more. He can count just as much on cities in decline as he can on those that have been gentrified; he will rack up big margins both in heavily white core counties such as those around Minneapolis and Portland, Ore., as well as overwhelmingly minority Baltimore, Philadelphia and the Bronx, N.Y.

    Race and income levels do not explain the emerging urban mono­culture, because the cause lies elsewhere: in the evolution of cities over the past four decades. The shift began in the late 1960s, when urban regions, from financial centers such as New York and Chicago to old industrial cities such as Detroit and Cleveland, began to suffer a massive exodus of predominantly white, middle-class residents.

    This left behind an increasingly impoverished, highly minority population with very little proclivity to support conservative or even moderate Republicans. Today in some cities — mostly old industrial centers in the East and Midwest — this population remains dominant and is likely to vote in huge numbers for Obama. Most of these cities suffer poverty rates at least 50 percent higher than the national average.

    At the same time, some other cities — such as New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland — have done far better. They have done so by attracting a population of well-educated, white professionals. Pockets of this demographic, to be sure, also exist in some hard-hit industrial cities, but the new urban affluents tend to concentrate in cities with industries, such as financial services and media, that provide excitement and the prospect of high-wage employment in a glamorous setting.

    Many new urbanites tend to be students or professionals enjoying city life during their first, highly experimental years of adulthood. At this point, they are most open to liberal ideas and causes; they have yet to worry much about taxes and crime, issues that drive people to the center. As they grow older, marry and raise families, many in this cohort — particularly those who do not ascend into the upper classes — leave the urban core for the suburbs or other more affordable regions.

    Yet if the urban base — roughly 30 percent of the population — offers Obama a huge edge in the election, he must not identify too much as an urban candidate. In the past, the danger for Democrats lay in being perceived as paying too much heed to poor, minority voters. Fortunately, Obama, as an African-American, has little need to compete for their affections.

    More tempting, however, might be to embrace the emerging agenda of the benefactors of gentrification: powerful real estate interests and other groups. Among them are vocal constituencies who are openly hostile to people in suburbs and small cities. This ideology first emerged in 2004 in John Sperling’s “Retro vs. Metro” thesis, which envisioned the eventual triumph of a sophisticated urban population over backward-seeming rural, small town and suburban constituencies.

    An even clearer example of this urbanist ideology came in the wake of Kerry’s 2004 defeat, largely at the hands of rural, small-town and exurban “retro” voters. Editors of The Stranger, a Seattle alternative weekly, pointed out in an article that “if the cities elected our president, if urban voters determined the outcome, John F. Kerry would have won by a landslide.” Their solution was not to reach out to the other geographies, but to build an “urban identity politics” to counter Republicans’ hold over suburban and rural voters.

    “From here on out, we’re glad red-state rubes live in areas where guns are more powerful and more plentiful, cars are larger and faster, and people are fatter and slower and dumber,” The Stranger proclaimed. Given the editors’ uninhibited sense of superiority, they felt confident that in the emerging Darwinian struggle, the suburban and exurban Neanderthals would be forced to give way to the clear superiority of the urban Cro-Magnons.

    Since 2004, this ideology has become stronger, ironically bolstered by two bubbles fostered by President Bush’s fiscal policy: the boom in city condominium development and the rapid expansion of the financial services industry. Even as 80 percent to 90 percent of metropolitan growth redounded to the suburbs, the rising affluence of the urban cores persuaded the media that cities were not only back but were also reasserting their historic ascendance over the periphery.

    In recent months, the city-centered media such as CNN, The New York Times and National Public Radio have jumped on the urbanist bandwagon. They have promoted urban chauvinists’ contention that high gas prices and legislation to limit global warming would end the era of dispersion. This return to a more urbanized demography, some Democratic bloggers suggest, would assure a new liberal ascendancy.

    Whatever Obama may believe personally, he would be well-advised to distance himself from such sentiments. For one thing, identifying with people who celebrate the demise of other geographies may offend the majority of Americans who prefer to live in “retro,” lower-density environments. Suburb- and countryside-bashing may turn on editors and readers of The New York Times, but it hardly constitutes good politics.

    In terms of political strategy, Obama would be far better off stressing the commonalities between people in differing geographies. His time on the campaign trail should tell him that laid-off paper industry workers in central Wisconsin, hard-pressed suburban homeowners in San Bernardino, Calif., and struggling inner city residents in Brooklyn have ample cause to reject an extension of Republican rule. Why repeat the Bush tactic of dividing people from each other, this time based on where they choose to live, when the economic misery is so well-distributed?

    By displaying genuine empathy for Americans living in suburbs and small towns as well as in cities, Obama could achieve more than a small tactical victory, à la Karl Rove. With a strong showing in the other geographies as well as his inevitable landslide in cities, he could instead realize a historic triumph closer to Rooseveltian proportions.

    Joel Kotkin is a presidential fellow at Chapman University and executive editor of www.newgeography.com. Mark Schill is the website’s managing editor and a community strategy consultant with Praxis Strategy Group.

    This article originally appeared at Politico.

    Other articles in the Three Geographies Series:
    The Three Geographies
    Rural America could bring boon to Dems
    Suburbs will decide the election

  • Millennial Values, Involvement, and Social Capital

    “American history carefully examined,” argued political scientist Robert Putnam in his notable book Bowling Alone, “is a story of ups and downs in civic engagement . . . a story of collapse and of renewal.” According to Putnam, the passage of the civic-minded World War II generation from American society has led to deterioration in social capital.

    Putnam defines social capital as “connections among individuals,” and the “social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” According to Putnam, the last several decades of the twentieth century, largely coinciding with the rise to preeminence of the Baby Boomers and Generation X, were marked by a huge decline in community involvement and social engagement, which led, by the end of the twentieth century to a “sense of civic malaise,” throughout the nation.

    Since the publication of Putnam’s book in 2000, there has been increased focus on (and criticism of) the concept of social capital in American society. During this period, there has also been a new interest in the latest generation – the Millennials. Born in the last two decades of the 20th century, this new generation has the potential to challenge the previously sacrosanct view of young people as uninvolved and disinterested in civic life, which has become part of the conventional wisdom over the past several decades. This new impulse, when shaped by and combined with their set of unique values, may give the Millennial generation the opportunity to be the force for renewal and change in American society.

    According to research published in 2007 by the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC), the Millennial generation is showing signs of potentially emerging as a “new civic generation.” Rates of volunteerism have “rose substantially for young Americans over the last generation and remain at historically high levels.” In addition, the NCoC reports, the Millennial generation has the lowest levels of distrust in government, and while they are still the least enthusiastic age group about voting, they “are more favorable toward citizen-centered politics than Gen Xers or Matures.”

    However, it should be noted that youth voting rates have been going up recently. Millennials are interested in getting involved, however, perhaps not in the same ways as previous generations. Shaped by their vast exposure to technology, and a different set of values inculcated during their childhoods, Millennials are looking for new ways to become active participants in their communities, that transcend simply voting or joining a local organization. According to the NCoC Millennials “lack – but want – venues for citizen-centered politics.” They’re in search of “more opportunities for discussion and civic action.” As a generation, Millennials are in search of a way to make their voice and values heard, in a way that suits their particular sense of what it means to be involved.

    Born in 1981, I am considered a “cusp” Millennial. Born on the demarcation line between the allegedly more skeptical, less involved Generation-X, and the supposedly more civic, upbeat Millennial generation, I had the chance during my college years to observe the entry of the Millennials into the environment of higher education. While there is always some danger in placing too much stock in anecdotal evidence, there was some sense, to steal the lyrics of a song familiar to baby boomers, that “something is happening here, but what it is, ain’t exactly clear.”

    As one Millennial once put it to me recently, we seem to be a “backwards generation.” Echoing those who point to a renaissance in civic culture among Millennials, she noted that our generation seems to embracing older values, and recognizing their importance in a balanced life. However, according to her, Millennials were doing this in their own way, complementing these “old” values with our own, increasingly globalized, green, earth-friendly outlook, while also embracing the use of technology as a major part of our everyday life.

    One thing that is clear is the major influence technology has had upon our values, involvement, and interaction. In 1993, as a seventh grade student, I was introduced to the internet. Soon, much to the amazement of our baby-boomer librarians, I was exchanging e-mails with students from all over the world. They found the concept of instantaneous communication between a student in North Dakota and one in Germany novel enough to merit a write up in the school newsletter!

    To Millennials, use of electronic mediums of communication for political and social interaction has become second nature. It is, to echo Putnam, our means of building social capital.

    However, with this embrace of new technology, has come an acceptance of less privacy in our lives. For example, the amount of information that some are willing to share on social networking sites is often shocking. While it may be a force for opening minds and expanding our boundaries, technology also opens us to others in ways that other generations might find unacceptable.

    Another area reflecting our generation’s need to find new ways to become engaged and involved is our view towards work. There is a belief that work should reflect your values, but at the same time, one must be about more than “just work.” Jobs aren’t seen as a life commitment. The value of a job is measured in what it can contribute to our development as an individual, how it helps us meet our personal goals, and what quality of life it allows us to pursue. Work is not viewed as an end in itself, but as an enabler.

    During my time at university, professors remarked to me on more than one occasion that enrollment in political science classes was up by leaps and bounds. One professor felt that the war in Iraq was the driving force behind this. While this might be important, and may be serving to shape the values of my generation, there seems to be more at play. Trying to stick our involvement in the same frame as that of the Vietnam era boomers seems shortsighted. To my generation, the battles of the culture wars seem to have receded, with a more pragmatic, live and let-live attitude being adopted by many Millenials, who approach problems by looking for consensus. The rise of a politician such as Barack Obama, calling for change based on collective action, has been driven in large part by young people across the country, inspired by such a message.

    Robert Putnam, reflecting on the slow wane in American social culture, prior to the rise of the Millennials, argued that above all else, “Americans need to reconnect with one another.” In its own way, the Millennial Generation is going about this process, expressing its unique values, seeking to develop an identity, and becoming engaged in our communities. Some may view this as constructive renewal and others as destructive change to the status quo. As a member of my generation, let me simply assure you, in language that boomers might appreciate, that while Millennials may have their own way of doing things, the kids are alright.

    Matthew is a Research and Development Analyst for Praxis Strategy Group. A native of Crary, ND, Matthew graduated from the University of North Dakota in 2007 with a master’s degree in public administration. As a student, Matthew’s research focuses included community and economic development, intergovernmental relationships, and public policy development and implementation. He has also collaborated on research studying small business start-ups and challenges facing new entrepreneurs.

    In addition to his graduate degree, Matthew also holds a B.A. in political science and history from the University of North Dakota. Prior to joining Praxis Strategy Group, he served as an intern for the North Dakota Legislative Council, in Bismarck, ND, conducting policy research and support work for legislators.

  • Election Geography

    For the past eight years our politics has been riven by the red versus blue state narrative. While the popular media cast red versus blue as a culture war rooted in the ‘60s, subsequent research shows our divisions have much to do with geography. As Obama and McCain distance themselves from partisan stereotypes, many hope the upcoming election will break this pattern, but recent primary results should give us pause. (We should note that explaining overall election results is different than explaining geographic patterns. For instance, all women voters could vote the same and since women voters are a majority of the electorate, that would explain how their candidate won. But since women are fairly evenly distributed across the population, no geographic pattern would emerge.)

    Our political geography has been deciphered by several studies by the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, political scientist James Gimpel with The Christian Science Monitor’s Patchwork Nation website, and journalist Bill Bishop in his book titled, The Big Sort. All these studies show how the basic divisions plays out among urban, rural, and suburban communities. The best way to examine this phenomenon is with census demographic data by county.

    The following table shows how presidential voting in 2000 and 2004 broke down by county characteristics. The relevant county data include population per sq. mi., median family income, share of married households, share of female heads-of-household, as well as shares of white and black households.

    Regression analysis confirms that population density and marriage status explain most of the differences in voting patterns. One might guess that race was a more significant factor, but female heads-of-household and black households were very highly correlated—at .81, where 1.0 is perfect correlation—and female heads-of-household dominated the racial factor.

    Fast forward to 2008 and this is where it gets interesting. We apply this same methodology to recent hotly contested Democratic primaries and what we discover about how different communities voted may surprise those banking on a new post-partisan geography.

    The following table displays the county profiles of three state primaries in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana compared to the national profile. Amazingly, these 259 counties offer almost a perfect demographic sample for the total set of the nation’s counties, so these three primaries taken together offer a good proxy for the national profile.

    Comparing the primary results for these three states to the election results for the same counties in 2000 and 2004, yields the following results.

    We see that the voters in these three states’ counties voted in a distinct red vs. blue pattern. Counties that voted for Obama align closely with those who voted for Gore and Kerry and those that voted for Clinton align almost perfectly with Bush. But remember, all these voters were Democrats! So partisanship has been taken out of the equation and what we’re left with is political preference based upon lifestyle, economic, and community interests.

    Regression results are a bit more mixed for these votes because of how identity groups voted. For example, black households and female heads-of-household were even more highly correlated (.9), but black women tended to vote for Obama and white women tended to vote for Clinton. In general, exit polls confirmed that urban, black and college-educated voters favored Obama while older women, suburban and rural, working class whites favored Clinton.

    Unless something else changes, the upcoming presidential campaign’s increased ideological rhetoric will likely push voters toward their communal red vs. blue comfort zones. It’s doubtful the personal strengths and campaign strategies of McCain and Obama will be enough to overcome this. Rather, campaign incentives to win at any cost will probably exploit it.

    See more of Michael Harrington’s work at Red State Blue State Movie and his blog at Purple Nation Blog.

  • Demography of the Battleground States

    William Frey of the Milken Institute and Brookings Institution breaks down the race demographics of the presidential battleground states in this month’s Milken Institute Review. Frey groups the states into what he calls the Fast Growing Battlegrounds, Slow Growing Battlegrounds, and Fast-Growing South Longshots.

    His conclusion? The rapid growth in racial minorities in the fast growing battleground states make them prime targets for Obama. A similar trend in the longshot states, along with recent migration from blue states, give him a chance there as well. On the other hand, white dominated slow growth battleground states where Obama fared poorly in the primaries leave plenty of room for McCain to move in.

    Check out Frey’s analysis.

  • The Three Geographies

    By Joel Kotkin and Mark Schill

    Officials in both Presidential campaigns, as well as analysts like Michael Barone, tell us that it is time to “throw out the map”. Yet if we are about the jettison the broad “red” and “blue” markers, perhaps we should explore a very different geographic matrix for this election.

    We believe Americans’ political perspective — if not the final voting behavior — is largely shaped not so much by their state but by the type of place, they reside in. These define much about an area, such as how many people are homeowners, take transit, have children living at home, the preponderance of middle class households, and the extent economic and racial diversity.

    Although not uniform across the country, we believe the most effective breakdown of how Americans live can be seen in three basic geographic forms — the urban, suburban and what we call “small town/rural”. These geographies show significant differences in almost all major characteristics, including in voting behavior. And even when voting for the same party, they often do so with different motivations.

    Democrats in the small cities and towns of the Great Plains, for example, closely follow issues related to agricultural and infrastructure policies that help expand economic opportunities, including energy development. In contrast, urban politics in places like New York, Chicago, or San Francisco tend to have a far greener tinge and concern with social issues such as gay marriage.

    Over the next three months, we plan to break down the country by these three geographies and posit how they live may affect their vote. First thing to do is estimate the size of these three geographies. Examining the census, we believe that urban centers — that is core cities of our nation’s large metropolitan areas — represent roughly 32% percent of the total population. The rural/small town component, in many ways the opposite of the urban core, represents roughly 17 percent.

    By far the largest percentage of Americans lives in the third geography, the suburbs. Located between the rural edges and the urban cores, this is where Americans have been migrating with remarkable consistency for over a half century. Despite varied attempts to proclaim a “back to the land” or “back to the city” movements, through oil price rises and declines, suburbs have shown no long-term sign of secular shrinking. In fact, during the last six years, roughly 90% of all growth in metropolitan areas has taken place there

    If suburbs, with roughly 51% percent of the population, represent the largest geography, they also, not surprisingly, are most representative of the nation as a whole. Once overwhelmingly white, they now have a racial breakdown far closer to the national norm than either cities, which are much more heavily minority, or rural/small towns, which are considerably less so.

    Perhaps more importantly, suburbs tend to have higher concentration of middle class voters than the other geographies. This may explain in part why the suburbs, particularly the outer ring, bore the initial brunt of the mortgage crisis — suburban households are fifty percent more likely to be owner-occupied but also generally endure higher prices than rural/small town residents. Although their commutes, particularly on the fringes, are not markedly longer than those of urbanities are, they are more dependent on their cars than those who live in such transit oriented cities as New York, Chicago and Boston.

    Higher gas prices and the problems with suburban mortgages have some representatives of urban America convinced that their return to national preeminence is imminent. In the last energy crisis during the 1970s, pundits also predicted a similar “back to the city” parade but this did not occur. Actually, over time companies moved their facilities to the suburbs where their workers already had migrated. People also changed their driving habits, most conspicuously by tossing out their gas-guzzlers for more economic models, largely produced by Japanese firms.

    Other factors should temper urban enthusiasm as well. For one thing, despite the much-ballyhooed revival of central cities, urban areas remain home to most of the highest concentrations of poverty in the nation. What characterizes urban areas, even relatively successful ones such as Chicago, New York and San Francisco, has been their growing bifurcation between extremes of rich and poor. Some , less fabled cities, such as Pittsburgh, even are suffering the ultimate demographic indignity: more people are dying than being born.

    However, in one way urban areas are clearly ascendant: politics. Cities by their nature tend to create coherent, high articulate political, media and economic voices. In contrast, suburban governance generally rests with highly decentralized legislative bodies or in the hands of bland professional managers. Urban America boasts very effective lobbyists and cheerleaders, through both media-savvy Mayors like Michael Bloomberg in New York; well-endowed think tanks, tapping old money sources and developers, serve to promote urban interests. Suburbs, in contrast, generally lack any sense of self-awareness and lack the institutional support to promote their cause.

    A Barack Obama presidency could provide a shot of adrenalin to the urban lobby. Senator Obama illustrates some of the most attractive parts of urbanism such as ethnic diversity, sophistication and a well-articulated commitment to social justice. He also epitomizes some the most turpitudinous, reflected by his ties to the sleazy Chicago machine and links to rent-seeking real estate interests who increasingly, along with public employee unions, dominate urban politics.

    Senator Obama’s dominance of the urban geography was complete throughout the primaries and is likely to consolidate even further during the general election. More than any time in the last half-century, Republicans, and even moderate Democrats, are becoming a rare, even endangered species in the big city.

    This is bad news for John McCain. He’s the kind of Republican who might have once been thought at least mildly saleable in urban areas. In many ways he suggests the pragmatism of past Republican Mayors such as New York’s Rudy Giuliani, Brent Schundler in Jersey City, Indianapolis’ Stephen Goldsmith and Richard Riordan in Los Angeles. However, in today’s urban political climate, defined by ultra-green and leftist cultural politics, the niche for even these kinds of Republicans seems to have all but evaporated.

    Perhaps the most intriguing, and least understood geography can found among the small towns and rural areas. Although they too have become more diverse, overall such communities tend to be poorer, less educated and more homogeneous (in most of the country white) than suburban areas. Yet there are now growing pockets of affluence in parts of this geography, aided by the boom in energy, food, manufacturing and, to some extent, technology related industries.

    In the recent past, the Republicans have owned this demographic. Senator Obama, after initial successes in Iowa and Wisconsin, generally did not do well in less prosperous rural/ small town areas in non-caucus states. In contrast, Hillary Clinton, who morphed into more of a populist late in the campaign, clearly touched a nerve in struggling small towns from Nevada to Pennsylvania. Any candidate who speaks about stimulating economic growth and opportunity could appeal to such areas.

    There is perhaps a greater opportunity for Senator Obama in those many parts of rural/small town America that are doing well. Although all rural and small town Americans may seem “bitter” — to use Obama’s unfortunate phrase — to the urban elites, considerable numbers of small towns are doing better than any time in decades. Plugged into the global economy, internet and their satellites, they are no longer the isolated, bigoted rubes of city imaginings. A forward-looking pro-growth agenda could be surprisingly successful in such places.

    Yet in the end, we believe the election will be decided largely in the suburbs, the largest if least self-defined of the geographies. Throughout the primaries, Senator Obama battled Ms. Clinton to a rough draw in the suburbs. He generally did best in the higher end, closer in suburban communities as well as those with large minority population, much as John Kerry did against George Bush in 2002. Now the question is whether he can expand that suburban base to the often less affluent, newer and somewhat more exurban counties.

    Senator McCain, from sprawling Phoenix, needs to rally the hard-pressed homeowners and commuters of the suburbs. Recent polls suggest he now holds as much as a ten point lead among suburban voters. To consolidate that advantage, and even expand it, he must offer a vision that promises a future under the next Republican President better than the present one. In contrast, given his lock on the cities, Obama simply needs to split the suburban geography and make a respectable showing in the rural/small towns’ constituency to reach the top of the greasy pole.

    Mark Schill contributed to this report, also appearing at Politico.com.

    Joel Kotkin is a Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and executive editor of NewGeography.com. Mark Schill, an associate at Praxis Strategy Group, is the site’s managing editor.

  • Attracting American Companies to Canada

    A few days ago I received in the mail the latest issue of Area Development. I really enjoy this magazine with its rankings on the cities with the best business climate and articles on how to attract skilled workers. As an academic whose research deals with how to attract and retain top-quality workers, I cannot help but enjoy this magazine.

    This time Area Development came with a 40-page glossy pamphlet called Location Canada. It was filled with colorful pictures of downtowns, industrial parks and happy workers. What a great idea, I thought. This is the perfect readership.

    But I wonder how many readers or companies would be attracted by these happy scenes. First there’s the issue of politics. It is no secret that Canada is a center-left country. The only right-wing folks are mostly concentrated in the Province of Alberta— which is also the fastest growing economy in the nation. True, Conservatives ran the country for about a decade in the 80s and have run a minority Government since last year. But most American conservatives would find ours a bit too liberal. Although the Conservatives may be against abortion, they will have to accept gay rights, strong gun regulations, universal health care and multiculturalism (as opposed to the melting pot). So this could be a major turn-off for most American conservatives willing to give it a try in Canada.

    If you’re a member of the religious-right , you’d better forget Canada. Here religion and politics are totally separated. No God Bless Canada. And No God Saves the Queen ether. Most people, at least under 70, don’t care much about British Royalty either.

    Needless to say that a young left-of-center Democrat would react differently – not that he or she would fall in love with our values and want to move right away. After all, we have our very own cultural identities, celebrate different holidays and have different heroes (one might argue we also have fewer and venerate them less).

    If a tech worker and his family wanted to work in Montreal (in the Province of Quebec with its 80-percent French-speaking population with 50-percent of them dreaming of splitting from Canada), well, be ready for a real culture shock. No, this is not fake! People do speak French for real. And those outside of Montreal do not speak much English. I am saying this because I have heard many Americans saying out loud that Quebecers are just faking it. Believe me, they are not. Quebecers are also very proud of their culture and language, and expect immigrants to learn their language , support their values and culture (there was a very hot debate last year about what to do with immigrants who want to impose their religious beliefs at work and in schools).

    So while many tourists or students might enjoy a sojourn in La Belle Province, staying on as a working adult is a different matter. True, some working environments are mostly English but occasionally they are fined for it.

    But Canada’s mild socialism — inside and outside Quebec — also has its advantages. Government health care can be very attractive, not only for working families but for companies concerned with a large health care burden. This is one key reason why Toyota recently chose to build its plant in Woodstock, Ontario rather in the US (it already has one in Cambridge, Ontario).

    Canada also has a generous parental-leave program for pregnant women and even for fathers. We are not talking weeks here but months of well-paid leave. You can also put your child in state-subsidized daycare.

    Paternalism does not stop as you age. Once your child is almost an adult he or she will have to chance to attend a Quebec university for about $4000 a year, including elite schools like McGill University . Students from low-income families can very easily obtain student loans. Interest rates on those loans are low and will not negatively affect their credit record when the time comes to get a mortgage. Banks actually don’t even look at it even if you owe $50,000. Also, for families, municipalities run $20 a week summer camps . Generally those are safe and state-regulated. Of course, Canadians pay for those services through their income tax ; it’s really a question of whether the trade off is worth it. Generally speaking, the more affluent you are, or intend to become, the less the welfare state works for you.

    And let’s talk the worst thing about Canada: winter! That, we cannot do anything about it. It is snowy and cold across the country from December until March. Things are worst in Quebec. However, Minneapolis and Boston pretty much have the same kind of winter as Toronto. Vancouver is just a few hours drive north of Seattle so it frequently as gloomy, rainy and cool.

    So would this make talented Americans think twice about working in Canada? Would it be worth the try? Liberals would like it; many conservatives would become very antagonistic and frustrated. Basically, despite the similarities, you must become accustomed to big differences. As a country, Canada works very well, but for Canadians. For Americans with big ambitions, it’s really a matter of who you are — and who you want to be.