21–30 of 84 posts
I'd just like to point out that proximity is not equivalent to interaction. In my experience social interaction was higher in rural settings. In a small town you will know all your neighbors, and probably half the people at your local stores. In a city it's the opposite, strangers abound.
The huge amount of scatter around the line of best fit in the scatterplot shown in the article demonstrates that there is a HUGE degree of uncertainty in this model. I know plenty of counterexamples to this in my high-density townhouse neighborhood.
I've recently become fascinated by the concept that one's political affiliation tends to sync up with one's dominant survival strategy. If you rely most on communities and relationships, you tend to be liberal; if you rely most on authority and hierarchies, you tend to be conservative; if you rely most on your own skills, you tend to be libertarian. http://www.meltingasphalt.com/the-ecology-of-personal-politi...
I think you are flipping conservatives and liberals. Liberals tend to rely on authority and hierarchies (the state, and similar authority figures), whereas conservatives tend to rely on communities and relationships (church, family, secular community orgs). Or am I misinterpreting something here?
Liberals don't see the state as an authority, but rather, the community. After all, the people you are working with are literally neighbors, locals, friends. This also works with my own experience in dealing with getting state services for my children. The people we deal with come to the house, work with us, and are our equals. They form a community of people.
Fascinating. I wonder if in the years to come as population density increases, will more and more people vote Democrat, or will the magic number of 800 people per sq. mile. simply increase?
The density number will almost certainly increase. Both of the major US political parties are very pragmatic -- they're willing to shift their platforms as much as necessary to capture a bare majority (if they weren't, they wouldn't remain major parties for long). So while it's possible that ideals currently endorsed by the Democratic platform will become more widespread that only means that the Republicans will shif…
I'd like to know if more fine-grained data on population density is available. Congressional districts have a very broad array of population densities within them. I'd love to have access to density information at the voting precinct level and see if that correlation still holds.
This is just a re-telling of a well known fact. Rural areas tend to be red and urban areas tend to be blue. Only this is retold with the connotation that republicans are somehow antisocial. I'd just like to point out that proximity is not equivalent to interaction. In my experience social interaction was higher in rural settings. In a small town you will know all your neighbors, and probably half the people at your l…
This is just a re-telling of a well known fact. Rural areas tend to be red and urban areas tend to be blue. Only this is retold with the connotation that republicans are somehow antisocial. I'd just like to point out that proximity is not equivalent to interaction. In my experience social interaction was higher in rural settings. In a small town you will know all your neighbors, and probably half the people at your l…
