18 Responses for "Red States Growing; Blue States Floundering"

1. DavidShiffman December 28th, 2007 at 8:20 pm 1

   Sam, “thriving” and being “stagnant” are not related to population growth rates at all. All this shows is that people in “red states” have more children than those in “blue states”, which is common knowledge.

2. Joel December 28th, 2007 at 9:52 pm 2

   The statistics do not show that number of children is accounting for the population growth. Experience here in Indiana says that the population growth is going on where economic growth is going on. In this case, I think that Sam has the analysis dead on.

3. DavidShiffman December 29th, 2007 at 12:06 am 3

   You can’t simultaneously claim that places that have more money are voting Democratic, and that places that vote Republican have a stronger economy. Pick one.

4. Publius December 29th, 2007 at 12:33 am 4

   What I think it shows is that children are a hassle and that people in civilized states have more productive things to do with our time than breed like rabbits.

5. ChemistryDave December 29th, 2007 at 10:16 am 5

   Sounds like Publius can’t get laid.

6. Griffin Emerson December 30th, 2007 at 3:33 am 6

   In terms of redistricting this might not be as great of a thing as you would think some of these states are relatively small and can have relatively high growth rates and still not gain congressional seats the rate is only compared to the previous size of the state, the thing that comforts me about this is that the vast majority of these states are mid to large size and that dose bode to major population shifts in our favor and therefor awesome redistricting in 2010.

7. Publius December 30th, 2007 at 8:45 am 7

   No, those of us in civilized places make sure our girlfriends have IUDs.

8. Sam December 30th, 2007 at 12:07 pm 8

   The idea that these states are growing at this rate because people are having more children there is absurd. 73,000 babies have caused the 3% increase in Nevada population? Did people in Michigan and Rhode Island just stop having children together and their population decrease is from all the old people dying?

   These states are growing because people are moving there from other parts of the nation. I lived in Pittsburgh for seven years prior to moving to SC and by the time I left there over half of the friends I had made when I first moved there had already left before me. Most of them went to Nevada and some others to Atlanta. Over half the people that work in my office in Charlotte are from some other state, mostly up north, with a few from the left coast. Almost all of the people from the northeast moved because they couldn’t find a decent job back in Ohio or Michigan or Pennsylvania, etc. The county I live in South Carolina borders Mecklenburg County where Charlotte is. Our county is the fastest growing in the state due to people relocating to the Charlotte area and wanting to live further out from the city, like myself.

   The majority of these states in the top of the list have been on top for several years and it isn’t because Hank and Bertha are having 7 kids. I don’t even know anybody with that many kids of child age. They have harbored economic policies that have brought corporations there, spurred business growth, have lower costs of living due to lower taxation, and the people have followed for work.

9. Sam December 30th, 2007 at 12:13 pm 9

   David Shiffman - “You can’t simultaneously claim that places that have more money are voting Democratic, and that places that vote Republican have a stronger economy. Pick one.”

   ————————————————————————

   Actually I can, quite accurately. This is a change that has been taking place over time. It doesn’t happen over night. These states in the list have been gradually growing over several years while the population growth in the northeastern states has dramatically slowed and even declined in some cases.

   The money you have left in the northeast is mostly old money. A lot of the wealth has been there for generations but you will see that change as this trend continues and those people die off. It’s your middle class people that are leaving those states because they are the ones hurt the most by their dragging economies. The wealthy don’t need to leave.

10. Press 7 for Celtic December 30th, 2007 at 8:39 pm 10

    I grew up in New York watching Mario Cuomo’s brainless liberal policies ruin that state. Now I live in Florida and pay less taxes and enjoy a stronger economy thanks to more conservative policies. I know people from Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and more who have the same experience as me.

    It amazes me to no end how so many intellectually snobby liberals can be oblivious to what anyone with half a brain can see- when people and businesses vote with their feet, they vote for states with conservative economic policies. That’s why all the people I went to high school with in Upstate New York now live in Florida, the Carolinas, and Georgia.

11. NVGOP January 1st, 2008 at 6:31 pm 11

    Actually, states with high population growth are in warmer climates. NV and AZ are growing because retirees are tired of Northern winters.

12. Press 7 for Celtic January 1st, 2008 at 10:51 pm 12

    So Idaho and Wyoming are growing… because they’re warm? I’ve been to both Idaho and Wyoming… in August. Their temperatures aren’t even close to the southeast or southwest. Every one of the states listed in the beginning of this thread have one thing in common, and it ain’t climate. They have conservative low-tax business policies that draw companies and young families away from festering liberal tax-swamps like N.Y. and Michigan.

    You are correct, however, that SOME states, like Florida, do draw snow-escaping retirees. But that doesn’t account for ALL of Florida’s growth, nor does it account for the all the growth that those other states have been experiencing. How many snow-escaping retirees move to Colorado, Utah, and Idaho?

13. Wolfboi1970 January 31st, 2008 at 3:34 am 13

    Well I was just looking at a chart earlier while surfing and it showed TEEN PREGNANCIES in the RED STATES were twice as high for most RED vs BLUE and in some RED it was even HIGHER… so there is alot of unwanted children having babies to raise RED population…you know how MORRALLY RIGHT the right is….and us heathen BLUE STATES have LESS THAN HALF the unwanted kids having kids to add to our population. So if I were a repub. I wouldn’t be so quick to do cartwheels over increased population until you know where its comming from. Also don’t forget there are ALOT OF BLUES RELOCATING to RED states…you should be afraid, not cocky…lest the tide may turn…esp. in your counties around large cities…they just might turn BLUE on ya…LOL.

14. Michael C January 31st, 2008 at 8:56 am 14

    Hey WOLFIE boy. YOU gotta LINK for THAT CHART?

    I kind of like the ALL CAPS THING.

15. Gceres January 31st, 2008 at 3:43 pm 15

    Did it ever occur to Wolfie that this is because many more pregnancies in the blue states end in abortion and go unreported?

16. Tood March 24th, 2008 at 7:56 pm 16

    Red state heterosexuals outbreed blue state faggots. Period.

    Actually, the county level is the better measure than state level.

    Illinois is blue only due to Chicago. The rest of Illinois is red.

    California is blue only because of the Gay Area. The rest of the state is red. Even Southern California is quite red, and without the Gay Area, the whole state would be red.

    Pennsylvania is red without Philadelphia. Washington is red without Seattle.

    You get the picture.

17. Mike March 24th, 2008 at 9:17 pm 17

    I get the picture, but modify your tone please. There is no need to sling about a word like faggot carelessly. I don’t know where you are from, but most small towns I have lived in across the country have their share of conservative minded gays.

    Also I think that a higher % of gays in blue states (if that is even the case) aren’t the reason for their lower birthrates. Two things seem to impact birthrates: welfare which means you don’t have to rely on your children in retirement (check) and lack of a belief system in God/country/future (check). Thus both New England and Europe are dying, but the South is actually growing.

18. meatpuff May 7th, 2008 at 4:32 pm 18

    Sam’s analysis misses the mark. The conservative economic policies of these states contribute to their appeal, but that is a small part of why jobs (which people are following to these states) are moving there.

    The real reason is that wages, real estate, and other costs of doing business are lower in these states compared to more “long-established” states like New York, California and Massachusetts. These depend very little on conservative/liberal economic policies. OF COURSE it will cost more to open and operate a factory in New York City than in Wyoming. What we are seeing now is the revolutions in transportation and information have overcome the disadvantages and now made it possible to run an office or factory in the hinterlands. This was not practical before but is now, so society is adjusting by spreading out business operations to take advantage of these cost advantages. This is not a liberal or conservative thing. For example, read about the experience of this small business that moved from California to North Carolina: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119990682779278467.html?mod=rss_Small_Business_Link

    This is not materially different from international outsourcing. China has experienced incredible job growth especially in the manufacturing area and stunning growth in their GDP to match, recently. Surely you cannot argue that this is as a result of their “conservative economic policies” (they are nominally a Communist country). No, it is a result of advances in information and transportation connectivity now making it possible for companies to take advantage of the cost differential. The world is becoming flatter, and a wave of manufacturing activity is washing from the U.S. over to China to compensate.

    As a final piece of evidence, take a look at the average housing costs per state in 2004. http://www.realmarketing.com/Stats/state-housing-costs.htm
    See that only two of the ten states you listed have housing costs (barely) above the U.S. average. Housing costs directly correlate to local wages and cost of property and plant. Cost to purchase real estate is not moved by conservative or liberal state government; it moves based on whether people want to live there.

    Conservative economic policies can help a bit, particularly providing a good value proposition (providing lots of value of state-provided services per tax dollar collected), which many red states do better than some blue states. But 90% of why these ten states are growing so fast is due to what I discussed above.

    P.S. Why are these ten states all red? States voting for Dems seems to correlate with wealth and population density of the people. These states are growing precisely BECAUSE the people demand less in wages and live more spaced out (so real estate costs less). So of course they’re red.