Boomburbs: The Alteration of the Suburbs

Central to my interest in "Boomburbs" is the political impact it has on elections. This outtake captures a snapshot of some of the changes underway ...

(pg 72-73)

Growth brings problems, but it also brings power. Boomburbs are changing and increasing their states' political representation. After the 2000 census results were released California, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, George, Texas, Arizona, and Florida were awarded additional seats in the US House of Representatives, and each state has at least one boomburb. New York and Pennsylvania lost two seats, while Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin each lost one seat, with Illinois being the only state having a boomburb (Naperville).

The results of the 2004 election were surprising to many, including demographers and political analysts. Very few predicted that the nation's exurban areas would come out so heavily in favor of Bush. Democratic strategists courted large cities and areas that had been the party's mainstays in previous elections. Meanwhile, and to their advantage, Republican strategists reached out to the rapidly growing exurbs. They predicted that those moving to burgeoning areas would most likely be politically unaffiliated and more easily encouraged to register as Republicans and vote for Bush.

Boomburbs exist in large-scale mature counties that are typically not on their regions edge. They are not exurban, nor are they necessarily urban; therefore they do not fall into traditionally Republican or Democrat territories. Unfortunately, city-level data for elections are not readily available; therefore individual boomburb election results cannot be known. However, a study of the 2004 election results from county-level data reveals that Bush won the faster-growing boomburb counties (Collin County, Texas; Maricopa County, Arizona; and Riverside County, California). These places have a long history of voting Republican, although Bush's victory margins were some of the narrowest in these counties' presidential election histories. Counties containing boomburbs with slow or negative growth rates (such as King County, Washington, and Sonoma County, California) tended to vote for Kerry.

There is also evidence that as counties age, they become more political liberal. Fairfax County, Virginia, in suburban Washington, voted majority Democratic for the first time in a presidential election. This could be in part due to Fairfax County becoming more diverse and populous and having a larger share of multifamily housing than it did thirty years ago. The tensions between the old way of life and the new are becoming apparent. A local representative, Republican Tom Davis, opposes a proposed high-density, transit-oriented, mixed-used development in his district (made up of mostly single-family homes and single-use subdivisions), claiming increased traffic congestion. However, Davis may fear that Democrats will move into the new development and vote him out of office. He lost a precinct in 2004 to a Democrat for the first time in his eleven years in his seat. It just so happens that that precinct is home to two new high-density residential projects.

Representative Loretta Sanchez spoke of this tension as her district in Orange County, California, shifted from primarily Anglo to Hispanic and Asian. Sanchez famously defeated Bob Dornan in 1996. Dornan's cock-sureness and bluster no longer rang true to his voters, while Sanchez's steady campaigning and broad-based appeal have made her popular in her district. However, according to Sanchez, much of the "old guard" still remains in power in places such as Anaheim and Santa Ana. Minorities are elected to local offices, but whites tend to hold key positions of authority. Some school boards, she claims, are out of step with challenges such as language barriers, uneducated parents, and lower-income families. They are operating on the old model: two-parent, white-collar families where the mother does not work - the suburbia of 1950. "It simply isn't that way anymore," she said.

Boomburbs built their appeal on quality-of-life issues - job growth, pleasing climates, an abundance of single-family homes. As metropolitan areas expand into their exurban areas, many boomburbs and their counties find themselves now in older parts of their metropolitan area. they increasingly face issues that ruin the suburban idyll: traffic congestion, increasing demand for social services, aging housing stock, and competition from newer, farther-out suburbs. As the demographics and densities of boomburbs shift, so might their politics.

There's a hint here about the changes that lead to election outcomes. Namely, how the 2004 results were some of the narrowest that the exurban counties had seen. Collin County, on the surface, did not have what might be considered "close" election results in 2004. Bush carried the county with 71.15% of the vote. But that's down from 2000 (73.07%) and even down from 1988 (74.3%). To be sure, those are incremental gains. But given the growth Collin County has seen lately, the decline may yet prove more ominous down the road.

Maricopa County clocked in at 56.97% for Bush in 2004, which was an uptick of his 2000 results (53.23%). But compared to the 1988 results (64.9%), they could very well be a sign of where places like Collin County are headed. Feel free to revisit my post from June (and the accompanying spreadsheets) for a bit more background here.

What's fundamentally significant to me from this outtake, however, is that my initial theory that "new stuff translates to more Democrats" seems validated. Newer subdivisions in the Houston area are increasingly either less-dominated by Anglo families or they may even be increasingly dominated by minority families. And those new developments are happening in places that will eventually bear out some form of political change. In several cases, it's already evident. It's just a matter of when they accumulate to a tipping point for larger scale changes.