Minority babies outnumber whites among US infants

[QueEx]

Minority babies outnumber whites among US infants

• 50.2 percent of babies born last year were minorities
• The past several years have seen growth in birth rates among minorities
• The U.S. will become a country with no racial majority in the next several decades

Video

McClatchyDC
By Teresa Welsh
twelsh@mcclatchy.com
June 23, 2016


White babies are now outnumbered by minority babies, according to new population estimates from the Census Bureau.

In 2015, racial and ethnic minorities made up 50.2 percent of babies under a year old. That year, there were 1,995,102 minority babies born, just slightly more than the 1,982,936 white babies born.

The 2015 data was released Thursday, as was updated data for previous years. These new figures show that in 2013, minority babies also outnumbered non-Hispanic white babies by about 1,000 births. In 2014, white babies were outnumbered by about 16,000.

Original data from 2011 showed that white babies were in the minority, but those figures were revised in 2013 to show that the white infants were still the majority. But the new information released Thursday shows that the original figures were in fact correct, and minority births outpaced white ones.

While whites are expected to become the minority in the U.S. population in the coming decades — estimates run from 2044 to 2055 — it has been difficult to predict exactly when the shift will come. Fertility rates are impacted by a number of factors, including the health of the economy, and immigration flows can also be unpredictable.

Census bureau data, like the birthrate figures released Thursday, indicate that the shift from a majority white nation to one with no majority racial or ethnic group is starting with the youngest age groups in the country. In 2015, 50.3 percent of children younger than 5 were minorities.

Tracking such figures can also be a challenge, because different data sources use different metrics to determine a child’s race. The National Center for Health Statistics doesn’t represent mixed-race mothers as such in its data, while Census Bureau data is reported to reflect children of multiple races.



Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/article85591172.html#storylink=cpy

.

 

[QueEx]

Census: Whites become 'minority' in 2044, Hispanic population twice black's

 

[muckraker10021]

We have to stop using the word "minorities"

And......

as I pointed out a few days ago, when Hillary becomes POTUS
http://www.bgol.us/forum/index.php?posts/16603668

● Black people will be marginalized since our political leaders ask for nothing despite delivering 95% of the Black vote, the HISPANICS will become the preferred "minorities"

 

[QueEx]

One of the reasons our political leaders have done a poor job of "asking" for something may be because we have done a poor job demanding that they do and that may be because we have done a poor job of coming into general agreement (gaining unity?) around common/basic principles ourselves -- over "core" things we believe are important

 

[gene cisco]

What is the poverty rate with the babies(family planning is more important than just having kids)? Also, how many are Asians? Asians and Hispanics are using the 'minority' shield to advance themselves. Asians are taking over the most important field(technology) while Hispanics are taking over as the preferred voter block.

 

[QueEx]

What is the poverty rate with the babies(family planning is more important than just having kids)? Also, how many are Asians? Asians and Hispanics are using the 'minority' shield to advance themselves. Asians are taking over the most important field(technology) while Hispanics are taking over as the preferred voter block.

Great observations. You didn't mention (though I am sure you agree): Our mission, should we choose to accept it, must be to take every advantage to place ourselves in a position to maximize it all, to OUR BEST BENEFIT.

Tall order, I know. But at some damn point, we've got to "re-socialize" US to more wisely think and act, in our collective best interest.

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

What is the poverty rate with the babies(family planning is more important than just having kids)? Also, how many are Asians? Asians and Hispanics are using the 'minority' shield to advance themselves. Asians are taking over the most important field(technology) while Hispanics are taking over as the preferred voter block.

we have to do a better job of preparing our children for

real world of today...

and stop trusting these eurocentric schools to do the work for us...

we as a people put way to much trust in a system that does NOT have us in their best interest..

If I had children, which Im in no rush to do... because I wouldnt want to bring forth any seeds in this confused mess..

but if I did, they would be learning at least two foreign languages and reading by age of three...

 

[QueEx]

What is the poverty rate with the babies

With respect to the Black ones, what ultimately will be their voting-rate ??? And, presently, what is the voting-rate of their parents ???

 

[QueEx]

and stop trusting these eurocentric schools to do the work for us...

I hear you goodbud, but EDUCATION is whats important. We need em educated. I view education as having a lot to do with teaching one "how to think" -- not rote memorization of facts and circumstances, whatever their bent may be. I believe that a person well trained in how to reason and apply that reasoning to situations will overcome and get beyond the "centric".

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

I hear you goodbud, but EDUCATION is whats important. We need em educated. I view education as having a lot to do with teaching one "how to think" -- not rote memorization of facts and circumstances, whatever their bent may be. I believe that a person well trained in how to reason and apply that reasoning to situations will overcome and get beyond the "centric".

No doubt, Im not talkin about the actual education as much Im am talkin about the institutions we send our young ones to, many of these institutions have teachers

that have no business near our children... and they are around our children at that point in their lives where they are very susceptible to the actions and attitudes of the adults around them..

and many of these adults are blatant or closet racist that do more harm then good to the intellectual growth of our children...

We need to have a better understanding of our true history and who we are, so we can pass this knowledge down.

to many of our children think we were just slaves, not we were ENSLAVED by a people who to this day, benefit off of our brain drain...as well as our labor.

we need to teach them the importance of MATH AND SCIENCE as well...

too much sponge bob and disney in the mindset of our youth..

too much raising them in front of the idiot box aka the t.v..... the most powerful programming tool this world has

ever seen...

 

[QueEx]

but if I did, they would be learning at least two foreign languages and reading by age of three...

 

[QueEx]

No doubt, Im not talkin about the actual education as much Im am talkin about the institutions we send our young ones to . . . many of these institutions have teachers that have no business near our children ... and they are around our children at that point in their lives where they are very susceptible

Without question, when they're young and impressionable -- is when they're most vulnerable to mis-direction.

We need to have a better understanding of our true history . . . and . . . we need to teach them the importance of MATH AND SCIENCE as well...

Agreed. All of that = more likely to be well-rounded.

 

[gene cisco]

With respect to the Black ones, what ultimately will be their voting-rate ??? And, presently, what is the voting-rate of their parents ???

What will be the INFORMED voting rate? Let's be honest here. Judging by the current state of black America, it doesn't look good.

 

[gene cisco]

we have to do a better job of preparing our children for

real world of today...

and stop trusting these eurocentric schools to do the work for us...

we as a people put way to much trust in a system that does NOT have us in their best interest..

If I had children, which Im in no rush to do... because I wouldnt want to bring forth any seeds in this confused mess..

but if I did, they would be learning at least two foreign languages and reading by age of three...

That's the problem. Some are talking about this population thing as if we were rodents. Preparing children takes FAMILY PLANNING. That usually means having children later in life and having fewer children. Instead, we have people have children they aren't prepared for and complaining because cacs won't educate the children.

You mention reading? Folks are sending their kids to school without the ability to read and then blaming cacs. Foreign languages are nice, but teaching children programming languages would help even more. Those are the concepts of now and the future. They already have translating devices that can work on the fly. Let's make sure our children concentrate on STEM.

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

That's the problem. Some are talking about this population thing as if we were rodents. Preparing children takes FAMILY PLANNING. That usually means having children later in life and having fewer

children. Instead, we have people have children they aren't prepared for and complaining because cacs
won't educate the children.

You mention reading? Folks are sending their kids to school without the ability to read and then blaming cacs.
Foreign languages are nice,
but teaching children programming languages would help even more. Those are the concepts of now and the future. They already have translating
devices that can work on the fly. Let's make sure our children concentrate on STEM.

No doubt I would home school my child or children and only have them attend school for social development...

You aint lying about programming I think if we combine teaching technical skills like programming with. Their own natural creativity it's a recipe for

Success....

I also think our children especially in the inner city should also learn some survival skills
.
But forget the young uns many older heads ain't fucking with the woods

I love hiking and when a group of us get together it's few brothers and zero sisters.....


And yes Beckys get very horny in the woods.

Not that I know anything about that tho....

Lol

 

[QueEx]

What will be the INFORMED voting rate?

Understood (Informed-voting rate); but informed or not, if they're not getting to the polls, does it really matter

Let's be honest here. Judging by the current state of black America, it doesn't look good.

Some things I hate to agree with. This is one of them

 

[gene cisco]

No doubt I would home school my child or children and only have them attend school for social development...

You aint lying about programming I think if we combine teaching technical skills like programming with. Their own natural creativity it's a recipe for

Success....

I also think our children especially in the inner city should also learn some survival skills
.
But forget the young uns many older heads ain't fucking with the woods

I love hiking and when a group of us get together it's few brothers and zero sisters.....


And yes Beckys get very horny in the woods.

Not that I know anything about that tho....

Lol

I read recently that black America is leading the growth in homeschooling. As for social development, homeschooling gets a bad rap for that because the pioneers of homeschooling were usually fringe religious types. Backwoods, white Christian evangelicals.

You might have seen me debating about population many times on the main board. I just wish people would realize just how important family planning is. More white people and Asians are planning their families. As a result, their children have more time and money invested in them. We have to take this more serious or the education gap will get worse. Yes, a lot of black women are getting degrees, but as a group, we aren't involved in the most important field: STEM.

You're right about survival skills. It's part of expanding our experience to things that typically aren't considered black. When it comes to expanding our interests, it seems as if we are our own worst interests. If kids don't do 'black' things, they tend to get clowned more by black kids than white kids. I experienced it with computers growing up(grade school in the 80s, not the cool Internet age of the 00s). Shit, for white kids it was considered nerdy, for black kids there were even more jokes.

We're not going to win this games with numbers. Whites took over most of the world with inferior numbers. And that was when the gap wasn't even this fucking big. Think about medical technology. If someone needs an organ transplant, whites with resources will get to the top the list. They won't have numbers, but they will control the resources. Also, they will start cutting programs for children, which has little effect on those who family plan.

While a sensible cat like you doesn't have any children yet, there are too many fools with no job skills having multiple kids before 23. Same fools that have no shame in getting on television and begging white folks to educate their children.

 

[gene cisco]

Understood (Informed-voting rate); but informed or not, if they're not getting to the polls, does it really matter




Some things I hate to agree with. This is one of them

Man, I'm from the only area in the United States where its population voted to keep traffic cameras. The residents of east Cleveland allowed themselves to be bullied. What's sad is most the people running East Cleveland are black. I'm of the mind that uniformed voters just make things worse. Informed voters are going to show up. It's when uninformed voters show up when things can get hectic because they will vote against their own interests(see white republicans who are poor).

We need to work harder to educate our population. Quality over quantity.

 

[Mrfreddygoodbud]

I read recently that black America is leading the growth in homeschooling. As for social development, homeschooling gets a bad rap for that because the pioneers of homeschooling were usually fringe religious types. Backwoods, white Christian evangelicals.

You might have seen me debating about population many times on the main board. I just wish people would realize just how important family planning is. More white people and Asians are planning their families. As a result, their children have more time and money invested in them. We have to take this more serious or the education gap will get worse. Yes, a lot of black women are getting degrees, but as a group, we aren't involved in the most important field: STEM.

You're right about survival skills. It's part of expanding our experience to things that typically aren't considered black. When it comes to expanding our interests, it seems as if we are our own worst interests. If kids don't do 'black' things, they tend to get clowned more by black kids than white kids. I experienced it with computers growing up(grade school in the 80s, not the cool Internet age of the 00s). Shit, for white kids it was considered nerdy, for black kids there were even more jokes.

We're not going to win this games with numbers. Whites took over most of the world with inferior numbers. And that was when the gap wasn't even this fucking big. Think about medical technology. If someone needs an organ transplant, whites with resources will get to the top the list. They won't have numbers, but they will control the resources. Also, they will start cutting programs for children, which has little effect on those who family plan.

While a sensible cat like you doesn't have any children yet, there are too many fools with no job skills having multiple kids before 23. Same fools that have no shame in getting on television and begging white folks to educate their children.

No doubt but we have to also factor in we are one of the only races where the govt has programs..

LITERALLY to thwart any progress we try to make as a people..

the whole paradigm of inner city life for us was planned out..

we didnt just end up in inner cities, we were pushed in them..

our lands were stolen and many of us had to flee to safer grounds and didnt have the option of

considering wealth..

safety was the highest priority...

there were also a few very successful cases of one parent home schooling where a single sister,

home schooled her child, and he was accepted to all ivy league schools at a crazy young age...

she needs to write a book.. but I feel there are many more stories like that under the radar that we should focus on..

also a lot of these young heads, having multiple children, would be great parents if they had the right support...

I dont have any children yet I see all young brothers and sisters as my children...

when they hurt I hurt a little inside, when they do good, I feel good a little inside


I dont care whether anyone thinks its fake or not, that willie lynch shit is real, and WE all victims of it, that goes for europeans as well...

but once we as a people realize we are all victims of divide and conquer an seek to remedy that..

we will be on the road to solutions instead of playin around in the spilled milk, making more of a mess..

 

[muckraker10021]

The denouement of the narrative explaining the demise of any significant Black political or economic power in 21st century America has already been written. 53% of all African-Americans are 35 years old and younger; they are — to use a clichéd phrase — 'the future'. The dramatic paucity in Black voter turnout in elections, especially during non-presidential election years can be attributed disproportionately to young voters. Overall there is impressively more political and economic cohesion among other ethnic groups and so-called 'minorities' than there is among Black Americans who have been in America since at least 1621.​

The Changing Face of Urban Power

by Thomas B. Edsall | JUNE 30, 2016 | http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/30/opinion/campaign-stops/the-changing-face-of-urban-power.html


Black political power is declining in cities across the country, including Oakland, St. Louis, Cleveland and Atlanta — even as African-Americans are gaining majority status in an increasing number of suburbs.

At the same time, African-American emigration to the South has started to weaken Republican control of some deep red states.

Let’s start with Washington, D.C. The shift there (as elsewhere) is driven both by gentrification and by a black movement away from urban centers.

In 1957, Washington became the first large city in the United States to become majority African-American. In 1973, Congress gave home rule to the District. The first mayoral election was held in 1974, and Walter Washington, who had been appointed to the position in 1967, won it. He was the first of a series of black mayors that has continued to this day.

One area of Washington’s politics — campaign money — is already dominated by whites and has been for a long time. “D.C.’s White Donor Class,” a new study by Sean McElwee, a policy analyst at Demos, a liberal think-tank, found that among contributors of $1,000 or more to the 2014 campaign for mayor and city council campaign, “62 percent of mayoral donors and 67 percent of City Council donors are white.”

In the report, McElwee argues that

The fact that big donors — overwhelmingly white, male and high-income — hold such outsized influence in a city that is extremely diverse both demographically and economically is deeply problematic.

White voters in Washington already wield significant power in the city’s elections. In 2014, Muriel Bowser, an African-American reform candidate, defeated Vincent Gray, the African-American incumbent — who was accused of campaign finance violations but exonerated after the election — by winning decisive majorities in predominately white wards.

Ward 3, in Northwest Washington, where much of the city’s elite lives, is the most affluent of the city’s eight wards. The median household income in the ward is $109,909, 78 percent of the population is white and in 2013 the average single family home cost nearly $1,000,000. Ward 3 backed Bowser 63.49 percent to 11.45 percent.

At the same time, Bowser lost the three poorest black wards (5,7 and 8), which have a median household income of $42,177 and where single family houses cost an average of $250,000 in 2013, by large margins. Ward 7, across the Anacostia River in the Southeast corner of the city, backed Gray over Bowser 59.48 percent to 28.0 percent.

Over the past 15 years, the District has experienced both an exodus of black residents and an influx of whites. Young, well-educated whites are moving into once minority, often depopulated and dilapidated neighborhoods, where new condo and rental apartment construction is booming.

The black share of Washington’s population fell from a high of 71.1 percent in 1970 to 48.3 percent as of July 2015. The white share has grown from 27.7 percent in 1970 to 44.1 percent, if Hispanics who identify themselves as white are included. If only non-Hispanic whites are counted, the white share has grown to 36.1 percent.

Hispanics, who are likely to hold the balance of political power between whites and blacks, have grown from 2.1 percent of the District’s population in 1970 to 10.6 percent in 2015. Asian-Americans have gone from 0.7 percent to 4.2 percent over the same period.

In terms of political power, the more important numbers are those for city residents who are at least 18 and eligible to vote. William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, provided The Times with calculations based on July 2015 census data. It shows that non-Hispanic whites made up 39.2 percent of eligible voters and blacks 44.6 percent; Hispanics are at 9.7 percent and Asian-Americans at 4.5 percent.

While these percentages still give African-Americans a plurality of the District population, turnout patterns in off-year local elections in which the mayor is chosen serve to weaken black voting strength.

In the 2014 mayoral election, turnout in the four wards where whites are either in the majority or the plurality was 28.98 percent. This was more than four points higher than the 24.74 percent turnout in the four wards where African-Americans are in the majority or a plurality, according to an analysis based on data from the DC Board of Elections, the Urban Instituteand the DC Office of Planning.

The turnout gap between rich and poor wards was even larger, 7.84 points in the 2014 contest. In the most affluent four wards (median household income $95,257), the turnout rate of registered voters was 30.83 percent; in the four poorest wards (median household income $49,520), the turnout rate was 22.99 percent.

If Marion Barry — Washington’s volatile four-term mayor — were alive today, he would be appalled at these dismal turnout levels. From the 1994 primary – when Barry was active and on the ballot — to the primary in 2014, the year he died, turnout in Ward 8, Barry’s base, fell from 37.8 percent to 15.54 percent.

The 2014 election marked the first time when the number of black voters was eclipsed by the number of all other voters, including whites, Hispanics and Asian-Americans. As Paul Schwartzman and Ted Mellnik of the Washington Post wrote:

A surge of young, mainly white voters living in newly affluent neighborhoods emerged as a powerful force in last November’s elections in the District, a seismic shift that mirrors the evolution of the city’s population and could reshape its politics in years to come.

The Post found that in the 2014 primary, blacks made up 48 percent of voters compared to 51 percent “other.” In the general election, which included a referendum on legalization of marijuana that brought many young white voters to the polls, blacks were 46 percent to 53 percent “other.”

In the event of a future racially polarized Democratic mayoral primary pitting a major black candidate against a major white candidate, Hispanics would be in a position to determine the outcome.

There are some indications of how Hispanic voters might cast their ballots. The February 1989 Chicago mayoral primary provides perhaps the most relevant case study.

Richard M. Daley, who is white, challenged Eugene Sawyer, the black incumbent. In that contest, Daley won Hispanic voters 83-15.

Separately, Yanna Krupnikov and Spencer Piston, political scientists at Stonybrook and Syracuse Universities, found that “the level of racial prejudice” is as high among Latinos as it is for non-Hispanic whites.

Muriel Bowser, in February, 2014, when she was running for mayor in Washington.


In an email, Piston wrote that the “findings constitute suggestive evidence” that in a white vs. black election, Hispanics could provide “a victory for the white candidate, because Latinos tend to view whites more favorably than blacks.”

Piston cautioned, however, that the policies espoused by the white and black candidates could also play a crucial role:

Latinos are more egalitarian than whites and more comfortable with big government. If the black candidate was to the left of the white candidate in the scenario you describe with respect to these two core values, and if Latinos voted with these two core values in mind, this would draw Latinos on balance to the black candidate.

I contacted a number of politicians, operatives, researchers and political scientists to get their assessment of the likelihood that the District will elect a white mayor and got a mixed response.

Anthony Pierce, a partner at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld who is active in local politics, wrote in response to my email:

I see no reason why the city can’t elect a white mayor. While I in no way think we are in a post racial era, I do believe that most of the citizens of the city would have no genuine bias on this issue. In fact, the younger folks who have made up most of the city’s growth spurt are far more welcoming of differences than their elders. Like any successful mayoral candidate, the politician would have to speak to issues relevant to those in the city with a plan to tackle crime, affordable housing and continue the improvement in the business climate to achieve job growth, etc. but I certainly think it could be done.

Matthew Green, a political scientist at Catholic University, said the prospect of a white mayor is “absolutely, clearly possible.” He noted that major sections of the city have been transformed, in most cases resulting in more whites:

The city has been changing pretty dramatically. There are neighborhoods I don’t even recognize anymore.

There are, however, some dissenters.

Garry Young, director of the Center for Washington Area Studies at George Washington University, downplayed the possibility that Washington could elect a white mayor, noting that

African-American’s remain the largest racial group in the District with close to 50 percent. Non-Hispanic whites still only make up a tad more than one third.

Young also pointed out that

The dynamic that seems in play now is you have black candidates who attract the business community and white voters in Northwest and then do well enough among black and Latino voters elsewhere to win the Democratic primary. That’s a proven winning strategy. Could a white candidate put together the same sort of coalition? Possibly — and one day probably as I think the District’s continues to become whiter — but I think it’s still a long-shot in the short run.

Hal Wolman, a political scientist at George Washington put an entirely different spin on the question:

I think there are a substantial number of whites who will support a “reform” black candidate (think Anthony Williams or Adrian Fenty) but would be unwilling — think liberal guilt — to vote for a white one.

Nationally, blacks and whites have significantly different views on some issues, while finding common ground on others. A 2014 Gallup surveyfound distinct, but not necessarily conflicting, policy priorities.

One of the biggest differences is on the question whether blacks and white have the same opportunities for jobs: 74 percent of whites say yes compared to 40 percent of blacks.

Another major difference is on the question of whether the American system of justice is biased against African-Americans.
Blacks say it is, by 68 to 26, while 69 percent of whites say the system in not biased, and 25 percent say it is.

A separate September 2014 Gallup study found major racial differences on the role of government in remedying discrimination. Asked if government should play a major, minor or no role at all in “improving the social and economic conditions of blacks and other minorities,” 22 percent of whites said a major role, compared to 54 percent of African-Americans. In the District, however, where the proportion of liberal whites is much higher than in the nation at large, these racial differences are much smaller and less divisive.

Despite the particular demographic profile of the District, the population trends in Washington are emblematic of shifts taking place in a number of major cities.

Blacks are on the verge of losing majority status in Atlanta and Cleveland. African-Americans in Chicago, who were a plurality in 2010, were pushed by whites to second place over the next four years. In St. Louis, blacks fell from 51.3 percent of the population in 2010 to 49.5 percent in 2014

The black population of Atlanta has been falling steadily, from 61.6 percent of the city in 2000 to 52.4 percent in 2014. The African-American share of Cleveland’s population rose from 51 percent in 2000 to 53.3 percent in 2010, but then fell to 51.3 in 2014.

The black share of the population has also begun to decline in cities ranging from Boston and New York on the East Coast to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland on the West Coast.

The geographic movement of African-Americans will produce a shift in black political power from some cities to surrounding suburbs and to states in the South.

Georgia, for example, is a state where Democrats are making gains, so much so that the Clinton campaign is considering a possible drive to win what has been a solidly red state. The slow but steady increase in the percentage of Georgia residents who are minorities is crucial to this process.

In the five years from 2010 to 2015, the percentage of non-Hispanic whites in Georgia has fallen from 55.9 to 53.9 percent, while the percentage of African-Americans has grown from 30.5 to 31.7, and Hispanics from 8.8 to 9.4 percent. These shifts may appear small, but over time they can change a state from red to purple.

By far the dominant trend, however, is the migration of African-Americans from center cities to the suburbs.

A July 2015 study, “Black flight to the suburbs on the rise,” by William Frey, the Brookings scholar I mentioned earlier, found that

metropolitan areas in the growing parts of the country are registering the greatest numeric gains in suburban black population. The suburbs of Atlanta, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Dallas experienced the largest increases in black population during 2000-2010.

Driving the movement of African-Americans to the suburbs, Frey wrote,

are the young, those with higher education, and married couples with children — attributes that characterized white suburbanization for almost a century.

Politically, the migration out of cities to the suburbs will lead to some diffusion of black political power, but not necessarily to a diminishment.

In the Washington metropolitan area, for example, black migration has been, in large part, to Prince Georges County, which in 1980 was 59.9 percent white and 37.3 percent black — with a white-dominated county government and a white member of Congress.

By 2014, the county was 65.4 percent African-American and 23.2 percent white — with a black county executive, a black dominated county council and a black member of Congress.

Over time, African-Americans in the Washington metropolitan area may be forced through demographic change to cede some power in the District, which has a population of 672,228. At the same time, African-American control of Prince George’s County might be an avatar of a deeper transformation. The county not only has a population of 909,535, but it also has a member of Congress who can actually vote, unlike the District’s quasi-congressional representation. By most standards, this is not a bad deal.

A focus on the black-white-Hispanic urban splits can serve to obscure what is possibly a more salient development: the ongoing political alignment of well-educated, relatively well-off whites with racial and ethnic minorities. It is this racially and ethnically diverse urban-metropolitan coalition that currently supports Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party and that elected Barack Obama twice. It is viscerally opposed to Donald Trump.

“Today, roughly half of all Americans live in the 144 largest counties, while the other half occupies the remaining 2,998 counties,” Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, wrote on his blog in January. Obama won, Sabato noted, “even though he carried only 22 percent of all counties,” including 46 of the 50 most populous counties.

The opposition to this liberal-Democratic urban-oriented coalition, the rural and exurban pro-Trump alliance, appears, in turn, to be similar to center-right coalitions forming across Europe — most immediately to the right-populist segment of the British electorate that on June 23 threw its weight behind Britain’s departure from the European Union.

The Guardian noted that in the case of Brexit,

it’s clear that densely populated urban areas with a lot of young people such as Hackney and Islington in London voted overwhelmingly to remain in the European Union.

Or as Newsweek put it

Most large urban centers elected to stay part of the European Union, particularly in London, where many local authorities delivered vast majorities for the pro-EU campaign.

There is an ongoing struggle, then, for cultural as well as economic resources, within rapidly transforming metropolitan-urban centers — just as there is a struggle for broader forms of power between regions and between countries. As both traditional and cosmopolitan values form the basis of alliances that sometimes compete and sometimes cooperate, the opportunities for a peaceful reshaping of coalitions on both the left and the right are there. But as conflicts related to economic and social modernization erupt at locations as far apart as Ferguson and Falluja, the potential is also clear for ever more dangerous conflict.




HALF OF ALL THE PEOPLE LIVING IN THE U.S. LIVE IN THE BLUE SHADED AREAS