America’s ‘Big Sort’ Is Only Getting Bigger

USA: @Richard_Florida: America’s #BigSort Is Only Getting Bigger. Political polarization in the U.S. mirrors its spatial divide.

Richard Florida on CityLab, Oct 25, 2016: “Setting the nuttiness of Donald Trump and his candidacy aside, the 2016 presidential campaign serves as a fitting reminder of America’s deepening partisan divide. Americans have not only grown more ideologically polarized over the past couple of decades, Republicans and Democrats are drawn to very different kind of places. Back in 2004, Bill Bishop dubbed the self-segregation of Americans into like-minded communities, “The Big Sort.” …

Two interrelated factors appear to be driving the Big Sort, according to the study. On the one hand, like-minded people cluster together or with other like-minded people, and on the other, such clustering together makes people more like-minded. “There is clear evidence of significant spatial polarization of support for the country’s two main political parties across recent presidential elections,” the authors of the study write, “as like people tend to vote the same way, and like people tend to cluster together, such clustering increases greater polarization in voting patterns is the consequence.” As this study’s evidence and the run-up to the 2016 election show, the Big Sort is only getting bigger.”

http://www.citylab.com/politics/2016/10/the-big-sort-revisited/504830/