No Paradise

Illinois figured in the top ten recently--of shrinking congressional districts--two actually, side by side, Jan Schakowsky's 9th and Rahm Emanuel's 5th, which stretch west from Chicago's lakefront liberal elite enclaves.

This means their districts are losing population. How could this be, in the Dem workers paradise? People are leaving. Or dying. Or not reproducing. (Not aging well here.) The latté crowd is losing steam.

The growth of cities driven by this dream "yuspie" demographic has turned out to be an urban legend. Not only are they losing political power, they are losing out. (Hint, people are moving to the suburbs and more livable cities. Hint: high taxes are an issue here.) WSJ:

Instead, an analysis of migration data by my colleagues at the Praxis Strategy Group shows that the strongest job growth has consistently taken place in those regions--such as Houston, Dallas, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham--with the largest net in-migration of young, educated families ranging from their mid-20s to mid-40s.

Urban centers that have been traditional favorites for young singles, such as Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have experienced below-average job and population growth since 2000. San Francisco and Chicago lost population during that period; even immigrant-rich New York City and Los Angeles County have shown barely negligible population growth in the last two years, largely due to a major out-migration of middle class families.

Married people with children tend to be both successful and motivated, precisely the people who make economies go. They are twice as likely to be in the top 20% of income earners, according to the Census, and their incomes have been rising considerably faster than the national average.

There are also more college-educated women than 20 years ago, they are more likely to be married, and they value children. (Perhaps this accounts for Hillary's source of support from elderly women.)

And the upcoming generation of young adults, the Millenials, are both more numerous than the preceding Gen X'ers, and more conservative in their lifestyles.

This sifts down to the local level too--there is not a huge demand for bars and bright lights in this built up community, so please cool it with the disruptive (usually subsidized in some way by our taxes or our quality of life) high density development, out of scale plans that promise the moon and cost the earth.

Let's have some moderation for the Millenials, and a serene old age for the rest of us. A glass of wine or beer with a meal at a place around the corner is fine. And moderation in the taxes too, please. We are not looking for paradise on earth. It's too expensive.

P.S. Apropos of this, in response to the news the Dems are the party of the rich, this email comment from a friend of the blog:

It's really just an indication of a trend Rush Limbaugh pointed out years ago. The Dems are the party of the Rich who've got theirs and now want to patronize "the poor" versus the Repubs who are the party of those who still need to get theirs. I'd just add that the Dems are the party of those whose livelihood depends upon govt, directly or via protectionism....