Bob CollinsThe Pew Center is out with a survey this evening that says most people like the idea of living in a diverse neighborhood or area, even though most don’t live in areas that are politically diverse.
Says the survey:
This preference for diverse communities is greater among Democrats, liberals, college graduates, blacks, and secular Americans than it is among the population as a whole. But virtually all major groups, at least to some degree, choose diversity over homogeneity when asked where they would like to live.
But almost half the votes cast in the presidential election last month were cast in counties that went for either Barack Obama or John McCain by huge margins.
Back in 1976, only 27% of all voters lived in such “landslide counties,” according to figures compiled by Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing, authors of “The Big Sort,” a book which argues that Americans are clustering into politically like-minded enc
What’s unclear, they say, is whether that’s happening by accident or whether people are intentionally living in or moving to areas where other people — at least politically — are just like them.
