NYT: '06 mid-term opportunities for Dems in inner suburbs

[DeepModem Mom]

'06 Race Focuses on the Suburbs, Inner and Outer
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Published: June 16, 2006

....After years in which Republicans capitalized on rapid growth in outlying areas, Democrats now see an opportunity to make gains in close-in suburbs where changes in the composition of the population are working in their favor. In a dozen or so Congressional districts that are leading battlegrounds in the midterm elections, older, more densely packed suburbs are trending Democratic, helping to offset Republican dominance on the sprawling exurban frontier.

Democratic hopes of retaking the House, party strategists say, could hinge on places like Bellevue, a city of 107,000 just across Lake Washington from Seattle. Here, a fast-growing Asian population and an influx of empty-nesters and singles living in new residential complexes have helped to make this the kind of district that, while continuing to send a Republican to Congress, has turned increasingly Democratic....

***

In "The New Metro Politics," a study he conducted with Thomas W. Sanchez, (Dr. Robert E. Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, a research body focusing on the factors that shape metropolitan growth) found that in the last several presidential elections, a clear pattern had emerged: the more crowded the suburb, the greater the Democratic vote; the more open space or newer the suburb, the greater the Republican vote.

In the inner suburbs, the rings just around big cities, Democrats won 58 percent of the presidential vote in 2004, Dr. Lang found. In the mature suburbs, the next tier out, the Democratic share was less, 51.9 percent.

But the fastest-growing areas are at the far edge, sometimes 80 miles or more from the urban center, and that is where Republicans built up huge majorities...."At each greater increment of urban density, Democrat John Kerry received a higher proportion of the vote," Dr. Lang wrote. The pattern was the same in red states as in blue....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/16/us/16suburbs.html?hp&ex=1150430400&en=c13d117dbb0f4919&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Selatius]

1. Poor folks have never been able to live far away from places of work

The only thing preventing poor people from being forced out of urban centers is the property value of the land they sit on remaining low, and if that's not the case, then rent control laws prevent landlords from evicting people wholesale through simply rising rent. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a trend to maintain or strengthen rent control. I fear there is a concerted campaign to destroy rent control laws to clear away poor neighborhoods for strip malls and condominiums and other upscale joints.

I fear New Orleans will become the greatest example of this.