Michael Barone, The Immigrant Invasion, And Our Posterity
Here at VDARE.com, we`ve had some
fun over the
years at the
expense of both the
Wall Street Journal
editorial page and of
Michael Barone.
Still, Barone`s May 8th Wall Street Journal Op Ed
The Realignment of
America: The
native-born are leaving `hip` cities for the heartland
is worthy of congratulation.
From its tagline "Demographics
Is
Destiny" to its illuminating use of statistics
to its
frankness about the effects of immigration—"The
economic divide in New York and Los Angeles is starting
to look like the
economic divide in
Mexico City and
Sao Paulo"—Barone`s essay reads more like a
VDARE.COM contribution than the disingenuous Open
Borders cheerleading for which both the
WSJ and
Barone have been notorious.
May this mark a turning point!
Our criticism over the years of Barone`s immigration
writings has been driven by the frustrating awareness
that he could do far better. Whereas, say, Main Stream
Media quotemonger
Tamar Jacoby has
never demonstrated much sign of being
capable of
grasping the immigration issue—and thus, annoying as
she is, she may actually be sincere—Barone can`t plead
invincible ignorance.
Many columnists never displayed much expertise on
anything. But Barone is
the editor of the biennial Almanac of American Politics.
He has visited every one of the 435 Congressional
Districts. He has earned his pundit spurs through his
prodigious knowledge of local demographic and voting
patterns.
Barone`s methodology in the WSJ essay is
straightforward and insightful. He compares the top 50
metropolitan areas (home to 54 percent of America`s
population) in 2000 and 2006, and divides them into four
categories based on the causes of their population
changes.
- Six grim old
Rustbelt Cities,
such as
Detroit and
Pittsburgh, in which natives are moving out,
immigrants aren`t moving in, and nobody is
having many children.
- Eighteen
Static Cities
in which not much is happening in terms of
population changes. They include Philadelphia,
Minneapolis, and Denver.
- Eight
Coastal Megalopolises.
As Barone puts it: "New
York, Los Angeles, San Francisco [and San
Jose], San Diego,
Chicago (on the coast of Lake Michigan),
Miami, Washington [which is only marginally
coastal] and
Boston. Here is a pattern you don`t find in
other big cities:
Americans moving out and immigrants moving in,
in very large numbers …" From 2000 to 2006, six
percent of the American-born residents left and were
replaced by an equal number of immigrants.
Barone continues:
"This is something few
would have predicted 20 years ago. Americans are now
moving out of, not into, coastal California and
South Florida, and in very large numbers they`re
moving out of our largest metro areas. They`re fleeing
hip Boston and San Francisco, and after eight decades of
moving to Washington they`re moving out. The domestic
outflow from these metro areas is 3.9 million people,
650,000 a year. High housing costs, high taxes, a
distaste in some cases for the burgeoning immigrant
populations—these are driving many Americans elsewhere."
(Few “would have predicted” it, eh? Well, Peter
Brimelow actually
reported this trend, based on census data, in his
much-denounced book Alien Nation some twelve
years ago. Barone seems to have missed this, apparently
because he was
so scandalized by its
single sentence noting that Brimelow`s son Alexander
has blue eyes and blond hair, although it
merely illustrated the way the interaction between
immigration and affirmative action
whipsaws Americans who don`t belong to the
“protected classes”.)
John Kerry easily carried the Coastal Megalopolis vote,
Barone notes:
"Both
secular top earners and
immigrant low earners vote heavily
Democratic…Democratic politicians like to
decry what they describe as a widening economic gap
in the nation. But the part of the nation where it is
widening most visibly is their home turf, the place
where they win their biggest margins (these metro areas
voted 61% for John Kerry) and where, in
exquisitely decorated Park Avenue apartments and
Beverly Hills mansions with immigrant servants
passing the hors d`oeuvres, they raise most of their
money."
- Sixteen
Interior Boomtowns,
such as Las Vegas and Orlando, where housing is
cheaper, so Americans are pouring in and having
children. These cities voted 56 percent for George
W. Bush in 2004.
My 2005 VDARE.com article
Affordable Family Formation–The Neglected Key To GOP`s
Future explained the logic underlying the
political patterns Barone has now noticed. Coastal
cities have, by definition, a smaller supply of
dry land for suburban expansion, so
housing prices are higher. This discourages people
from getting
married and from having
children, which means the GOP`s
"family values"
stances strike them as irrelevant or irritating. In
contrast, in inland parts of the country where it is
economical to buy
a house with a yard in a neighborhood with a
decent public school, you`ll generally find more
Republicans.
Barone begins his article with this horrifying
reflection on a once-great American city
"In
1950, when I was in kindergarten in Detroit, the city
had a population of (rounded off) 1,850,000. Today the
latest census estimate for Detroit is 886,000, less than
half as many."
Now, Detroit is actually being reclaimed by the
forest—an amazing phenomenon lovingly chronicled by the
fascinating
Detroitblog, for example
here and
here.
Unfortunately, by the end of piece, Barone is back to
his usual optimism about how this demographic turmoil is
good for the GOP as voters abandon the old Democratic
cities like
Detroit and
San Francisco for GOP-friendly new cities like
Phoenix and Dallas etc. etc.
We`ve analyzed the voting arguments before here at
VDARE.COM. Basically, they`re nonsense. The GOP is
committing suicide by immigration policy and by
being too timid to appeal directly to
its white base—an option we have dubbed the
So, for a change, let`s look at the quality of life
question. Are the Americans who are being driven from
the Coastal Megalopolises to the Interior Boomtowns
better off because their old cities are filling up with
immigrants who outbid them in the housing
market—typically, because the foreigners
don`t mind living with an entire extended family
under one roof?
Many conservatives these days have tried to make a
virtue out of economic necessity. They insist that, say,
cheap Las Vegas with its endless expanses of new suburbs,
is a better place to live than, oh, expensive Boston,
with its complicated coastline, parks,
campuses, and restrictions on development in the
name of preserving its ancient small towns.
For some people,
no doubt, Sin City is better. But when did it become
a betrayal of conservative values to appreciate a city
such as Boston, with its
nearly four centuries of tradition? Which city would
Edmund Burke have preferred?
It`s a remarkable achievement of Americans that they are
constantly building a civilization from the dirt up out
on the exurban frontier as they flee the high cost, bad
schools, congestion, and crime of their old homes.
Yet, by necessity, these are thin, poorly rooted
civilizations, better endowed with
power malls than
symphony halls.
Maybe you don`t care about culture. But what about
weather? Coastal Megalopolises generally have milder
climates than Inland Boomtowns due to the moderating
effect of water. Even in Chicago, the lakefront is
notably warmer in winter and cooler in summer than the
inland suburbs.
America is a huge country, but the fraction of it
blessed with a
Mediterranean climate is comparatively miniscule.
The Mediterranean zone`s advantages for human habitation
are not just the famous sunshine in winter, but also the
absence of humidity, mosquitoes, and excessive heat in
summer. It`s found only in
Southern California (between the beach and the
mountains) and in Northern California (in the first
valley inland from the foggy coast).
So why has our government chosen to turn much of this
thin strip over to foreigners?
Barone`s article inspires the question: Where do you
want your children and grandchildren to live when they
grow up?
My answer is: "I want them to be able to afford to
live wherever they want."
Ideally, they`ll make lots of money (they sure aren`t
going to inherit it). But, you know, that might not
happen. So I`d appreciate it if our government would
help out what the
Preamble to the Constitution calls
"our Posterity" by protecting
affordability—which means passing good immigration
laws and enforcing them.
Is that so much to ask?
[Steve Sailer [email
him] is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and
movie critic for
The American Conservative.
His website
www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily
blog.]


