Place-Based Identity, Federalism, and the Political Economy of Place Attachment

• In Event: The Importance of Place and Identity in Public Opinion & Political Behavior

Abstract

Americans are a mobile people. And, because of the United States' federal structure, that mobility has important consequences for politics (Tiebout 1956, Hirschman 1970, Bishop 2008). These possibilities are one reason why American federalism is generally considered to produce greater levels of citizen satisfaction with their governing system. However, these outcomes are only feasible under certain circumstances. In general, the political and economic advantages associated with federalism depend on a citizenry that is highly aware of disparate fiscal policies, and who make the decision to move based primarily on economic considerations. However, a variety of considerations play into the decision to move and this alters the calculus for what type of communities individuals create. In this paper, we present results of a survey experiment that considers how attachment to place matters in those choices, and how those attitudes matter for American politics more generally. Using a set of survey experiments deliberately designed to measure individual attitudes about place, politics, and America's federal polity, we find evidence that Americans hold deep and consequential attitudes about the places in which they live. These attitudes matter for where individuals want to live and who they want living next to them. Our evidence confirms a growing consensus in the literature that not only is the red-blue divide between Americans growing, but that divide is, quite literally, real. Americans care about the places in which the live, make important life decisions based off the particularistic attributes of those places, are resentful towards places not like their own, and make sense of politics by drawing connections to their own geographies.

In our experiment, we presented respondents with two sets of questions. In the first set, we ask respondents to consider two potential job offers from around the country. Using a list of the 42,000-plus ZIP codes in the United States, with accompanying geographic information, we ask respondents to pick what job offer is most attractive. Even when the proposed salary is higher and tax rate is lower, individuals hold a strong preference for remaining in the type of community they currently live. Moreover, individuals hold strong regional biases towards their status quo communities. These place-based preferences manifest again in our second set of questions, where we ask respondents to consider two potential neighbors who are thinking about moving to their current place of residence. In the final analysis, we show that individuals want neighbors from similar places. Race, partisanship, profession all influenced neighbor preference, but individuals wanted to live next to people coming from similar geographies as their own.

Taken together, attitudes motivating the "pull" and the "push" of America's geographic diversity showcase the importance of place. Strong preference for a certain type of place, regardless of tax structure or economic opportunity, matters. More generally, the evidence confirms how readily attitudes about place intersect with other social identities. The rational and socially detached democratic individual is a misnomer (Achen and Bartels 2016). Individuals make sense of their political world by the people they connect with and the groups they form (Conover 1984). And yet, even in this globalized age, many of those connections are still spatially defined. Places are groups and individuals want to preserve and nourish them.

Authors

• Kal Munis

• Nicholas F. Jacobs, Colby College