Perhaps you're just seeing more implications from the article than are there.
Kate, the article says, "Conspicuously absent are any "blue" states" and "be prepared to wear red." It doesn't say, as you yourself went on to say, "My assumption is that it can be explained primarily in terms of relative costs. Income, sales, and property tax costs. Housing and general building costs. And labor costs." And it doesn't say that in at several of the markets that it talks about, the admonition to "Be prepared to wear red" is downright absurd. It generalizes that entire states are homogeneous, when the reality is that even Texas--which has obviously voted strongly red in state-wide and presidential elections--has significant pockets of blue, including Austin which is one of the places mentioned. And the parts of NC and VA that it mentions are strongly blue parts of those states--people who go there should "be prepared to wear blue," not red.
So then the question becomes, why even bother to mention "red" or "blue" at all, and rather talk about the things that you talked about. And if they really wanted to put it all in a more historical context, they could have talked about the fact that these states have historically been among the poorer states (not Texas, but it is a special case given its vast energy resources), and the most anti-union states, therefore the industry of the first half of the 20th century that spread throughout the midwestern states in particular didn't come to the southern states, which continued to be dominated by agricultural interests. And that is changing now. And the formerly industrial states are the ones facing the most competition from the low wage countries in Asia and the developing world generally, so yeah, they are facing real and serious issues that have little to do with "red" and "blue." And to pretend that it does is misleading at best and I would say just plain false and very shallow, unhelpful thinking that does more to contribute to the dangerous polarization in the country than it does to shed light on serious problems. |
