Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-p566r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T01:48:50.204Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

“The Big Sort” That Wasn't: A Skeptical Reexamination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2012

Samuel J. Abrams
Affiliation:
Sarah Lawrence College
Morris P. Fiorina
Affiliation:
Stanford University

Extract

In 2008 journalist Bill Bishop achieved the kind of notice that authors dream about. His book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart, was mentioned regularly during the presidential campaign; most notably, former president Bill Clinton urged audiences to read the book. Bishop's thesis is that Americans increasingly are choosing to live in neighborhoods populated with people just like themselves. In turn, these residential choices have produced a significant increase in geographic political polarization. Bishop does not contend that people consciously decide to live with fellow Democrats or Republicans; rather political segregation is a byproduct of the correlations between political views and the various demographic and life-style indicators people consider when making residential decisions. Whatever the cause, Bishop contends that the resulting geographic polarization is a troubling and dangerous development.

Type
Special to PS
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beatley, Timothy. 2004. Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home and Community in a Global Age. Washington, DC: Island Press.Google Scholar
Bellah, Robert Neely. 1985. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bishop, Bill, and Cushing, Robert. 2004. “Response to Philip A. Klinkner's ‘Red and Blue Scare: The Continuing Diversity of the American Electoral Landscape.’The Forum. http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol2/iss2/art8/.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, Bill, Cushing, with Robert G.. 2008. The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Bishop, Bill, Cushing, with Robert G.. 2009. The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart, with a New Afterword. Boston: Mariner Books.Google Scholar
Clapson, Mark. 2003. Suburban Century: Social Change and Urban Growth in England and the United States. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Duncan, James S., and Lambert, David R.. 2002. “Landscape, Aesthetics, and Power” in American Space/American Place: Geographies of the Contemporary United States, eds. Agnew, John A. and Smith, Jonathan M.. 264–91. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, Nancy G. 1981 “Home Ownership and Social Theory” in Housing and Identity: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. Duncan, James S.. 98134. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P., and Abrams, Samuel J.. 2009. Disconnect: The Breakdown of Representation in American Politics. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P., Abrams, Samuel J., and Pope, Jeremy C.. 2005. Culture War: The Myth of a Polarized America. New York: Pearson Longman.Google Scholar
Gainsborough, Juliet F. 2001. Fenced Off: The Suburbanization of American Politics. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Galston, William A., and Kamarck, Elaine C.. 2005. The Politics of Polarization: A Path Back to Power. Washington, DC: Third Way.Google Scholar
Howard, Marc M., Gibson, James L., and Stolle, Dietlind. 2005. “The U.S. Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy Survey.” Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center for Democracy and Civil Society.Google Scholar
Jackson, Kenneth T. 1985. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keller, Suzanne. 2003. Community: Pursuing the Dream, Living the Reality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kellner, Peter. 2008. “Is America Growing Apart? http://prospect.oshtest.co.za/2008/12/isamericagrowingapart/.Google Scholar
Klinkner, Philip. 2004a. “Red and Blue Scare: The Continuing Diversity of the American Electoral Landscape.” The Forum. http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol2/iss2/art2/.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klinkner, Philip. 2004b. “Counter Response from Klinkner to Bishop and Cushing.” The Forum. http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol2/iss2/art9/.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klinkner, Philip A., and Hapanowicz, Ann. 2005. “Red and Blue Déjà Vu: Measuring Political Polarization in the 2004 Election.” The Forum. http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss2/art2/.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kruse, Kevin M., and Sugrue, Thomas J., eds. 2006. The New Suburban History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kunstler, James Howard. 1994. The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise or Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Lane, Robert E. 2000. The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Levendusky, Matthew. 2009. The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovenheim, Peter. 2010. In the Neighborhood: The Search for Neighborhood on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time. New York: Penquin.Google Scholar
McGhee, Eric, and Krimm, Daniel. 2009. “Party Registration and the Geography of Party Polarization.” Polity 41 (2009): 345–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McPherson, J. Miller, Smith-Lovin, Lynn, and Brashears, Matthew. 2008. “The Ties that Bind Are Fraying.” Contexts 7 (3): 3236.Google Scholar
McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., and Brashears, M.E .. 2006. “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades.” American Sociological Review 71: 353–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, Douglas E. 2005. It's a Sprawl World after All: The Human Cost of Unplanned Growth—and Visions of a Better Future. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society PublishersGoogle Scholar
Moughtin, Cliff. 2003. Urban Design: Street and Square, Third Ed. Oxford: Architectural Press.Google Scholar
Mutz, Diana. 2006. Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Rifkin, Jeremy. 2004. The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 2003. Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Suarez, Ray. 1999. The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration: 1966–1999. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar