4 ms·

> I did read the site, I want to believe you, but it's hard to when it refutes the exact claim you're making: MYTH: Only the big cities, such as Los Angeles,

by Cushman 14y ago

> I did read the site, I want to believe you, but it's hard to when it refutes the exact claim you're making: MYTH: Only the big cities, such as Los Angeles, would matter under a national popular vote. ... The populations of the 50 largest cities together constitute only 19% of the nation's population. Arlington, Texas is the nation's 50th largest city (with an estimated population of 363,000 in 2005).

gyardley 14y ago
Your advocacy site is confusing 'city' with 'metropolitan area', probably deliberately. Here's some real stats: In 2010, the fifty largest metropolitan statistical areas had a population of 166,033,000 -- 53.8% of the United States' 308,745,000 people. In the 2012 election, Los Angeles County alone had more voters than any of thirty-two of America's fifty states. Also in the 2012 election, just 150 of America's 3,033 counties - less than five percent of the total, and all attached to a metropolitan area - made up 50% of the vote. Given a limited amount of time to get in front of the voters, where do you think the candidates are going to go? Do this thing, and the days of candidates getting outside an urban area are pretty much over.
- Cushman 14y ago
  So, disregarding the fact that an MSA includes an urban center and its non-urban surrounds... You're saying that a candidate is going to just pander to every voter in, say, the Indianapolis-Carmel, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area (#35, population 1.7 million) and ignore the rest of Indiana (population 4.8 million). > Given a limited amount of time to get in front of the voters, where do you think the candidates are going to go? Do this thing, and the days of candidates getting outside an urban area are pretty much over. I don't really care where they go; re-enfranchising the majority of the country will mean that personal visits by candidates to a handful of geographic areas will be much less important than, for example, their policies. I'm sorry if that sounds like a bad thing to you, I guess we just have to agree to disagree on that.
  - ruswick 14y ago
    If anything, it would have no effect because cities tend overwhelmingly democratic, and there are few undecided voters. It's no use appealing to the area with the highest population density if their mind is already made up.
  - ruswick 14y ago
    If anything, it would have no effect because cities tend overwhelmingly democratic, and there are few undecided voters. It's no use appealing to the area with the highest population density if their minds are already made up.
- rayiner 14y ago
  In a world and country that is becoming increasingly urbanized, it's about time we removed the thumb on the scale in favor of non-urban voters.
majormajor 14y ago
There's a big difference between cities and MSAs, which the parent referred to. Using city populations like that is, IMO, almost always misleading. For the given example: hit the DFW metroplex, you're hitting Arlington. Another instance of the misleading aspect of looking just at city size: Atlanta has a city population of a bit over 400k. That makes it the biggest city in Georgia, and yet isn't even a tenth of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which has about 5.4 million people. Top 10 US cities by population ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by... ): NYC LA Chicago Houston Philadelphia Phoenix San Antonio San Diego Dallas San Jose Top ten MSAs by population ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area ): NYC LA Chicago Dallas Houston Philadelphia Washington, DC Miami Atlanta Boston The 10th-largest MSA is four and a half million people, the 10th-largest city is just under a million. The 10 largest MSAs contain over 80 million people. That's already over a quarter of the country -- more than the 50 largest cities put together. Taking it out to the top 20 MSAs brings that up to almost 117 million. The top 50 MSAs cover more than half the country's population. Edit: restricting it down to "urban areas" instead of MSAs brings the numbers down a bit, but the top 10 and 20 still make up a huge amount of it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas#2.2C010_Urban_Agglomerations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_are... 2010 instead of 2011 numbers here ): Top 10: 73.4M Top 20: 101.8M Top 50: 143.1M (And as a resident of one of the largest urban areas, I would absolutely prefer more of a popular vote. But the country is much more urbanly clustered than the "top 50 cities" stat would suggest. But IMO that's a reason for a popular vote, not against one.)
- Cushman 14y ago
  I'd argue that it's disingenuous to use MSAs rather than cities to talk about campaign stops. To use your example, the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta Metropolitan Statistical Area has four counties with more than 700,000 people, and fifteen with less than 100,000. It's hard for me to imagine the average resident of, say, Jasper, GA (population ~2,000, median income ~$30,000) caring one way or another that you had a rally in Atlanta— but their votes still count.
kevinpet 14y ago
Right, it's definitely not possible that he considered the arguments unconvincing. He just hasn't taken the time to understand them yet. They are utterly unassailable, and anyone who sees things differently must be willfully ignorant or is driven by an anti-popular vote ideology or special interests.

by Cushman 14y ago

gyardley 14y ago

Your advocacy site is confusing 'city' with 'metropolitan area', probably deliberately. Here's some real stats: In 2010, the fifty largest metropolitan statistical areas had a population of 166,033,000 -- 53.8% of the United States' 308,745,000 people. In the 2012 election, Los Angeles County alone had more voters than any of thirty-two of America's fifty states. Also in the 2012 election, just 150 of America's 3,033 counties - less than five percent of the total, and all attached to a metropolitan area - made up 50% of the vote. Given a limited amount of time to get in front of the voters, where do you think the candidates are going to go? Do this thing, and the days of candidates getting outside an urban area are pretty much over.

Cushman 14y ago
So, disregarding the fact that an MSA includes an urban center and its non-urban surrounds... You're saying that a candidate is going to just pander to every voter in, say, the Indianapolis-Carmel, IN Metropolitan Statistical Area (#35, population 1.7 million) and ignore the rest of Indiana (population 4.8 million). > Given a limited amount of time to get in front of the voters, where do you think the candidates are going to go? Do this thing, and the days of candidates getting outside an urban area are pretty much over. I don't really care where they go; re-enfranchising the majority of the country will mean that personal visits by candidates to a handful of geographic areas will be much less important than, for example, their policies. I'm sorry if that sounds like a bad thing to you, I guess we just have to agree to disagree on that.
- ruswick 14y ago
  If anything, it would have no effect because cities tend overwhelmingly democratic, and there are few undecided voters. It's no use appealing to the area with the highest population density if their mind is already made up.
- ruswick 14y ago
  If anything, it would have no effect because cities tend overwhelmingly democratic, and there are few undecided voters. It's no use appealing to the area with the highest population density if their minds are already made up.
rayiner 14y ago
In a world and country that is becoming increasingly urbanized, it's about time we removed the thumb on the scale in favor of non-urban voters.

majormajor 14y ago

There's a big difference between cities and MSAs, which the parent referred to. Using city populations like that is, IMO, almost always misleading. For the given example: hit the DFW metroplex, you're hitting Arlington. Another instance of the misleading aspect of looking just at city size: Atlanta has a city population of a bit over 400k. That makes it the biggest city in Georgia, and yet isn't even a tenth of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which has about 5.4 million people. Top 10 US cities by population ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by... ): NYC LA Chicago Houston Philadelphia Phoenix San Antonio San Diego Dallas San Jose Top ten MSAs by population ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area ): NYC LA Chicago Dallas Houston Philadelphia Washington, DC Miami Atlanta Boston The 10th-largest MSA is four and a half million people, the 10th-largest city is just under a million. The 10 largest MSAs contain over 80 million people. That's already over a quarter of the country -- more than the 50 largest cities put together. Taking it out to the top 20 MSAs brings that up to almost 117 million. The top 50 MSAs cover more than half the country's population. Edit: restricting it down to "urban areas" instead of MSAs brings the numbers down a bit, but the top 10 and 20 still make up a huge amount of it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas#2.2C010_Urban_Agglomerations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_are... 2010 instead of 2011 numbers here ): Top 10: 73.4M Top 20: 101.8M Top 50: 143.1M (And as a resident of one of the largest urban areas, I would absolutely prefer more of a popular vote. But the country is much more urbanly clustered than the "top 50 cities" stat would suggest. But IMO that's a reason for a popular vote, not against one.)

Cushman 14y ago
I'd argue that it's disingenuous to use MSAs rather than cities to talk about campaign stops. To use your example, the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta Metropolitan Statistical Area has four counties with more than 700,000 people, and fifteen with less than 100,000. It's hard for me to imagine the average resident of, say, Jasper, GA (population ~2,000, median income ~$30,000) caring one way or another that you had a rally in Atlanta— but their votes still count.

kevinpet 14y ago

Right, it's definitely not possible that he considered the arguments unconvincing. He just hasn't taken the time to understand them yet. They are utterly unassailable, and anyone who sees things differently must be willfully ignorant or is driven by an anti-popular vote ideology or special interests.