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Politically, Washington is one of the more interesting places I've ever lived - there's a majority for Massachusetts-style spending, but there's also a majority
by gyardley 12y ago
Politically, Washington is one of the more interesting places I've ever lived - there's a majority for Massachusetts-style spending, but there's also a majority for Texas-style taxation. Combine that with the voter initiative system and a cultural boundary line that has nothing to do with the state boundary line, and you get one hell of a predictable mess.
I assume the state will eventually tip demographically in favor of the coast and end up resembling California, with high income taxes and a pissed-off but powerless interior, but I've got no idea how long that's going to take.
- xrange 12y ago>I assume the state will eventually tip demographically in favor of the coast and end up resembling California So do you think that this will be a result natural population growth, migrants from California/Oregon, migrants from other U.S. states, or migrants from other countries? I tried to look up population trends for various counties, but it isn't as straightforward as I had hoped. It seems like there should be a heat map showing population growth per county, so that we could see which counties are growing fastest. Also it would be interesting to look at the population trends east and west of the Cascades. Somewhere this data must exist, I'm surprised that it isn't in an easy to digest form, or that tracking it down hasn't been simple.
- gyardley 12y agoI honestly haven't done the research to back up my assumption that the more left-leaning areas west of the Cascades are growing faster than the rest of the state, fueled by migrants from other left-leaning urban areas. It would be interesting to see population trends and voting behavior changes by county over time.