NewGeography.com blogs

Talk of bailing out US automakers has dominated the news recently, and we all know that means Michigan. Michigan is home to roughly a quarter of the country's auto manufacturing jobs, and the industry is in rapid decline there and in Ohio, but the state of automaking employment in the rest of the country may surprise you.

The economies of Michigan, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri are the most highly dependent on auto manufacturing. While Michigan and Ohio have lost more than 43,000 auto jobs since 2001, Indiana actually added almost 3000 over the same time period and Alabama more than doubled its auto industry, adding 8600 jobs.

In fact, the rest of the nation aside from Ohio held about the same number of automobile manufacturing jobs in 2001 as the state of Michigan. While Michigan has shed more than 35% of its employment in the industry, the rest of the country actually held its own over the same period.

One major caveat - this source of BLS data is only current through the end of 2007, so it doesn't quantify the effects of the recent credit market implosion. What it does show is a strong decentralizing trend in the auto manufacturing industry.

Looking at average annual pay, the small vehicle sector in Minnesota leads the way - jobs there average over $100,000. At well over $90k per job in Michigan, you can see what the rapid decline in automaking has contributed to the evisceration of the state economy. In the top four highest paying states - where workers make more than $90,000 on average per year - automakers have cut more than one third of the jobs in those states since 2001.

So while the failures of major automakers would send ripples throughout the North American industrial economy, what we are really contemplating here is doling out support for the declining states of Michigan and Ohio.

Working on a construction crew back in college with a few workers each from Mexico and Guatemala, I was amazed at the animosity between the two groups. They would joke, not good-naturedly, about how much cheaper the prostitutes were in the neighboring country or how stupid the other's politicians were. I traveled in Central America a few years later and found the same thing.

This great article from earlier in this week's LA Times shows the economic and cultural effects of these nationalist tensions in the U.S. It chronicles how immigrants from El Salvador have to assimilate to the existing Mexican power structure in Los Angeles for jobs. Since the dominant Latin culture in LA is Mexican, and there is a strong nationalistic bias in some communities, El Salvadorians are changing their accents and even adopting their cuisine and mores to fit in.

The reverse is true in other cities. When one of the Mexican construction workers I knew flew out to D.C., he entered a taqueria in the Adams-Morgan area. Upon hearing his accent, the cashier from another Central American country promptly said, "The Mexicans eat over there." Looks like you better choose your adopted city carefully if you're a Central American immigrant.

North Dakota is not a state known for supporting Democratic candidates in Presidential elections. In the the past 80 years, it has only backed the Democrat three times- Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936, and Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

Notably, these three elections mark the three largest popular vote landslides by Democrats during that period of time. In 1932, FDR won nationally by a margin of 18%, in 1936 he won by 24%, and in 1964, LBJ defeated Barry Goldwater nationally by 22%. No other Democratic presidential candidate has run up a double digit margin during that period, with FDR coming closest in 1940, winning by 9.9%. (And, it should be noted, losing North Dakota.)

This year, however, North Dakota may be in play. While President Bush won the state in 2004, 63% to 35% over John Kerry, the most recent polls of the state, by Research 2000 and the Fargo Forum, place the 2008 race in a dead heat.

This may be a reflection of a wider trend in rural areas. A survey of rural voters in 13 battleground states released in late October by the Center for Rural Strategies, showed Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain tied among rural voters. In September, similar polling by the center had shown McCain with a 10 point lead among rural voters. According to Reuters, in 2004, President Bush "won rural districts nationwide by 19 points."

If the recent 2008 polling proves accurate, Tuesday night may be an unhappy evening for McCain supporters, with Sen. Obama facing the possibility of winning by a healthy margin, potentially bringing rural states such as North Dakota along for the ride.

A new study from Maplight.org, a "nonpartisan, nonprofit research group illuminating the connection between money and politics," reports that "U.S. House members raised $700 million in campaign funds," during the 2005-2007 time period, with 79%, or $551 million of that amount coming from outside the district of the House member running for office.

According to Maplight, around 21% of campaign contributions to U.S. House members originated in Washington, D.C., with Virginia, California, New York, and Texas rounding out the top five source locations for contributions. The reports states that the majority of campaign funds not only came from out of district, but out of state sources as well:

About two-thirds of House members, 274 out of 421 (65%), raised half or more of their funds from out-of-state. Ninety-two House members (22%) raised 70% or more of their funds from out-of-state. Eight House members raised 90% or more of their funds from out-of-state. The average percentage of funds each Representative raised from out-of-state is 56.7%, and the median percentage is 56.1%.

It should be noted that the Maplight report only looks at donations of over $200, the point above which the donor must be identified to the Federal Elections Committee. Much has been made of the move, particularly by the Obama campaign, towards utilizing a base of small donations, under this $200 dollar threshold. Estimates place somewhere between one quarter and one half of Sen. Obama's $600 million of campaign contributions in this class.

This potential move towards smaller donations does not appear to have had as much of an impact on Congressional races. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, registered candidates for the U.S. House raised $447 million in the first four months of 2008, with "less than 10% of this total [arriving] in amounts of $200 or less." This, states the CFI, marks little or no change from prior years.

Back when the media was more obsessed with the state of global warming than the state of global lending, the environmental movement appeared completely ascendant. But with economic concerns in both Europe and North America on rise, their premier issue of global warming seems to be losing some of its political cache.

A good account of what’s happening both in Canada and Europe can be found in the green blog, Breakthrough. There’s even some advanced thinking here about the need to make something like a “carbon tax” a spur to economic growth. On target for the most part, Greens seem to have a problem thinking about the economy. Like John McCain, it’s not their strong point.

These shifts in popular concerns, as well as the real estate downturn, create an odd atmosphere for the kind of restrictive legislation discussed in Wendell Cox’s timely article. Still there remains a great temptation – justified or not by the facts – to use global warming as a means of imposing the perennial anti-suburban agenda of some planners, large urban developers, smart growth advocates and urbanists.

Perhaps it is a good strategy for density advocates to push their case now when it all seems so theoretical and builders are still walking around in shock. It may take years to absorb vacant condo towers as well as newly foreclosed single family houses. Only when the economy turns around will the conflict over what actually is greenest – as well as most market friendly – intensify again.