Texas Politics & Government: Ideas and Institutions

Gallup Poll released the party identification figures for 2015 today, showing that independents—individuals who identify with neither major political party—continue to be the largest group among adults in the United States. The figure below depicts the poll results since 1988: When leaners are considered, the results show that Democrats/Democratic Leaning Independents have a slight edge over Republicans/Republican Leaning Independents—45 percent to 42 percent. There are 13 percent who are “pure” independents. The most interesting part of the report contains the implications for elections in 2016: Implications Americans' attachment to the two major political parties in recent years is arguably the weakest Gallup has recorded since the advent of its polls. The percentage of U.S. adults identifying as political independents has recently reached levels never seen before. As a result, a new low of 29% of Americans identify as Democrats, and the percentage of...

I’m a big fan of Richard Florida’s research. His books are excellent: Who’s Your City? and The Rise of the Creative Class , especially. Recently, I came across a study that he and Charlotta Mellander did for the Martin Prosperity Institute, which used three measures of economic segregation—income, education, and occupation—to identify and map economic segregation in American cities. Chapter 2 also notes some effects of economic segregation in cities. The executive summary includes the following information: Notice that Austin, TX is the third most segregated using an overall measure of economic segregation. Furthermore, four of the ten most segregated large US metropolitan areas are in Texas: Austin, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas. Note the last bulleted point: “Its (economic segregation) effects appear to compound those of economic inequality and may be more socially and economically deleterious than inequality alone.”  This report should be in the hands ...