AUDIO

The evolution of American politics and policy has been intimately bound up with demographic and geographic change. The arrival of the GI generation, the advance of suburbanization, the rise of the baby boomers, and women’s entry into the workforce all had profound effects on our society. Today, new demographic and geographic changes are shifting the fault lines of American politics. This conference of leading demographers, geographers, and analysts will examine seven of the most important of these changes. The first paper examines the structure of the all-important American suburbs, with a fresh look at the small but rapidly growing exurbs. The second paper analyzes the provocative notion of geographic clustering--the idea that people are increasingly likely to live near, and vote like, those who look, act, and think just like them--and what that could mean for politics and policy. The third paper investigates race and immigration, examining changes in the size and voting patterns of blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Changing class structures, including the decline of the white working class and the rise of the mass upper middle class, is the subject of the fourth paper. The last three papers look at, respectively, changes in the American family (including the decline in the number of married-couple households with children and the rise of singles); whether America is becoming more secular, more religious, or both, and what these changes in religious belief and practice mean for our politics; and the aging of the baby boomers and the rise of the millennials, the largest generation in American history.

Campaign 2008 has already provided some tantalizing clues about the shifts underway in red, blue, and purple America. Speakers at this conference will explain where these trends come from, assess their likely effects on this year’s election, and outline the ways they may affect our political future and the policy challenges both parties have to face.

This conference is a joint project of the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution.