"the big sort" Americans are fleeing to places where political views match their own
There's a private Facebook group with nearly 8,000 members called Conservatives Moving to Texas. Three of them are sitting at a dinner table — munching on barbecue weenies and brownies — in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. None are vaxxed.
And they love it here.
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"People weren't wearing masks — nobody cared. It's kind of like heaven on earth."
She says when the state of California forced her to close her photography studio over COVID-19 restrictions, she and her husband, a retired newspaper editor, knew it was time to "escape."
America is growing more geographically polarized — red ZIP codes are getting redder and blue ZIP codes are becoming bluer. People appear to be sorting.-
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"We felt very out of place and very uncomfortable at times," says Tiffany Wooten, a 43-year-old stay-at-home mom whose family recently relocated from conservative Indiana to liberal Austin. "We were looking at blue cities because we wanted to be with our own people."
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/18/1081295373/the-big-sort-americans-move-to-areas-political-alignment
In the modern era, Texas has fashioned itself into a sort-of breakaway red-meat republic — banning books and restricting abortion, blocking mask mandates, and building its own border fence. It retains this national image in spite of the fact that its five largest counties went for President Biden.
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Of the nation's total 3,143 counties, the number of super landslide counties — where a presidential candidate won at least 80% of the vote — has jumped from 6% in 2004 to 22% in 2020.
= new reply since forum marked as read
so I know about Missouri.
I'm retired, too, and this was, I hope, my last move. My oldest son lives literally 10 minutes from me, and my other son is 20 minutes away for now.
I'll be 71 next month and I don't think I have another move in me. I'd toyed with the idea of moving abroad--before Covid--but the chance to go try out some places expired in the last two years for me.
blazing with lights, I browsed the gift area and saw a "Mexican coffee cup," said so right on it -- "Mexican" for the large ceramic cockroach standing in the bottom. My first thought was not, "This is wonderful." 
Of course I know that's not the usual, but still.
As you say, racial and ethnic separating out has always been going on; white flight to shiny new areas as cities expanded was normal, and those inclined always did that. But this is ideological sorting and only racism driven for some.
Some on both sides, like the guy I mentioned, have become politically/socially extremist, resentful and uncomfortable among people who didn't change with them, angry at not being respected but wanting to be. Others became quickly mean in an era of growing meanness, fearfully and angrily fleeing what they've come to hate, including racists specifically looking for of their own color.
But I think most migrating on both sides are just moving to the kind of places they would always have liked to live because they no longer feel comfortable where they are. Seeking their version of niceness to replace what seems lost.
Speaking of, one thing that's facilitating conservative moves away from blue areas, of course, is typically lower real estate prices in conservative areas. Wonder how much of a factor that enabler is? Also distance working.
Many will be happy or satisfied for life, but not quite utopia for everyone. It seems likely that, when the meanness and extremism pass and things calm down, some are going to end up unhappy with local cultures too insular and even extreme (as the article worries) for them, downright sick of social gatherings always devolving into the same mean spirited and idiotic badmouthing of the usual targets. How about raising children in those places? How about where the kids choose to live as they grow up?
At least those moving to urban areas have their bigger societies, vitality, and relative safety during economic downturns. The same's not true of extra-urban conservative areas especially. An influx of RW social reactionaries is likely to strangle already limited development and lead to decline, as too often happens with conservative communities anyway if they can't draw from the vitality of a nearby blue city.
Whatever. I'm imagining future adjustments following unfortunate decisions inevitable in unfortunate times. But, moving to find our happy place is something we've always done anyway.
think it's a very nice place to live to think it isn't for millions who choose to be here. And we like our winters here, which are very nice as long as I can be happy with the frogs in the marsh instead of a wealth of concerts closeby if we could only afford to move wherever I chose. I can.
I notice that that article said TX is drawing most migrants from Florida and California, so it seems likely that, from this one trend anyway, FL could get a net outflow of conservatives. Hope, hope! And of course more of the old RWers are always dropping dead or, frequently, moving back to wherever to be with family.
One reason I feel sad for our once-friend is that somehow he missed that close to half of Floridians vote blue. And most of the in-migration to the east coast where they've settled is from NE states. Not blue enough to draw people seeking blue safety (that's sad!), but he has a rude awakening coming if it hasn't already happened. (Hate to think how he might take it if tRump had to sell Mar-a-Lago and move to someplace with no extradition. 
)
changed them forever. I have my own happy memories of what is no more. I also know, however, that retro views tend to be appear even better than they were, while for some current views are always overlaid by what was lost.
Right now, though, I'm on our patio by an inland marsh hoping to see a pair of otters we suspect may have babies nearby, and wondering if one of our neighbors killed the large gater because we haven't seen him for a while. The only action at the moment is some Sandhill cranes squawking at some others flying over.
Beautiful! We're told by oldtimers that it used to be deeper, a lot more open water than saw grass and water lilies. But marshes fill in over time.
