How Did Demographic Changes Make Conservative Politics More Popular?

NEW POLITICS EMERGING OUT OF DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES

Sept. 5, 1986

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September 5, 1986

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Republicans say the rapid demographic changes since Ronald Reagan was elected six years ago are working mostly in their favor.

But Democrats are seeking to reshape their party in a manner that would entreatment, if in different means, to the same groups forged into a coalition by Mr. Reagan: traditional and ''new right'' Republicans, bluish-collar workers and adults under the age of 45 from various economic levels.

For example, Autonomous officials are seeking to refashion their policy on the national level and so that it will better reverberate the conservative interests of Southern and Western voters while property on to constituencies such as minorities, labor unions and traditional liberals found in large Northern cities. Principal Demographic Changes

These were the chief demographic changes:

* The number of voters 25 to 44 years old has increased sharply.

* Racial and occupational groups are separating more widely, economically and geographically, every bit the population spreads away from the central cities.

* The economy, one time based on manufacturing jobs, is changing chop-chop and is now based on service and data processing. This is leading to new commercial and residential development marked by an entrepreneurial spirit and opposition to regulation. Fastest-Growing Counties

All these trends were visible when Mr. Reagan was showtime elected to the White House, but they have since get far more pronounced.

The nigh contempo demography estimates, published past the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, evidence that the 15 counties of over 100,000 people that grew fastest from 1980 to 1986 were all exurban places near such cities as Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Denver and Orlando, Fla., or were new metropolitan areas formed around small cities such as Ocala, Fla., or Myrtle Embankment, Southward.C. In all regions, the greatest growth was in areas removed from the central cities and older suburbs.

A national conference held in Philadelphia recently by the American Establish of Certified Public Planners was concerned mostly with problems caused by development, such every bit traffic congestion, just some mutual characteristics of the new-growth areas emerged.

These areas are populated largely by white, well-educated younger adults with incomes college than average, many with children. Even the areas that accept formed around retirement and recreation communities, such every bit Myrtle Beach, have big populations of young people who accept moved there to take advantage of job openings or to start minor businesses.

The growing importance of those born in the infant blast later Globe War II was pointed upward in a contempo Census Bureau report showing that from April 1980 to July 1985, the population of those 35 to 44 grew nearly a quarter, an increase of half dozen.1 1000000 nationally. And the next-largest increase, almost v 1000000, came in the grouping 25 to 34 years sometime. Together they number 74 1000000 and make up more than twoscore percentage of the population of voting historic period.

Many of the babe boomers were, of course, of voting age in recent elections, but demographers and political experts say the significance of their numbers now is that they are reaching the age of prime political and economic influence, with more of them voting and challenging their elders in leadership positions.

In that location is, however, disagreement as to what their influence will mean in terms of political party affiliation. Gordon S. Blackness of Rochester, a national consultant and pollster, said he believed the ''staggering change'' that occurred in 1984 when many voters switched fidelity from the Democratic to the Republican Party would final for some time because it occurred mostly among the young.

''In the past when the young picked a political party preference they tended to stay with it,'' said Mr. Blackness, noting that while President Reagan had broad support amid the young in the 1984 election, Walter F. Mondale, the Autonomous candidate, kept the loyalty of older people who became Democrats in the 1930'southward and 1940's.

The other signal of view, every bit expressed past Horace W. Busby, a Washington political analyist, is that a political political party is not important to young adults whatsoever more. ''They are independent,'' with ''a strong bias toward conservatism,'' he said. Thus, Democrats at all levels are seeking to move their party into a more centrist position to appeal both to the rising number of voters under 45 too as to the historic conservatism of the Due south and West, where most of the population now lives. Growth of Exurban Areas

Dissimilar the old suburbs of the past, the new exurban areas are little dependent on the cities merely have economies of their own, commonly office parks, modest businesses, service industries, educational institutions and shopping centers. The Administration's policy favoring reduced Regime regulation and domestic social programs has institute receptive footing in that location.

Richard Thou. Scammon, a political analyst and former head of the Census Bureau, said the continued spreading of the population away from the cities had had profound effects on politics. He said that when people moved out, they seldom changed their party affiliation but they supported more bourgeois issues.

''That is the whole weakness of the merchandise marriage movement,'' which has trouble organizing in suburban or exurban settings and which in the past had been a mainstay of the Autonomous Party, he said.

Gwinett County, Ga., near Atlanta, and the area around Princeton, N.J., in the Northeast, illustrate how demographic changes of underlying uniformity are unfolding in different regions, according to the findings of the public planners' national conference.

Mayor Barbara Boggs Sigmund of Princeton said at the briefing that the intense development along 10 miles of Route ane outside Princeton, which she labeled ''centerless, soulless and anti-city,'' had not much inverse her higher town of 12,000 people. Just she said the growth was burdening the town with traffic and squeezing out depression-income people. Poorer People Leaving

The 1980 Census, she said, showed that 38 percent of the town'due south population, not counting students, had low to moderate income. ''That is not truthful at present,'' she said, explaining that college-income people had been moving there in the last few years. And she said in an interview that she feared poor people in the area who belonged to minority groups might be forced into the old key cities such as Philadelphia and Trenton as evolution spreads.

In Gwinett County there has been such a movement for several years. Although no current demography figures are available, Paul B. Kelman, the county planning director, said the black population, now around 3 percent, had historically been depression for a Southern community just had ''undoubtedly'' been higher in past years. While younger whites take moved in, younger blacks have moved out, mostly to Atlanta, now most 66 pct blackness.

Census Agency surveys confirm this tendency of the races and income levels to separate.

The primal cities have lost whites and gained blacks and Hispanic and other minority grouping members, who have unremarkably had lower incomes. Although this continues a curve dating from 1951, the new figures show that center-city renewals and the pass up or reversal of population losses in the 1970's take not stemmed the loss of white residents. Diverseness of Issues in Area

These trends mean candidates for state and Federal office volition discover conditions and issues vary, perhaps as never before, from area to area.

In Georgia, candidates say they have to accost the continued concentration of poor minority group members in Atlanta, the problems of growth and prosperity in Gwinett Canton and the depression of agriculture in the rural counties beyond. Similar contrasts exist in almost every country.

Because a change in party fidelity to the Republican Party is most easily achieved in the South, where most Democrats are conservatives, Republicans have focused there, especially in the new-growth areas such as Gwinett, where many northern Republicans have been settling in recent years.

In 1980, Gwinett County was under the Democratic grass-roots control that however exists in most areas of the South. All canton and municipal offices were occupied by Democrats. But since then the county has experienced a 50 percentage increase in population, from 166,903 to 251,025, according to the estimates. Many newcomers were highly paid professionals from other regions who favored the creation of a new Republican Political party rather than the Democrats, who, while conservative, tended to reverberate the old rural values of the South, according to officials of both parties. New Office for the Political party

In 1984 the Republicans made virtually a make clean sweep, taking both local offices and legislative seats in Atlanta. John D. Gibb, a businessman and the county Republican chairman, said the party had since become a civic establishment that sponsors charitable causes and provides coming together rooms for uses not continued with politics, mirroring Mr. Reagan'southward interest in volunteerism.

The tier of counties around Atlanta has become increasingly influential, and many thousands of Republican residents have settled in the expanse since 1980. The counties were crucial to the ballot of Senator Mack Mattingly, a Republican who defeated the long-time Autonomous Senator, Herman Talmadge, in 1980. Mr. Mattingly is up for re-election this year in a race crucial to control of the Senate.

The Republican National Commission, in a recent strategy paper, said the party'due south ''long-term prospects in the South are beingness propelled by powerful demographic and economic forces.''

''The 1000.O.P. benefits from an influx of young professionals and retirees,'' the paper said, ''and from the rapid expansion of the suburbs in the various growth centers such as Charlotte, N.C., or Austin, Tex.'' Gain of 10 Seats Projected

The paper pointed out that population projections bear witness the Southern states might gain equally many as x seats in the House of Representatives afterward the 1990 Census. ''There is no reason,'' the paper said, ''to expect these newcomers to differ from their predecessors: immature, well-educated, prosperous and Republican.''

Democrats are also shaping their appeal to young voters, just Democrats assert that these voters are not monolithic but spread across the spectrum of income and racial groups. Mayor Sigmund, a Democrat, said she believed that those younger families moving into the Princeton area might turn out to be ''moderate Democrats.''

The Democrats fence at that place is partition in the 25- to 44-year-old historic period bracket on social problems. Many of them, especially in the Due south, the Democrats say, back Mr. Reagan on opposition to abortion, renewal of official prayer in the schools and state protection of organized religion. Merely this group is less enthusiastic about reducing Federal programs.

Many prospering young professionals likewise concur with Mr. Reagan on reducing Government regulation but are opposed to his stands on abortion, school prayer and protection of faith.

Since 1980 the two groups accept largely voted together, but Democrats are betting that when Mr. Reagan retires, no other political figure volition be able to go on the coalition together. BIGGEST GAINS, BIGGEST LOSSES Counties of over 100,000 that had the greatest population changes, by percentage, from 1980 to 1985. The major metropolitan surface area associated with each county is in parentheses. $ Increase County 1980 1985 Change Gwinnett, Ga. (Atlanta) 166,903 251,025 l.4% Fort Curve, Tex. (Houston) 130,846 195,742 49.6 Anchorage (Anchorage) 174,431 243,836 39.8 Marion, Fla. (Ocala) 122,488 165,367 35.0 Montgomery, Tex. (Houston) 128,487 169,939 32.3 Collin, Tex. (Dallas/Fort Worth) 144,576 189,480 31.0 Seminole, Fla. (Sanford/Orlando) 179,752 234,772 30.half-dozen Arapahoe, Colo. (Denver) 293,621 382,887 30.4 St. Tammany, La. (New Orleans) 110,869 143,961 29.8 Lee, Fla. (Fort Myers) 205,266 266,058 29.6 Ector, Tex. (Odessa) 115,374 149,318 29.iv Brevard, Fla. (Orlando) 272,959 345,633 26.6 Horry, Due south.C. (Myrtle Beach) 101,419 127,586 25.8 Hidalgo, Tex. (Edinburg) 283,229 355,582 25.five Palm Beach, Fla. (Miami) 576,863 723,403 25.4 Decrease County 1980 1985 Modify Wayne, Mich. (Detroit) 2,337,891 ii,150,901 -eight.0% St. Louis (St. Louis) 453,085 423,632 -6.5 Berrien, Mich. (Benton Harbor/St. Joseph) 171,276 161,227 -five.nine St. Louis, Minn. (Duluth) 222,229 210,894 -5.ane Jackson, Mich. (Jackson) 151,495 143,978 -five.0 Delaware, Ind. (Muncie) 128,587 122,414 -4.8 Saginaw, Mich. (Saginaw) 228,059 217,277 -4.7 Madison, Ind. (Muncie) 139,336 132,965 -4.6 Peoria, Ill. (Peoria) 200,466 191,561 -iv.iv Genesee, Mich. (Flint) 450,449 430,972 -4.iii Niagara, N.Y. (Niagara Falls/Buffalo) 227,354 217,651 -4.3 Lake, Ind. (Gary/Chicago) 522,965 501,181 -iv.2 Cambria, Pa. (Johnstown/Altoona) 183,263 175,693 -four.i Lane, Ore. (Eugene) 275,226 264,489 -3.9 Baltimore (Baltimore) 786,775 758,053 -iii.7 * Source: Dun & Bradstreet Corporation