I moved to this county a little over 30 years ago. I've lived in this house for a little over 15 years. In the north east corner. A short drive and you are out.
When I first moved to this county , it was solid red, as was most of the state. This was the fastest growing county in the country. Taxes were low. Crime was low. The schools were great. A really fantastic place to live.
This last election has confirmed that this county is now solid blue. Taxes are much higher. Some of the schools are still great but many/most have dropped in standings. Crime is much higher. It's a big county and my area is solid upper middle class so we're in pretty good shape over all. But a short drive takes you to an area where I don't feel safe at night and that includes my old neighborhood.
I'm sure the shift to blue has nothing to do with it.
"a short drive takes you to an area where I don't feel safe at night and that includes my old neighborhood."
Thanks Tim for your honest, astute observation.
It wasn't necessarily intended to have this meaning but made me think about recent trips back to Detroit.
After growing up there, I settled down outside of a small(by Detroit standards) city in southwest IN.
I go to Detroit numerous times a year, so although the contrast is sort of like night and day in some respects, I am in Detroit for enough weeks every year that its not culture shock, like going there after 20 years might be or never living there.
If I go to a bad neighborhood or a store only has blacks and Muslims except for me, I feel comfortable.
So the point is that when you grow up somewhere and/or visit it often enough, you often don't see it objectively.
You are viewing things from the inside that define normality for you/your world.
What's normal for a rich kid growing up in the suburbs is different than normal for a poor kid in the inner city(my Dad).
Or a city kid, compared to a country kid.
Funny story relating to this. We were having the Christmas party for my wifes family around 6 years ago at our house. Her entire family grew up here. One of her/our relatives with 2 young boys was fascinated with a picture of Santa Claus and so he pulled it up on his phone to show me and my son in law, who is African American and grew up in Chicago.
It was a black Santa Claus. He had never seen such a thing and thought it was hilarious..........but he was showing it to 2 guys that had seen 100 black Santa's in their lives.
I thought it was hilarious too.....that he found it really strange that somebody had a black Santa on the internet.
All the black Santa's live in cities like Chicago and Detroit.....where the black children live but only white Santa's live in small IN towns (-:
Maybe the point relating to you Tim is that you are pointing out a big difference because you have a point of reference to compare a change to in one place where you live(d).
There are other differences that define our perspectives too.
It's a phenomenon we see all over the country. Liberals flee from the hellholes created by liberal ideology to conservative areas for the benefits created by conservative ideology and then proceed to vote for liberal ideology.
A good analogy.. Conservatives are the farmers and liberals are the locusts.