A Tale of Two Kirkwoods

Last night, Proposition 1, an initiative that would have instituted a 1-cent city-wide sales tax to fund road repaving, failed by a 344 vote margin. If you read my piece arguing in favor of Prop 1 from a couple of days ago, you know I think that sucks. But before we move on to ideas for plugging the funding gap left by the bill’s demise, it’s important to learn the lessons we can from this election.

1. Urban-Rural Polarization

The most glaring trend is that Kirkwood itself seems to be following the national trend of urban-rural polarization. Urban-rural polarization in America is a long-term trend that has grown exponentially since the 1990s and Kirkwood, even with its small variability in density, is no exception. Proposition 1, at its core, was a sales tax increase and thus is fairly easily ideologically coded: Liberals think taxes are good, Conservatives think they are bad. As such it presents a pretty good for this trend with Kirkwood’s more urban liberal core favoring the proposition and its more conservative suburban periphery, concentrated primarily in the West, opposing it. This trend becomes even more obvious when you consider that the two fairly urban precincts just to the West of Kirkwood Road that bucked the trend and voted against the proposition only did so by a combined nine vote margin, the smallest of any opposing precincts. If six voters had voted in favor of the proposition rather than against it, we’d be looking at a map depicting a unified core vs a similarly unified suburban periphery.

Because Kirkwood has at-large city council elections rather than candidates running to represent individual districts, this divide could have significant implications for city council elections going forward. Instead of a broad spectrum of ideologies represented by largely non-partisan candidates, we might be a couple of elections away from winner-take-all battles for complete homogenous control of city hall.

While Prop 1’s 8% margin doesn’t lend itself to a particularly gadfly-friendly set of results under that scenario, there’s reason to believe that that margin will grow increasingly narrow in the coming years. As Kirkwood continues to add housing downtown with projects like The James and The Hutton, the number of voters there is likely to grow as the population of built-out, predominately single-family West Kirkwood stagnates. This demographic trend paints a much more optimistic picture, but a closer look at Tuesday’s results reveals another hurdle urbanists will have to overcome before the dream is realized.

2. Turnout Discrepancies

Republicans, primarily because they tend to be older, consistently display higher levels of turnout than Democrats in off-cycle elections (elections that don’t align with congressional and presidential races). That trend shows up in Proposition 1’s precinct-level results, with more suburban conservative portions of Kirkwood posting much higher turnout levels than its more liberal, Democratic base of support concentrated Downtown and in Meacham Park. If we look at the percentage of eligible voters in a given precinct who participated vs. the percentage of voters who voted against the measure, the trend line isn’t overwhelming, but it is pretty straightforward. The places that voted against Prop 1 turned out a higher percentage of their voters than those that voted in favor of the initiative.

The fixes here are less obvious (mostly, you just have to get margins big enough that you can overcome the structural advantages of the conservative movement’s older higher-voting-propensity demographic). But moving important elections from off-cycle when only those with the most time on their hands to on-cycle elections when more people turn out is one option worth looking into.

Next Steps

So Proposition didn’t pass. Maybe that means what I’m hypothesizing, or perhaps it doesn’t, but either way, it still sucks. Kirkwood has potholes that need filling, crosswalks that need striping, and bus lanes that need building, and we’re going to have to find the money to do it. I have a couple of ideas for where we might be able to find it, but I’ll save those for next week. Until then, enjoy your extra hour of sleep. We’re going to need you well-rested. After all, we have work to do.