As migration alters the southern political landscape, partisan battle lines will be drawn between the Democrat-leaning areas of growth and the increasingly Republican areas of decline and stagnation. The Democratic Party is gaining support in the South, but the prevailing explanations of partisan shift fail to capture how and why this transformation has come about. In Movers and Stayers, Irwin Morris develops a new theory that explains the Democrats' renewed influence in the region and empirically demonstrates the influence of population growth. As Morris shows, migratory patterns play a significant role in politics, and urbanization is driving polarization in the South. Those who move to cities--the "movers" of Morris's framework--do so for jobs, and they tend to be progressive, young, well-educated Democrats. Their liberal views tend to be reinforced by the diversity of the communities in which they choose to live, and their progressivism fosters similar values among long-term residents. At the same time, "stayers" (long-term residents) absorb the consequences--or "community threat"--of this large-scale migration. While white stayers tend to become more conservative, the effects on voter behavior play out differently across racial lines. Both movers and stayers are altering the southern political landscape and polarization nationwide. Powerfully counterintuitive, Movers and Stayers provides a game-changing way of understanding one of the most confounding trends in American politics.

The shifting South : understanding geographic polarization and partisan change -- Migration and partisan change : movers and stayers -- Population growth and partisan change in the South -- Players in the migration game : understanding the distinctiveness of movers -- Migrant magnets : how movers change the politics of their new and the politics of the homes they leave behind -- How movers change the politics of their new homes and the places they leave : the cases of people of color -- The special case of retirees : when the elderly move -- Movers, stayers, and the end of Southern politics?

Philipp M. Lersch shows that residential relocations may change individuals’ lives for the better but also for the worse depending on their resources, restrictions and contextual conditions. A comparative analysis of English and German panel data reveals that relocations improve the quality of dwellings on average in both countries but improvements strongly depend on life course stages and economic resources of individuals. Only few individuals improve their neighbourhoods when relocating. Conditions in the housing market are important determinants of these changes. Gender inequality persists in the occupational outcomes of relocations in England and West Germany. Due to institutional conditions, residential trajectories in England exhibit more variation and a higher risk of changes for the worse than in Germany. These innovative findings will inspire further research on the consequences of residential relocations.