By Clifton B. Parker

People who identify as either Democrat or Republican desire neighborhoods with people who share their political preferences when they are given that information, according to a new study. 

Americans today appear more divided along partisan lines than ever, and this polarization extends to where they choose to live, a Stanford scholar has found.

San Jose demographics, 2010, Wikimedia Commons

People who identify as either Democrat or Republican desire neighborhoods with people who share their political preferences when they are given that information, according to a new study by Iris Hui, a Stanford postdoctoral fellow at the Bill Lane Center for the American West.

In an interview, Hui pointed out that the most important factors continue to be safety, amenities, schools and distance to workplaces. Political affiliation serves as a "tiebreaker" of sorts to the more primary reasons for neighborhood choice.

"Depending on the partisan composition, the desirability of a place can increase by 20 percent when respondents are informed the location has a sizeable presence of co-partisans," Hui wrote.

She noted that about the same magnitude of decline (20 percent) in desirability occurs when respondents are told the opposite. And, respondents who report themselves as independents or unaffiliated with either the Democratic or Republican parties do not care as much about neighborhood partisanship, she added.

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