One Nation, Under Toll Brothers?

Stephan Lechner and his sons, Nicholas, 6 (left) and Noah, 6, play on their front lawn in new community Dominion Valley in Haymarket, Virginia. Washington Post Photo: Tracy A. Woodward.

Today's Post has the story "Exurbanites Occupy an Unsettled Place in Va. Politics: New Enclaves Lean GOP, but Residents Seem Isolated From State, Local Government," about farther out residents who are increasingly disconnected from local and state politics.

Jason Henderson, a geography professor at San Francisco State, wrote his dissertation on "The Politics of Mobility and Business Elites in Atlanta, Georgia." I don't have a copy of the paper in front of me, but he titled the segment of the population increasingly disconnected from the affairs of the city "secessionist automobility."

This is something I've written about from time to time, that the farther people live away from the center city is an indicator of their interest/unwillingness to participate in local affairs.

Quotes from the Post article:

Jamie and Stephan Lechner liked their house in Germantown well enough, but in recent years, they said, the neighborhood began to change in ways that made them feel less comfortable. There were some discipline problems in the school where Jamie taught. There was a shooting in a low-income area not too far from where they lived and other, smaller signs that made them think things were headed downward...

"We had conflict," said Jamie Lechner, referring to her old Germantown neighborhood. "And we wanted to move away from that. . . . That's why we're here -- to be sheltered."...

And yet behind the landscaped gates of Dominion Valley, where lines were two and three hours long in the last presidential election, voters said that few local issues besides traffic and sprawl rise to the level of requiring a political solution. Many said they would vote in the Nov. 8 elections more out of civic duty than passion, using long-held party affiliations as a guide.

"We never discuss politics," said Nina Kraemer, who was hosting a scrapbooking get-together at Dominion Valley's sports complex the other night. "I don't know, I guess something would have to spawn a conversation for one to occur. We talk about traffic -- we talk about that to the nth degree. We're afraid to go to the Target because we might not get back to the bus stop on time" to meet the children after school...

One reason local politics seems so distant, residents say, is that when issues do arise -- say, speed bumps vs. stop signs -- they tend to look to their own private government, the homeowners association, for a solution. The association is controlled by Toll Brothers, the developer, whose red flag flies alongside the American flag at the entrance to Dominion Valley...

From the Organization Man and Levittown to Stepfordton under the watchful eye of the subdivision developers. You vote for us when you sign the check: The Toll Brothers.

Perilla, who does vote, moved to Dominion Valley from a house in Manassas, which is in the older, more developed part of the region, a diverse area where Mexican and Central American immigrants have settled and where neighborhoods of single-family homes might be adjacent to townhouses and apartments. Like the Lechners, she and her family moved in part because the old neighborhood was changing.

"It sounds awful," Perilla said, "but it was turning into a more working-class neighborhood. More pickups -- not that there's anything wrong with that. . . . There were problems we didn't want to deal with -- at least on a personal level."...

In moving, they traded an area that was about half-Democrat, half-Republican for one that is mostly Republican, as they are. They left an area that was about 59 percent white for one where at least 83 percent of their neighbors look like them. And they left an area where residents are dealing with issues of cultural and economic diversity for one where such problems, for now at least, are abstractions.

"At a certain point, you want your kids to grow up in Mayberry," Jamie Lechner said. "And this is as close to Mayberry as we can get."

The New Mayberry?