Political Segregation: Residential Choice and Partisan Clustering in Suburban America

Political segregation in the United States is often attributed to geographic sorting, yet the mechanisms driving this process – particularly at the suburban level – remain unclear. This study tests hypotheses that uncover whether political segregation between neighboring suburban communities is driven not by explicit partisan self-sorting, but by differences in underlying residential preferences that are themselves associated with partisanship. To evaluate this expectation, a comparative case study of Davidson and Cornelius, North Carolina – two adjacent, socioeconomically similar suburbs with sharply divergent political outcomes – is conducted using a mixed-methods approach that combines original survey data with qualitative analysis of municipal website content. Survey responses measure the importance of political alignment, lifestyle preferences, and community characteristics in residential decision-making, while website analysis assesses how each town signals its values and priorities. The results show that political alignment is not a primary factor in residential choice, with a majority of respondents in both towns reporting that living near co-partisans is not important. However, significant differences emerge in the prioritization of community characteristics: Davidson residents place greater emphasis on walkability, school quality, and public goods, while Cornelius residents prioritize safety and cleanliness more strongly, with differences such as walkability reaching statistical significance. These findings suggest that political segregation in suburban contexts is largely an indirect byproduct of value-based residential preferences rather than conscious partisan sorting, highlighting how everyday lifestyle choices contribute to the formation of politically homogeneous communities.