How the South Has Changed and Its Impact on National Politics

This chapter describes the changing landscape of Southern politics over the past half century and provides the framework for the rest of the volume. In so doing it showcases the crucial differences in the region between the high growth and the stagnant states, with the growth states exhibiting the strongest economies, higher incomes, and greater diversity of populations. Whereas the stagnant growth states exhibit much of the characteristics associated with the old South, the high growth states are pointing the way toward a vastly transformed new South, as described in the following chapters.