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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 August 2012
Political scientists rightly reject the claim that demography is destiny; political institutions, practices, and choices intervene. Nevertheless, as demography changes, a locality's politics are likely to change as well, which opens opportunities for new research programs. Three demographic changes warrant new analyses: the decline of non-Hispanic whites in most large cities, the variety of non-Anglo groups and immigrants across cities, and regional variations in the racially-inflected dependency ratio. Each demographic change generates political and scholarly controversies: are cities becoming less segregated? Is black politics a useful template for studying the politics of other groups? Is the dependency ratio more likely to exacerbate or ameliorate group conflict? In lieu of answering these questions, I point to the odd normative valences of conservative and progressive scholarship, and urge attention to the ways in which cities can surprise us.