29 votes

We selected 10,000 American neighborhoods at random. If we dropped you into one of them, could you guess how most people there voted?

19 comments

  1. ras
    Link
    My completely unscientific strategy of "how many pickup trucks are in this picture" got me to > 90%.

    My completely unscientific strategy of "how many pickup trucks are in this picture" got me to > 90%.

    14 votes
  2. [4]
    hamstergeddon
    Link
    63%, but pretty much only because most of the ones I got right were either clearly rural or clearly urban areas. I did abysmally on the suburbs though. Really hard to tell southern California,...

    63%, but pretty much only because most of the ones I got right were either clearly rural or clearly urban areas. I did abysmally on the suburbs though. Really hard to tell southern California, Texas, and the states between apart when you're not too familiar with those areas.

    7 votes
    1. [2]
      EgoEimi
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I find California suburbs to be very distinct. The houses and lots are always smaller and very close together with houses almost touching their neighbors. They tend to be older and slightly...

      I find California suburbs to be very distinct. The houses and lots are always smaller and very close together with houses almost touching their neighbors. They tend to be older and slightly outdated, and front yards have a lot of hardscaping and low fences and walls.

      4 votes
      1. wervenyt
        Link Parent
        On the other hand, those particulars are shared with many suburbs in Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico.

        On the other hand, those particulars are shared with many suburbs in Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico.

        2 votes
    2. NaraVara
      Link Parent
      My quiz randomly assigned me 2 Trump areas and all the rest were Biden. I think it needs some work ha.

      My quiz randomly assigned me 2 Trump areas and all the rest were Biden. I think it needs some work ha.

      2 votes
  3. [2]
    streblo
    Link
    Interesting quiz from the NY Times. Went 89% through 18 questions. Some of them are somewhat surprising but overall it's what you would expect. I found picking out the region from the climate in...

    Interesting quiz from the NY Times. Went 89% through 18 questions. Some of them are somewhat surprising but overall it's what you would expect. I found picking out the region from the climate in the photo can help in a toss up.

    5 votes
    1. AugustusFerdinand
      Link Parent
      Same 89% "Aspiring political operative" rating of the initial 18 required for a score (although I'm curious how they landed on 18 instead of just going for 20). The two I missed were "very close"...

      Same 89% "Aspiring political operative" rating of the initial 18 required for a score (although I'm curious how they landed on 18 instead of just going for 20). The two I missed were "very close" races and I used the cars/boats/other vehicles in the area as tie breakers when I felt it was a toss up.

      3 votes
  4. [3]
    LukeZaz
    Link
    Definitely an interesting experiment. Initially tried putting thought into it, but eventually found I could get 2/3 correct just by guessing Trump if the area looked rural and Biden otherwise....

    Definitely an interesting experiment. Initially tried putting thought into it, but eventually found I could get 2/3 correct just by guessing Trump if the area looked rural and Biden otherwise. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    5 votes
    1. ChuckS
      Link Parent
      I didn't even pan around if I saw a trailer, I just picked Trump. My wife said, "I hate you keep doing that and I don't like that you're always right."

      I didn't even pan around if I saw a trailer, I just picked Trump. My wife said, "I hate you keep doing that and I don't like that you're always right."

      8 votes
    2. Gaywallet
      Link Parent
      After getting 5/5 I gave up, but this was my general thought. Does this look rural or urban? How run down are the houses?

      After getting 5/5 I gave up, but this was my general thought. Does this look rural or urban? How run down are the houses?

      4 votes
  5. Odysseus
    Link
    I got 17/19 correct judging solely off how old the cars were. Of the two I got wrong, one didn't have a lot of cars visible and and the other had a mix of older and newer cars. Maybe I just got...

    I got 17/19 correct judging solely off how old the cars were. Of the two I got wrong, one didn't have a lot of cars visible and and the other had a mix of older and newer cars. Maybe I just got lucky, but the suburbs with newer cars seemed to lean biden, while the suburbs with older cars seemed to lean Trump, regardless of what the houses themselves looked like. I'm not sure if that means anything, but I found it interesting

    5 votes
  6. frostycakes
    Link
    18/20 here. Suburbia was easy for me, as someone who grew up in a wealthy, heavily Republican suburb-- if it looked like it would fit there, I guessed Trump, and was only wrong on one of the...

    18/20 here. Suburbia was easy for me, as someone who grew up in a wealthy, heavily Republican suburb-- if it looked like it would fit there, I guessed Trump, and was only wrong on one of the suburban-looking shots.

    If getting shots with people in them or being able to guess what state based on the blurred license plates (sorry NY, those school bus yellow plates are pretty obviously yours no matter how blurry the shot is) counted as cheating, then I cheated on a few-- if there were non-white people in the shot, I generally picked Biden and was right on most of them, and used that to choose the suburban shots where I was on the fence. In fact, my other wrong guess was using the metric @ChuckS used-- picking Trump if I saw a trailer in them, got a neighborhood in Florida with a run down trailer in the first shot that was one of the strongest Biden neighborhoods I got assigned.

    5 votes
  7. awe777
    Link
    I (a foreigner from Indonesia, though got an undergraduate in UW) did this twice. First one was a wash. ~50%, but I didn't know what to expect. Second one, aside from obvious rural and urban...

    I (a foreigner from Indonesia, though got an undergraduate in UW) did this twice.

    First one was a wash. ~50%, but I didn't know what to expect.

    Second one, aside from obvious rural and urban indicators, I generally looked for church symbols, US flags, whether the lawn was extraordinarily maintained or rough, relatively large spaces between houses, relatively large roads, as potential indicators of Trump-voting areas. I got 15/17.

    4 votes
  8. Parliament
    Link
    I got 14 out of 20. The really tricky ones were wealthy suburban neighborhoods. I missed several in Mass, NY, and California that went for Biden.

    I got 14 out of 20. The really tricky ones were wealthy suburban neighborhoods. I missed several in Mass, NY, and California that went for Biden.

    3 votes
  9. pycrust
    Link
    I don't know, this seemed pretty misleading to me. A few of the locations were just plants and trees and maybe a half-hidden house with a driveway. Those ones were just a 50/50 guess, kind of...

    I don't know, this seemed pretty misleading to me. A few of the locations were just plants and trees and maybe a half-hidden house with a driveway. Those ones were just a 50/50 guess, kind of pointless.

    1 vote
  10. rosco
    Link
    75%, I agree with ras, pickups were my number 1 indicator, American flags were number 2.

    75%, I agree with ras, pickups were my number 1 indicator, American flags were number 2.

    1 vote
  11. streblo
    (edited )
    Link
    I've been playing this some more today but instead of trying to guess Trump/Biden I'm just using it as a easy version of geoguesser and seeing if I can pick out the state from the picture. It's a...

    I've been playing this some more today but instead of trying to guess Trump/Biden I'm just using it as a easy version of geoguesser and seeing if I can pick out the state from the picture.

    It's a lot harder than the guessing Trump/Biden but I've had pretty decent success on the western half of the USA as well as the eastern seaboard. I've never been to any southern states so my knowledge of the climate comes from films/media and I find myself having a hard time differentiating flat deciduous areas in say Tennessee from those in Ohio or Michigan. If it's winter in the photo I can look for gravel on the roads but otherwise it gets tough.

    1 vote
  12. Mbar
    Link
    As someone who hails from a suburb that is almost evenly split between Trump/Biden, I got 68%. Had a tough time with some of them. Someone else mentioned that California suburbs look quite...

    As someone who hails from a suburb that is almost evenly split between Trump/Biden, I got 68%. Had a tough time with some of them.

    Someone else mentioned that California suburbs look quite distinct, and I would have to agree with that. I was able to discern almost all of them as being Californian, so I picked Biden, but I was wrong on a few counts.

    1 vote
  13. knocklessmonster
    Link
    The analysis is intresting, too. It goes in-depth about how the layout of demographics has shifted: Polarizing between rural and urban, and being kind of nebulous and vaguely purple in the middle...

    The analysis is intresting, too. It goes in-depth about how the layout of demographics has shifted: Polarizing between rural and urban, and being kind of nebulous and vaguely purple in the middle with suburban cities and big towns.