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They way you describe Detroit and Cleveland in your first paragraphs is the reason why just about all US cities are liberal. That not only liberal, those demographics practically define most categories of liberal.
In fact If you look at this map (which I included in my previous response):
And zoom in to the southern Great Lakes area where you can see Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, and knowing where the city limits begin and end, its pretty clear, if you judge map alone, Detroit is more liberal than Chicago. There's literally not a single precinct in Detroit proper where they didn't go for Hillary in 2016 by any less than 80% of the vote.
Am I saying Detroit is better than Chicago? Of course not! Chicago is a world class tourist destination, more international, more opportunities, more everything. But the greater diversity of people in Chicago, ALSO includes people who are right leaning enough on some issues enough to skew election results. I mean if you think about it, any white person living in Detroit proper is clearly going to be someone that is comfortable living around Black people, because there's hardly anywhere in Detroit proper, where Black don't make up less than 50%. Whereas in Chicago, a white person who just isn't comfortable living around any significant number of Black people can still absolutely live in many upscale neighborhoods in Chicago's urban core just fine.
Chicago doesn't have a core county that went for Trump the way you do in Metro Detroit, but you do have a fairly large swath of SW Chicagoland that culturally is a lot like Macomb County MI (blue collared, will vote Democrat if it means union benefits, but get too woke, speak too much to people of color, and they will vote Republican). If the area between I-55 and I-57 in Chicagoland were its own County it would absolutely go for Trump, as you can see on the map.
Anyways, if you look at the map, and zoom in on the West Coast, and the NW corridor, I would absolutely agree with you when it comes to the West Coast. If you look at LA County, there is SCARCELY a red precinct to be found anywhere outside the inland high desert and remote rural communities up in the San Gabriel Mountains, a couple very small pockets of old money in Beverly Hills, the Palos Verdes area (and a few random precincts where there are literally just a few votes cast (maybe industrial area precincts where there are literally just a few residents, and then out around San Dimas and Glendora).
However I might disagree with you on the NE corridor. Half of Staten Island, and even a few parts of Brooklyn are very red. Almost all of Suffolk County, Long Island (and even a good chunk of Nassau) are varying sheds of red, And despite Jersey being a blue state, much of the Jersey Shore appears varying shades of red.
I think this is because in the NE corridor, the young, educated progressive crowd is attracted to living in the urban cores (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Hudson County, NJ, whereas in say California the appeal is more "California" more broadly and so you have people who move to experience beach communities, even if they can barely afford it with a roommate, etc.
Just my observations and interpretations from looking at these maps.
I practically used to live on those New York Times maps. You can find red precincts all over the place. Those red precincts in Brooklyn? Hasidic Jews, a highly specific group of Republican voters with very specific sets of priorities. Staten Island is 'red' for the same reason Macomb county is red - blue collar workers and white ethnics. I mean you're propping up Chicago's red credentials on the back of a few neighborhoods on the South Side? A few neighborhoods in nearby suburbs? Those are a few hundred votes each, and I bet half of those 2020 Trump votes were Irish seniors who're dead or in Florida now. On the flip side you have a deep blue bastion of liberalism like Evanston in Chicago, a city of 80,000 where virtually every precinct is 90+% Democratic. And the 'deep blue sea' of the South Side south of 51st street where virtually every precinct's results look like voting results from North Korea with dozens of 95+% Democratic precincts.
My observation was based on the %s of the 2020 election in the core metropolitan counties. I counted Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka, Washington, Scott and Carver for MSP i.e. the counties under jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Council for the metro area. For Chicago I counted Cook, DuPage, McHenry, Will, DeKalb, Kane, Kendall and Lake (IL) counties. I kept it to those in order to keep things tight and at a comparable number of counties for them, also to limit it to the core metro area in Illinois. Both the Twin Cities and the Chicago metros could be counted with far more counties if one wanted to get all the exurbs and economically dependent cities in the wider region into the count. Well, in any event with this math I arrived at a Democratic % of 67.9 for Chicago and 63.9% for Minneapolis. Not a huge gap but not insignificant either. You could cast the net wider but I'm not sure it'd change the picture much (you'd be adding mostly less Democratic areas to the mix in both cases).
I practically used to live on those New York Times maps. You can find red precincts all over the place. Those red precincts in Brooklyn? Hasidic Jews, a highly specific group of Republican voters with very specific sets of priorities. Staten Island is 'red' for the same reason Macomb county is red - blue collar workers and white ethnics. I mean you're propping up Chicago's red credentials on the back of a few neighborhoods on the South Side? A few neighborhoods in nearby suburbs? Those are a few hundred votes each, and I bet half of those 2020 Trump votes were Irish seniors who're dead or in Florida now. On the flip side you have a deep blue bastion of liberalism like Evanston in Chicago, a city of 80,000 where virtually every precinct is 90+% Democratic. And the 'deep blue sea' of the South Side south of 51st street where virtually every precinct's results look like voting results from North Korea with dozens of 95+% Democratic precincts.
My observation was based on the %s of the 2020 election in the core metropolitan counties. I counted Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, Anoka, Washington, Scott and Carver for MSP i.e. the counties under jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Council for the metro area. For Chicago I counted Cook, DuPage, McHenry, Will, DeKalb, Kane, Kendall and Lake (IL) counties. I kept it to those in order to keep things tight and at a comparable number of counties for them, also to limit it to the core metro area in Illinois. Both the Twin Cities and the Chicago metros could be counted with far more counties if one wanted to get all the exurbs and economically dependent cities in the wider region into the count. Well, in any event with this math I arrived at a Democratic % of 67.9 for Chicago and 63.9% for Minneapolis. Not a huge gap but not insignificant either. You could cast the net wider but I'm not sure it'd change the picture much (you'd be adding mostly less Democratic areas to the mix in both cases).
I mention Staten Island and those parts of Brooklyn in the very post of mine that you were replying to. In fact I've over time come to agree that Chicago and NYC are more similar than I previously assumed. Yes, the far NW and far SW sides of Chicago are a lot like Staten Island culturally it seems (blue collared white ethnics). And yes, the one area of the northside neighborhoods close to the lakefront that is red/Republican voting is West Rogers Park, which is the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.
I wouldn't say that they are all elderly Irish seniors. Several YOUNG right wing commentators hail from some of these precincts. The "deep blue sea" of the South side is virtually all African American just like any city with a large African American population. And other Midwestern cities have inner ring suburbs similar to Evanston (in the sense of being diverse, old money, walkable, with a prestigious university nearby). Specifically thinking of Cleveland Hts and University City outside STL.
Obviously Chicago is VERY Democrat, and overall quite liberal, it just doesn't stand out as so among US cities quite as much as people think it does.
Chicago is certainly a lot more diverse than Minneapolis, but diversity can actually make a place less liberal, as many immigrants and people of color have socially conservative views.
I mention Staten Island and those parts of Brooklyn in the very post of mine that you were replying to. In fact I've over time come to agree that Chicago and NYC are more similar than I previously assumed. Yes, the far NW and far SW sides of Chicago are a lot like Staten Island culturally it seems (blue collared white ethnics). And yes, the one area of the northside neighborhoods close to the lakefront that is red/Republican voting is West Rogers Park, which is the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.
I wouldn't say that they are all elderly Irish seniors. Several YOUNG right wing commentators hail from some of these precincts. The "deep blue sea" of the South side is virtually all African American just like any city with a large African American population. And other Midwestern cities have inner ring suburbs similar to Evanston (in the sense of being diverse, old money, walkable, with a prestigious university nearby). Specifically thinking of Cleveland Hts and University City outside STL.
Obviously Chicago is VERY Democrat, and overall quite liberal, it just doesn't stand out as so among US cities quite as much as people think it does.
Chicago is certainly a lot more diverse than Minneapolis, but diversity can actually make a place less liberal, as many immigrants and people of color have socially conservative views.
One of the things that has some conservatives scratching their heads from time to time is why, given their cultural conservatism overall, Blacks don't support conservatives more.
I have my answer — "because the 'conservative movement' put itself firmly on the wrong side of the central American human-rights question of the 20th century, and we have long memories, not to mention the movememnt's tendency to coddle white supremacists still" — but others' answers may vary.
One of the positive side effects of this, however, is that Black attitudes on LGBT matters have gotten much less judgmental and hypocritical (those old wisecracks about the church choir no longer have the punch they once did). We even elect openly gay Blacks to public office.
I mention Staten Island and those parts of Brooklyn in the very post of mine that you were replying to. In fact I've over time come to agree that Chicago and NYC are more similar than I previously assumed. Yes, the far NW and far SW sides of Chicago are a lot like Staten Island culturally it seems (blue collared white ethnics). And yes, the one area of the northside neighborhoods close to the lakefront that is red/Republican voting is West Rogers Park, which is the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood.
I wouldn't say that they are all elderly Irish seniors. Several YOUNG right wing commentators hail from some of these precincts. The "deep blue sea" of the South side is virtually all African American just like any city with a large African American population. And other Midwestern cities have inner ring suburbs similar to Evanston (in the sense of being diverse, old money, walkable, with a prestigious university nearby). Specifically thinking of Cleveland Hts and University City outside STL.
Obviously Chicago is VERY Democrat, and overall quite liberal, it just doesn't stand out as so among US cities quite as much as people think it does.
Chicago is certainly a lot more diverse than Minneapolis, but diversity can actually make a place less liberal, as many immigrants and people of color have socially conservative views.
My initial post you responded to literally said that Chicago is more Democratic than Minneapolis, not that Chicago is culturally more liberal. I even pointed out that many socially conservative minorities (especially blacks obviously) 'auto-vote' Democratic for economic/historic reasons.
I think in general it's accepted that Democratic politics tend to be more overtly liberal in places where they're carried by wealthy whites and Asians than in those places where they're primarily driven by lower class black and hispanic representation.
My initial post you responded to literally said that Chicago is more Democratic than Minneapolis, not that Chicago is culturally more liberal. I even pointed out that many socially conservative minorities (especially blacks obviously) 'auto-vote' Democratic for economic/historic reasons.
I think in general it's accepted that Democratic politics tend to be more overtly liberal in places where they're carried by wealthy whites and Asians than in those places where they're primarily driven by lower class black and hispanic representation.
My initial post you responded to literally said that Chicago is more Democratic than Minneapolis, not that Chicago is culturally more liberal. I even pointed out that many socially conservative minorities (especially blacks obviously) 'auto-vote' Democratic for economic/historic reasons.
I think in general it's accepted that Democratic politics tend to be more overtly liberal in places where they're carried by wealthy whites and Asians than in those places where they're primarily driven by lower class black and hispanic representation.
To back you up here:
Philadelphia has been overwhelmingly Democratic since the current City Charter was adopted in 1951. It's even more so now than then, as the city GOP has pretty much been relegated to representing a blue-collar, heavily white ethnic part of Northeast Philadelphia.
This city has a long and strong blue-collar heritage, and the Democrats it elects to the mayoralty reflect this, even when the city was majority white. All of the city's Black mayors (the current one's the fourth, and the first woman mayor in the city's history) have been center-left Democrats.
The city is now plurality Black and majority minority. But younger white Millennials poured into the city in the 2000s and have changed the political character of some parts of the city, especially parts of South Philadelphia east of Broad, parts of Center City and University City in West Philadelphia. A progressive Democrat, a former reporter for WHYY (our public TV and public radio news station), now represents a district in upper South Philly, and an Indian-American Democratic Socialist represents the same territory plus part of Center City in the state Senate.
The folks who voted them in and progressives elsewhere in the city put an activist named Helen Gym on City Council in an at-large seat. She ran for mayor last spring. The current mayor handed her hat to her, largely on the strength of the Black vote. Her campaign stressed better policing and making the city more business-friendly. (Based on those emphases, you might be forgiven for confusing her for a Republican.) A progressive Black friend of mine, no fan of the Philadelphia Police, calls Mayor Cherelle Parker "Frank Rizzo in a dress."
(I didn't vote for Parker, nor did I vote for Gym. But I've been quite pleased with Parker's performance so far as mayor.)
I suppose I don't understand why the celebration over what city is the most (insert political ideology here).
When places go to far left or right they honestly become unpalatable for me. I also hate the idea that voting for one party over the other automatically makes you a laundry list of things to other people.
I suppose I don't understand why the celebration over what city is the most (insert political ideology here).
When places go to far left or right they honestly become unpalatable for me. I also hate the idea that voting for one party over the other automatically makes you a laundry list of things to other people.
Same. But some people like that kind of stuff so more power to them
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