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Looking for the most liberal/progressive states, cities and towns in the country. Please tell me your suggestions, and what makes them progressive. Thanks!
Edit: Didn't mean to post "most most" two times, just once!
San Francisco and the Bay Area are at the top. It's why we have the "California Effect" where laws that start there (banning Happy Meal toys for example) later spread to the rest of the country.
Table 1: Top Twenty-Five Most Conservative Cities
Rank City State
1 Provo Utah
2 Lubbock Texas
3 Abilene Texas
4 Hialeah Florida
5 Plano Texas
6 Colorado Springs Colorado
7 Gilbert Arizona
8 Bakersfield California
9 Lafayette Louisiana
10 Orange California
11 Escondido California
12 Allentown Pennsylvania
13 Mesa Arizona
14 Arlington Texas
15 Peoria Arizona
16 Cape Coral Florida
17 Garden Grove California
18 Simi Valley California
19 Corona California
20 Clearwater Florida
21 West Valley City Utah
22 Oklahoma City Oklahoma
23 Overland Park Kansas
24 Anchorage Alaska
25 Huntington Beach California
Table 2: Top Twenty-Five Most Liberal Cities
Rank City State
1 Detroit Michigan
2 Gary Indiana
3 Berkeley California
4 District of Columbia
5 Oakland California
6 Inglewood California
7 Newark New Jersey
8 Cambridge Massachusetts
9 San Francisco California
10 Flint Michigan
11 Cleveland Ohio
12 Hartford Connecticut
13 Paterson New Jersey
14 Baltimore Maryland
15 New Haven Connecticut
16 Seattle Washington
17 Chicago Illinois
18 Philadelphia Pennsylvania
19 Birmingham Alabama
20 St. Louis Missouri
21 New York New York
22 Providence Rhode Island
23 Minneapolis Minnesota
24 Boston Massachusetts
25 Buffalo New York
Table 1: Top Twenty-Five Most Conservative Cities...Table 2: Top Twenty-Five Most Liberal Cities...
The reason that this list is misleading is because while cities with high black populations skew Democratic, blacks aren't quite the same type of liberal that most people think of. For example many of those "liberal" majority black cities would oppose gay marriage and would be almost 50-50 on abortion. Hardly liberal in the way that SF is although they would also favor bigger government and more spending on social programs.
I doodled with this once using different sites and I came out with the following as plausible.
Ithaca, New York
Madison, Wisconsin (Green Party members on the city council, strong opposition to an amendment against same-sex marriage)
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota
Portland (Oregon's or Maine's.)
Santa Cruz, California (Also in the Bay Area, but maybe somewhat independent to SF)
San Francisco, California
Seattle, Washington (Strongly approved Referendum 71 in favor of same-sex unions, highly secular)
For smaller, or possibly smaller, places
Asheville, North Carolina - Reportedly quite a liberal college town for the South. Also Carrboro.
Burlington, Vermont - Progressive Party has the mayoralty and some of the city council. The Vermont Progressive Party does appear to be genuinely progressive.
Key West, Florida - Maybe not that progressive, but one of the first places to have a gay mayor.
Marfa, Texas - Well sort-of. It did have a Green Party mayor and like a minimalist art museum or something.
Telluride, Colorado - Its county strongly supported civil unions and medical marijuana while strongly opposing a ban on same-sex marriage.
According to Gallup Vermont is the state with the highest percent as self-described liberals while Hawaii has the lowest percent be self-described conservatives. Massachusetts and New York also look to be relatively high in both self-described liberals and Democrats. DC is the only place they list as net-liberal, more self-described liberals than self-described conservatives, but is not a state.
Many of those cities are democrat, but NOT liberal. Detroit, Flint, Cleveland, Birmingham and St Louis all jump out as not really being liberal areas. They are democrat areas because of union loyalties, and high minority populations but they are not truly progressive liberal kind of places. Metro Detroit for example is the most segregated place in America, and it is a socially conservative kind of place. Everyone there drives a great big gas guzzling SUV or truck, as car culture is huge there. An east coast person or a San Fransisco liberal would think Detroit area was far from liberal. IF the OP is looking for a real liberal place, then SF or Seattle would come to mind on the west coast, or Boston, NY on the east coast. Minneapolis is getting known for being a liberal center of the midwest, but Madison Wi and Ann arbor Mi are both true liberal midwestern towns. Ashville NC is the most liberal city in the south.
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Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
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