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We see quite a few threads about people wanting to relocate to a liberal or conservative town or city. Maybe because of the current rift between right and left, we tend to think of politics but what else would you use to denote one sort or the other? We probably have an informal inventory that we use to decide.
If a town had a public university, would you tend to judge it as liberal? Religious/bible college?
How would you judge a town that was predominantly Roman Catholic? Baptist? Nonreligious?
What about wealth or poverty levels? Bluecollar? Farming? Tourism? Government? Size? Rust belt? Rural or urban?
My guess is that there is a spectrum and places differ by degrees. Lets devise a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very conservative and 10 being very liberal.
What are some candidate towns on the spectrum and why are they scored one way or another? We have our own opinions
I'll go first...
I once lived in a place that I would score a 3: Jefferson City, Mo. Small town conservative but being the state capital, it was exposed to more liberal ideas (on occasion). Home a 150 year old historically black university but there was some racial separation and some sketchy history. It has two religious high schools and one of the largest public high schools in the state. Football was everything. The native born folks were frequently related to a handful of families but, being the seat of government, there were a lot of outsiders -- often from St. Louis or Kansas City.
Over the river and through the woods 30 miles was Columbia, Mo. - the proverbial hotbed of liberalism by local standarrds. I would score it a 7. Home of the University of Missouri certainly brought in some liberal ideas and many football fans. There is a bit more cu!ture. It seems to be more politically liberal than surrounding areas. It has more diversity than other places nearby but more racial friction, too. It has a bigger population (120k) with people moving in or out and has a few big city problems.
IMO, liberal or conservative can be social, fiscal, or political. Some places have all three on one side or the other, most places only hit one or two points.
My hometown, Colo Spgs, tends to be viewed as an ultra conservative bastion. This is primarily due to its numerous military bases and a few large evangelical organizations that have moved here. While I can't deny its is indeed conservative, its is not nearly as much so as many would think. What many don't realize is that Colo Spgs had a racially integrated police force 100 years ago. We were attracting artists on a scale greater than Sante Fe through the 20-30s. We had a very large and popular racially integrated night club in the 1950s. The city was on the forefront of technology manufacturing from the 70-90s and at one time was know as Silicon Mtn because of the numerous tech firms that were located here. We are still home to one of the most desirable liberal arts colleges in the western US in Colorado College. We are home to the fastest growing university in the state with University of Colorado Colorado Springs. We have a larger percentage of mixed race persons than nearby Denver, or even Los Angles, or Chicago. The Olympic Headquarters means we get athletes from all over the world coming here to compete and train. There is a visible LGBTQ segment of the population and we still have a large percentage of naturalists and former hippies in neighboring Manitou Springs.
But we are tight wads. We struggle to get approvals for schools and infrastructure. We have been a national poster child for recidive politics when we started turning off street lights to save money. The evangelicals that have relocated here see our location at the foot of Pikes Peak as a global pulpit and they have some very outspoken persons in that group who have made some asinine statement on the national stage. This perception of ultra-conservatism has attracted some real nut jobs to the area who have conducted to horrendous crimes. And we can't overlook the fact that despite having some local Democrats in city and county positions, on the national political stage we always go Republican.
While we have been more liberal in the past than now, currently I'd say socially we are a 7, fiscally a 1, politically a 3. Overall that averages out to 3.6. Lower than it has been in the past, but not radically far from center where I'd like to see us.
Los Angeles: Transplant and immigrant mecca. Every language, ethnicity, culture, nationality you can think of lives there. All types of religions from the psycho cults to atheists to mainstream sects of the major religions can be found wherever you look. Extremely wealthy and extremely poor pockets. Arguably rural areas like in the San Gabriel Mountains, but very urban pockets in DTLA and Hollywood and other locations. Votes reliably blue for almost everything, except in select few areas. I'd give LA a 10. Everyone is welcome there. No matter who you are and what your interests are, you will find a group for yourself and can be happy. That to me is true liberalism--the fact that you can be a hardcore leftwing progressive in places like DTLA/WeHo/Santa Monica or a hardcore rightwing in places like the eastern SGV and some of the San Gabriel Mountain communities. You will still have friends and a social circle. However, it keeps the 10 even with the hardcore conservatives because in the more urban core neighborhoods, it's massively diverse and there are countless colleges/universities.
San Francisco: People may wanna throw a 10 on SF, but I'd give it a solid 8. It has most of what LA has going for it, but an extreme aversion to anything that is not exactly "SF." As in, if your beliefs don't align 100% with what the rest of society thinks is the "correct" way, you're ridiculed and can be ostracized. However, for the typical progressive liberalism of diversity, LGBTQ equality, etc. SF does very well. It would be a 10 if not for the extreme derision you can receive from some of the locals if you don't fit the mold of a San Franciscan. That equally goes hand in hand with the fact that the entire Bay Area's focus is on tech, so if you're not in tech, you don't fit in socially as well. And that tech breeds techbros who are not really a good face to show for diversity or equality or social awareness.
Louisville: Everyone in the region tries to paint Louisville has a liberal bastion of greatness. It is...for the region. It's nothing compared to its coastal counterparts or even some of the larger cities nearby like Nashville. For being KY, it's very progressive...but for KY. It was the first time I saw racism face to face so of course I was appalled and stuck up for my friends. It was the first time I had friends who were pro-LGBT equality, but were uncomfortable going to gay clubs. It was the first time I struggled finding people to try adventurous new restaurants with. Its one major university isn't all that amazing, but it still has a nationally ranked university. The diversity was more than I expected. But the question of "where did you go to school" still refers to high school. People will ask what church you attend. Anything remotely "urban" or "city" is seen as a destruction of the white suburban way of life and the city's transit budget might as well just be referred to as the highway budget since public transit is completely ignored. I'd give Louisville a 6 though because it's more diverse than I expected, religion seems to be much less important with the younger generations, it's attempting to urbanize as best it can with all the backlash the white suburban Christians throw out, etc. It's not conservative in the way that the only thing to do is go to Walmart and church and drinking is seen as a sin, and minorities aren't worried for their lives from racists/homophobes, but there are still more social hurdles to hop through than in any other city I've lived in.
Philly: It blends blue collar and white collar quite well. It's very diverse and highly educated and young. It votes reliably heavily blue in every election. Diversity of thought is more accepted there than in SF. It isn't at the level of LA, though, so I give it a 9.
NYC: Everything of LA but even more so. You can be literally anyone you want to be here and still find friends and have a social circle. Politically it's almost entirely blue except for select pockets Brooklyn and Staten Island, and then of course suburbs in deep Jersey and LI. You may be ridiculed for being a racist in Manhattan (and rightfully so), but you'd be able to find some other racists to hang out with if you just really need to. Diversity of thought is generally much more prevalent (aside from racists) than in a place like SF--as in, you can not agree with the standard mold of how something is and that's a-okay...as long as that disagreement is not over someone's skin color or the way they were born. Even more national/ethnic backgrounds than LA. Therefore, NYC also gets a 10.
I will take a liberal city inside a conservative state (code for no state income tax).
IMO, that would hold a liberal city back from being a 10 though. You can't ignore that state laws still control what happens in cities. Just look at all the states that have put banned municipalities from raising minimum wages and taxes. Or how state governments try to take away LGBT protections from municipalities. There are numerous examples of liberal cities in conservative states not being able to reach their full potential. So while on the ground the cities may be liberal, they still suffer from an oppressively conservative state government that doesn't allow the laws to match the city's views.
Location: Miami (prev. NY, Atlanta, SF, OC and San Diego)
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Miami seems to be an outlier from the rest of FL (and the only city I could live in here in the state)....likewise, OC and San Diego were conservative (have turned blue now) in a liberal state that I chose to leave after 33 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jessemh431
IMO, that would hold a liberal city back from being a 10 though. You can't ignore that state laws still control what happens in cities. Just look at all the states that have put banned municipalities from raising minimum wages and taxes. Or how state governments try to take away LGBT protections from municipalities. There are numerous examples of liberal cities in conservative states not being able to reach their full potential. So while on the ground the cities may be liberal, they still suffer from an oppressively conservative state government that doesn't allow the laws to match the city's views.
I associate nice low crime suburban areas with 'good' schools with conservative Republican.
At the student level, I don't associate the large public university college towns with liberal, at least outside of the states that the Democratic party win easily. I don't think conservative adults care about universities being in a city in the way that liberals do, unless they attended the college.
GOP wins a majority of white people so it doesn't make sense to associate conservatives exclusively with rural. Most Republicans live in the suburbs. Republicans have only in the past 20 years or so started doing better with the white 'blue collar' working class.
Cities with a lot of engineering jobs tend to be more conservative because engineers are more conservative or non-liberal.
Last edited by ClemVegas; 03-02-2019 at 10:14 AM..
Reno is a little hard to place neatly on the scale, coming from a Midwestern background - I guess "libertarian" is the best way to describe the political climate here. There's not much religious presence, this area's been pretty accepting of gay people and drag queens and that whole culture for a long time, pot is legal, and people in general are very tolerant of alternative lifestyles. The death penalty exists, but no one's been killed since 2010 and there's a small movement to abolish it as Washington state recently did.
At the same time, a ton of seemingly normal people own guns (to a degree that would seem paranoid given the unexceptional crime rates and few opportunities for hunting), funding for schools and public infrastructure is atrocious (even a lot of new roads are in bad shape), and the homeless problem is among the worst in the nation, with almost no sympathy from the public. Legalized prostitution and gambling are hard to categorize as left- or right-wing, but I think they also play into that "anything goes" culture.
If I had to pick a number I'd put us at a 6, with 10 being the most liberal - and probably inching higher as priced-out Northern California natives move in.
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