Liberal Rural Areas (farming, barn, Maine, NYC)

[nei]

Originally Posted by sheena12

Small college towns and the Berkshires. My friend's mom is an artist and liberal. She lives in Brimfield MA which is pretty liberal and accepting.

Up-state NY is mostly conservative as is most of PAs rural areas.

Colleges are a good moderating influence, and the presence of a Unitarian Church - even if you are not a Unitarian, is usually a good indication of the presence of liberals in the area.

If you look at an election map, Upstate NY looks quite a bit less Republican than Pennsylvania. Obviously depends on which part of Upstate NY as the previous poster described well.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by sheena12

Small college towns and the Berkshires. My friend's mom is an artist and liberal. She lives in Brimfield MA which is pretty liberal and accepting.

Up-state NY is mostly conservative as is most of PAs rural areas.

Colleges are a good moderating influence, and the presence of a Unitarian Church - even if you are not a Unitarian, is usually a good indication of the presence of liberals in the area.

It depends on where you are and like ki0eh mentioned, he pretty much stated how Upstate NY is in terms of its small towns. Many small towns have colleges and/or an artsy vibe to them as well in Upstate NY.

[crazyme4878]

Ely, MN; Bisbee, AZ; Marquette, MI somewhat; Washburn, WI; Grand Marais, MN. I recently came across Ouray, CO, and that seemed like it would lean more toward the liberal end.

My personal rules are northern college towns will most likely have the climate that I'm looking for. However, many of them will tend to be more middle with some "townies" being very conservative, young college students being very liberal and eager, and most everyone else falling in the broad spectrum of the middle or open to hear the other side.

[ki0eh]

I kinda like the suggestion to look for a nearby Unitarian congregation, even if not of that faith tradition. UUA: Browse UUA Member Congregations by State, District, or Country

[sheena12]

Originally Posted by nei

If you look at an election map, Upstate NY looks quite a bit less Republican than Pennsylvania. Obviously depends on which part of Upstate NY as the previous poster described well.

Exactly why I said "mostly" - there are exceptions.

[sheena12]

Ashville NC and the surrounding areas. Also, might be a bit hard to believe, but parts of West Va.

[sequoias]

Well, some parts of North Coast in California have liberal farmers. One of my friend is a liberal cowgirl lives in rural area.

[nei]

Originally Posted by sheena12

Exactly why I said "mostly" - there are exceptions.

Look at this map:

http://psychohistory.files.wordpress.../picture-2.png

Only a few NY counties are as deep red (large McCain voting share) as much of rural PA. Much of rural NY is a light red with some blue mixed in.

The northern Midwest looks like it has some liberal rural areas as well.

[601halfdozen0theother]

A variant of this thread comes up all the time. I think maybe some people assume that rural and "liberal" are generally mutually exclusive.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "Liberal".

Any place that has a strong Union presence will be more likely to be "Democrat", and thus identified as "Liberal". Rural areas with a strong Union presence include mining areas and places where other types of non-agricultural economies are dominant. That's why Northern Minnesota is both very rural and very Democrat (well, DFL).

The thing to remember is, though, that you can't always correlate "Democrat" with "Liberal". Many rural areas that are strongly union and largely vote Democrat have large numbers of people who are social conservatives. So don't look at a red v blue map and assume you're also seeing conservative v liberal.

IMO you can find strongly "Liberal" areas (in its context of "tolerant, accepting, non-violent and well educated") all over the United States, even in "Red" states.

Yes, there is often a correlation with colleges and unversities and religions such as Unitarianism and the Society of Friends.

[nei]

Originally Posted by 601halfdozen0theother

The thing to remember is, though, that you can't always correlate "Democrat" with "Liberal". Many rural areas that are strongly union and largely vote Democrat have large numbers of people who are social conservatives. So don't look at a red v blue map and assume you're also seeing conservative v liberal.

I think of liberalism more in economic policies than social. So a socially conservative union area could count as "liberal".

New England rural areas are liberal both in the social and economic sense