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^^^I think you'd be far more surprised than you think. I grew up in the south in a "red" household, and I feel fine here even though I'm not some extreme leftivist (I just combined lefty and activist and I love it ). My roommate is one of those rare natives (5th gen) and he was raised Republican, his father working for Chevron (a Big Oil company based here). My office is actually pretty split.
What you won't find here are people who are Tea Party types who judge people based on their preconceived notions of morals. Everyone here, no matter their views on economics or gun rights etc, is gay friendly and environmentally minded. So I'd say if you literally hate gay people for whatever reason, then you might not like it here. But open political discourse is a *huge* part of this city.
Someone is introducing legislation to make the city more car friendly at the same time as someone is introducing legislation to ban new buildings on the waterfront unless it's "affordable housing", so you have lots of facets of SF politics. People here care less about Washington politics and more about what impacts them at home, and so for that we get labeled "crazy" and "extremely liberal", but it's not that simple.
And by that token, you called SF more "niche" than the other cities (DC, NYC, LA, Chicago, Boston, etc). All of those cities are super "liberal" as well. What makes DC any different from SF and why would a Tea Party rural type want to live there over SF? Politics can't really make a city too niche to dissuade people from moving there. People tend to migrate towards where they'll have a job and feel safe and be able to afford a place.
I actually find that in the real world, people don't talk about politics as much as they do on the internet. However, when it comes to SF, something about the politics of the place evokes an extreme response in a way that any of the other cities I listed don't, with the exception of DC given that it IS the national capital.
I don't think that Tea Party types typically would live in cities anyways, but even to someone who is moderately conservative, they may find that living in SF or the Bay Area to be too much given that even the suburbs are relatively liberal. NYC has areas like LI and NJ that have Republican parts, LA has Orange County, Chicago has the outer suburban areas, etc.
Definitely agree on your last point though: I think most of what city-data looks for in cities is not what the average person looks for in cities.
^^^I can tell you just haven't spent enough time here. You would find the political atmosphere anywhere in the Bay Area is not enough to dissuade you from living here if
a) You have a job here
b) You like the climate here
c) You feel safe here
d) You can provide adequate schooling for your kids if you have them
e) You can afford to live here
If all of those boxes are checked, I don't think "politics" alone is enough of a turn off for people not to live here. So to that end I wouldn't say Bay Area politics is such a factor that only a "niche" of people would dare live here. There are plenty of Republicans in the Bay Area, even if political candidates in or from the area are mostly Democrat. Much of the tech community is actually pretty Libertarian (including one of the biggest angels, Peter Thiel).
Also, politics here, like I said, is extremely local. Local politics tends to be a little more "progressive" than national politics. If you live in an urban environment, whether you came from sprawlville in the south and were raised to think public transit is some conspiracy, you'll quickly become a transit activist as you need it to get around! If you lived in the rural south and had no gay friends and all of a sudden you find yourself working in a city, you'll meet and make friends with gay people and will all of a sudden care about their opportunity to wed, as well. It's just that simple. I don't see how SF is radically different here than any other city, except the structure governing public input is such that there is actually lots of opportunity for public input, and so people become more activist about things because they have a voice here.
^^^I can tell you just haven't spent enough time here. You would find the political atmosphere anywhere in the Bay Area is not enough to dissuade you from living here if
Already said I hadn't spent much time there. And I'm just stating reasons why someone could find that SFBA isn't within the top 5, but ironically, the same arguments could be made that it is a top 5er for that very reason.
1/3 of the people who've seen this poll disagree with the Top 5 designation. Anyone want to give reasons why?
I know you are saying you are just trying to play devil's advocate or whatever, but the politics thing is a ridiculous attempt at 'making a case' to keep it out of the 'top 5' when it comes to "influence" IMO.. If anything, the area's perceived strong politics would make it even more influential no?
Maybe if this was a thread about something more related it could work I guess.
Just ask people in different countries which city they think is more influential--Chicago or SF. Almost invariably, the response you'll receive will be SF. In essence, most people in other countries and even in the US, for that matter, just don't care about Chicago, esp. relative to SF, as Chicago is Anytown, USA with a few tall buildings whereas SF is simply one-of-a-kind as well as absolutely otherworldly to boot.
Last edited by 8to32characters; 04-24-2014 at 11:26 PM..
So you look at a rating of banks as the indicator? As redjohn has already stated, the list is laughable at best, Chicago is well below LA and might be losing ground quickly to SF bay area and DMV, if it hasn't already dropped to #4 or #5 already.
There is zero argument to be made that SF is not in the Top 5.
Now it's relative placement in Top 5 can be debated. It could be 3, 4, or 5. It would be very hard to argue that it's ahead of LA at #2, which is an urban beast and global hegemon.
The Bay Area, and Silicon Valley in particular, is easily inside the top 5. Much of the work done there over the last few decades has become the underpinnings of the global economy. The sort of front/user facing services such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. mentioned so far are important, but are sort of a simpleton's characterization of what the Bay Area has actually generated of value.
Just ask people in different countries which city they think is more influential--Chicago or SF. Almost invariably, the response you'll receive will be SF. In essence, most people in other countries and even in the US, for that matter, just don't care about Chicago, esp. relative to SF, as Chicago is Anytown, USA with a few tall buildings whereas SF is simply one-of-a-kind as well as absolutely otherworldly to boot.
Most people in other countries don't care about any city in the US, period. The one and only city in the US which has universal foreign interest is New York City. No others.
To call Chicago "Anytown, USA" is funny and just plain ignorant.
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). My roommate is one of those rare natives (5th gen) and he was raised Republican, his father working for Chevron (a Big Oil company based here). My office is actually pretty split.
