"White" and "Blue" Collar Cities (crime, place, America)
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You hear this a lot "blah blah, old blue collar city, etc." Or "blah blah, exciting, white collar city." So in your mind, what cities seem more blue collar or working class, and which cities do you think of as white collar, professional, etc. Obv, every city has a balance of both, but I believe people are referring mostly to the overall culture, history, and vibe of the city in question.
So, by region, I'll take a stab at what my impressions are. I haven't been to most of these cities, and the ones I have been to I mostly haven't seen much of them, so this isn't much more than guessing. I only included cities I have an opinion on, feel free to have more
Northeast:
Boston - White (IMO seems very white collar, despite what you sometimes hear)
Providence - blue
Philadelphia - classic Blue collar city
NYC - White, though it's so big it is kind of stupid to call it one or the other, Manhattan seems to define white collar
Washington DC - White
Baltimore - Blue
Pittsburgh - Blue
South:
Charlotte - White
Atlanta - Blue?
Flordia cities - no clue
New Orleans - Blue
Dallas -white /Ft Worth- Blue ? just guessing
Houston - white, but I really don't know
San Antonio - Blue
Austin - white
Midwest:
St Louis: Blue
Kansas City - Blue
Des Moines - White
Minneapolis - blue? white? seems like it could be either
Chicago - Blue
Indianapolis - Blue
Cleveland - Blue
Detroit - Blue
West:
Denver- blue?
Salt Lake City - white
Albuquerque - Blue
Phoenix - white?
LA - white, but maybe just in reputation
San Diego - White
Bay Area - White
Portland - Blue
Seattle - White
All cities have a very high amount of blue collar workers. Very highly educated people can still be blue collar-- master electricians and industrial plumbers come to mind. High tech factory workers are still factory workers.
To that end, the vast majority of cities across the country are very blue collar. The Sunbelt is built on the promise of being able to buy the American Dream with little to no education, and it's been delivering on that promise. The factory and construction jobs in the midwest and northeast fled to the south and southwest in order to escape unions and heavy taxes.
Los Angeles, for example, has the most heavy industrialization of any city or municipal area in the country.
So there you have it. The "old" cities were built not by blue collar people, but by poor immigrants who had zero skills. New York was quite literally built by Irish immigrants; Chicago was constructed by its Irish and Eastern European populations.
So in an attempt to say that one city is blue collar in culture or not, I'm not really certain that many are. Most cities are service cities these days. Until someone can show me a city with almost nothing but tradespeople, I'm going to say that none of the above qualify.
You hear this a lot "blah blah, old blue collar city, etc." Or "blah blah, exciting, white collar city." So in your mind, what cities seem more blue collar or working class, and which cities do you think of as white collar, professional, etc. Obv, every city has a balance of both, but I believe people are referring mostly to the overall culture, history, and vibe of the city in question.
So, by region, I'll take a stab at what my impressions are. I haven't been to most of these cities, and the ones I have been to I mostly haven't seen much of them, so this isn't much more than guessing. I only included cities I have an opinion on, feel free to have more
Northeast:
Boston - White (IMO seems very white collar, despite what you sometimes hear)
Providence - blue
Philadelphia - classic Blue collar city
NYC - White, though it's so big it is kind of stupid to call it one or the other, Manhattan seems to define white collar
Washington DC - White
Baltimore - Blue
Pittsburgh - Blue
South:
Charlotte - White
Atlanta - Blue?
Flordia cities - no clue
New Orleans - Blue
Dallas -white /Ft Worth- Blue ? just guessing
Houston - white, but I really don't know
San Antonio - Blue
Austin - white
Midwest:
St Louis: Blue
Kansas City - Blue
Des Moines - White
Minneapolis - blue? white? seems like it could be either
Chicago - Blue
Indianapolis - Blue
Cleveland - Blue
Detroit - Blue
West:
Denver- blue?
Salt Lake City - white
Albuquerque - Blue
Phoenix - white?
LA - white, but maybe just in reputation
San Diego - White
Bay Area - White
Portland - Blue
Seattle - White
You hear this a lot "blah blah, old blue collar city, etc." Or "blah blah, exciting, white collar city." So in your mind, what cities seem more blue collar or working class, and which cities do you think of as white collar, professional, etc. Obv, every city has a balance of both, but I believe people are referring mostly to the overall culture, history, and vibe of the city in question.
So, by region, I'll take a stab at what my impressions are. I haven't been to most of these cities, and the ones I have been to I mostly haven't seen much of them, so this isn't much more than guessing. I only included cities I have an opinion on, feel free to have more
Northeast:
Boston - White (IMO seems very white collar, despite what you sometimes hear)
Providence - blue
Philadelphia - classic Blue collar city
NYC - White, though it's so big it is kind of stupid to call it one or the other, Manhattan seems to define white collar
Washington DC - White
Baltimore - Blue
Pittsburgh - Blue
South:
Charlotte - White
Atlanta - Blue?
Flordia cities - no clue
New Orleans - Blue
Dallas -white /Ft Worth- Blue ? just guessing
Houston - white, but I really don't know
San Antonio - Blue
Austin - white
Midwest:
St Louis: Blue
Kansas City - Blue
Des Moines - White
Minneapolis - blue? white? seems like it could be either
Chicago - Blue
Indianapolis - Blue
Cleveland - Blue
Detroit - Blue
West:
Denver- blue?
Salt Lake City - white
Albuquerque - Blue
Phoenix - white?
LA - white, but maybe just in reputation
San Diego - White
Bay Area - White
Portland - Blue
Seattle - White
Yeah Houston is both. You have a lot of major corporations, medical jobs, engineers, etc. and also a lot of refinery jobs, manufacturing jobs, a lot jobs from the sea ports, etc. I'm not sure about Fort Worth. It think it's also white collar. I can't really think of a big blue collar industry in Fort Worth except for maybe something related to cattle and live stock.
I guess the imagine is often that cities in the South and Great Lakes are "blue collar." The Pacific Northwest and New England often more "white collar." Although some cities in those regions have a different image than that.
It's true though this is likely relative and is few to no city is majority white collar. Although I think there are a few suburbs that are white collar. Still in relative terms Boston, Boulder, Madison, Raleigh-Durham, San Francisco, San Jose, and Stamford-Norwalk look fairly white collar. While Allentown, Bakersfield, Dayton, Detroit, Macon, Scranton, Tulsa, and Youngstown look pretty blue-collar. I think there are cities in New England, like Bridgeport, that have a more blue collar image. Atlanta, and as mentioned Raleigh-Durham, might have a somewhat "white collar" image among Southern cities.
Suspect in overall economic power (value of major corporate and financial HQs) SiliconValley and NYC region easily dwarf any other region in world (and SV dwarfs NYC region on a per capita basis); next to follow are Dallas and Houston; then followed by LA and Chic
Keep in mind many major "white-collar" corporate HQs, hedge funds, VCs, etc are based in suburban office campuses, not in cities
And some suburban corridors like NYC's LI or Chic's Southern suburbs or SF's East Bay or LA's Eastern suburbs are economic wastelands, as are NYC's highly populated boroughs outside Manhattan (and even Manhattan is only heavily white-collar in corridors like Midtown/UES/UWS)
And many wealthy suburban corridors like PaloAlto or Greenwich have numerous nearby, crime-ridden slums like E PaloAlto/RedwoodCity or Portchester/Stamford/Norwalk, etc....for the local welfare crowd, landscapers, illegal immigrants, etc...someone needs to clean toilets in white-collar regions
Probably the most surprisingly blue-collar and generally poor urban region is LA/OC; despite pockets like the elite BevHills/BelAir-Brentwood/Palisades corridor (maybe 80K people), LA region has ~18MM people with little money and who can barely read/count (both legal white dudes and illegals)...and very, very few major corporate or financial HQs (esp per capita), despite the glamourization of LA image in popular culture
I have been to several cities, and I think Chicago is more "white collar". It's the attitude and lifestyle of "not getting your hands dirty" (not dissing them). Perhaps it is because I carefully made sure to avoid ghetto parts which give people this image of Chicago as the paycheck to paycheck rough life. But the nicest parts of some blue collar cities are just that- blue. So I feel Chicago is white.
The Bay Area is not white collar. In fact, I've never heard of anyone refer to it as such. SF, yes, maybe not the majority, but a large portion is, and even that minority justifiably represents its working culture. But the Bay Area cities otherwise are a little on the "scary" side, the suburbs/smaller towns very "bare minimum", and the local slang being slightly "ghetto" (which I do NOT throw around lightly; yadidamean, thizzin, hyphy) - I would never guess it's collectively "white collar".
This works for generalizing, but I would say it needs to be broken down further by neighborhood.
Chelsea in Manhattan is absolutely white collar, but is Washington Heights?
Midwood Brooklyn is middle class (relative to NYC) but Brooklyn Heights is decidedly white-collar.
New York's boroughs are so diverse by themselves that it's hard to quantify them as entirely white or blue collar.
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Make some minor corrections
