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Cities oriented around biblical ways of living do not necessarily have to be in the "Bible Belt". The "Bible Belt" in the US refers to a region dominated by a particularly strident version of Protestantism.
Maybe you could put OKC and Tulsa down for buckle cities?
I would say New Orleans definitely is a hole in the belt
No more so than (from East to West) Charleston, Savannah, Athens, Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Birmingham, Memphis, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Houston, Dallas, Austin, or San Antonio... to name a few.
Traditionally and historically though, N.O. was probably the original "hole in the belt". I think that these days, the bible belt mainly only exists in rural areas and a few very small cities.
You could consider parts of Nashville as holes in the bible belt but remember one of Nashville's biggest businesses is Bible publishing! I wonder how you'd classify East Nashville which is becoming a Hipster Mecca but you till have a lot of traditional AA households who tend to be religious.
Which brings me to the subject of assuming Democrat /= bible belt. That totally ignores the AA population which tends to be both Democratic and religious. Or white people like me who are Democrats and attend church regularly.
There are some oddities in that list. it combines some cites that aren't in the same MSA or CSA.
The most glaring is how it combines Asheville, NC with Greenville & Spartanburg SC. I don't know how you can ever consider these to be the same area.
Similarly, it combines Fayetteville with Raleigh-Durham. The Triangle is all about higher ed., tech and biotech while Fayetteville is a military town.
There are 2000 residents in Eureka Springs, but over 3/4 of a million people visit every year. It is a very well-known hub of the arts and alternative culture, with tons of events, music venues and entertainment establishments nestled in the Ozark hills. (There's a little bit of a "what happens in Eureka..." vibe.) So yeah, it's not as famous as Austin or Ashville, but it's an obvious "hole in the Bible belt" if you know about it.
I would never classify eureka springs as a hole in the Bible Belt. It is a liberal little town, that's it. It also has the great passion play which is a huge draw for the town. There is also a huge statue of Jesus in the town. The county is overwhelmingly baptist.
Though Catholics have an even BIGGER bible than Protestants - LOL!
True, but Catholics don't depend on it as their sole source of spiritual knowledge. Despite whatever other ways the Catholic church is seen as being stuck in a era of long ago, The intellectual tradition and the Tradition with a large "T" has made the Catholic church more quick in accepting a 4.5 billion year old earth, the fact that our biological diversity have common ancestors (notice how I was careful to use the word "evolution"), and NOT to take any of the Old Testament talk of fire and brimstone too literally.
Understand that I am not suggesting that Protestants don't have an intellectual tradition, or that I am equating fundamentalism with mainline Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.
But overall, the more structure a mainline Christian denomination has, the more they have the institutions that can take scripture with a "grain of salt" when it conflicts with reason.
Lafayette is a bastion of Catholicism so its technically a hole in the belt but still highly religious.
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