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Given the two examples that you used, I'm thinking that small, somewhat self-contained cities with interesting identities are what you're referring to. Not a small mountain town and not a sprawling metropolis, or at least that's what I'm assuming.
I used to live near Asheville and loved the size of it. Years later, it was part of my gripe of CO that no such town existed (Boulder isn't what it used to be and is connected to the Denver Metro, FoCo is cool but a college town on the plains-pretty much everything is either Front Range Metro or mountain town, and we lived in both). Ultimately, we wanted something reminiscent of the old Boulder and Asheville, but in the west.
We originally looked at some larger cities but narrowed it down to Flagstaff, Santa Fe, Missoula, Bozeman, Bend, Eugene, Corvallis, Olympia, and Bellingham, WA. We also heard that some places in CA- like Davis- should be on our list, but we stayed out of CA. Ultimately- we chose Bellingham, as it gave us the vibe and scenery that we desired.
Though they're all certainly different and this is certainly not an exhaustive list, many of the cities I just mentioned are little bastions of progressiveness, especially Eugene, Olympia, and Bellingham.
This is a great post, IMO. I'm a 30-year-old Buffalo lifer, and of the places on your list, I've only been to Asheville and Santa Fe...but was a big fan of both. As luck would have it, while in Asheville (for all of two nights, mind you) I temporarily befriended someone who turned out to be from Flagstaff, which is not something I would've considered probable. Anyway, those two places are with Burlington VT my favorite places to which I've yet been in this country (I'd imagine that Burlington would easily fit in with the cities on your list were you to extend consideration to all areas of the country). I can easily imagine my future self investigating each remaining city on your list, plus places like Davis and, well, Berkeley (which may well fall into the Boulder category of 'not what it once was') and Santa Cruz...as much as I'm interested in Portland and Seattle, some part of me has always thought that the closest thing to utopia would be a city closer to the size of those on your list.
SLC has 190,000 and the metro is around 2.5 million. No definitely not small.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vatnos
I think that 50 years from now the electoral map and county map will look completely different.
Perhaps the progressive areas will be the blue collar industrial towns, and the conservatives will be the rich elites in major cities we currently think of as progressive. There was a time when that was the way things were. FDR and Truman got into office thanks to the populist majority of the "solid south". Things have a funny way of looping around like that.
This a rather simple explaination but not inaccurate. People wonder why the south is now such a GOP stronghold when it had been a staunchly Democrat one since Colonial times. Up until the 70's the south was Democratic then Reagan took office and the economy boomed (something that hadn't happened since before the Civil War) and most people switched sides out of convenience. A lot of former Democrats were now Republicans but held on to their former bigotry. Eventually that infected the party as a whole and somewhere along the line the two parties themselves kind of switched
Remember the GOP was formed in 1854 as the anti-slavery party and it was the Democratic Party that was pro-slavery, pro-Jim Crow, pro-segregation and it was Democrats that formed the KKK. It was also Democrat presidents that pushed Manifest Destiny and ordered the Indian Removal acts.
Last edited by Leroy James; 05-27-2017 at 09:53 PM..
Looking for small towns that stand to be the next progressive places of tomorrow. Any recommendations?
While not a small town (rather a small city of 132K) I could see where Columbia SC heads that direction given it's presence as a state capital and major college town (U of South Carolina), as well as recent moderating state politics at a time when it's northern neighbor (NC) has seemingly regressed. The city is booming currently with new additions like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods signaling a leap forward into the realm of what are generally regarded as more "progressive" cities.
Plattsburgh and Duluth are very nice cities. For about three months out of the year. Can you guess which ones?
I'd say for longer than that and both have low to average crime rates.
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