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What city do you find to be most liberal. Liberal not only to a segment of the population be it race, gender or economic status but liberal "overall?"
A city where you can be yourself, thrives on cultural diversity, has a low cost of living and access to all your interests bearing the type of variety to please all.
This city should have the least amount of oppressive laws and have a population that represents tolerance not only on social issues, but takes pride in getting involved in making the community better for all.
Please let's keep this to "Cities" in the US. Your thoughts/experiences?
Hi Steve! - No actually Santa Fe NM has changed over the years. NM in my opinion has a HUGE law enforcement presence and a VERY HIGH crime rate...not burglary or petty theft...we're talking MURDER.
New York- Maybe at one time but not no more. Mayor Bloomberg is a hardcore conservative. Even w/Hillary being the Senator many NY find the city oppressive .
Let's not forget these are places with a "high cost" of living.
Surprisingly it seems that according to "various posters/locals" Austin Texas seems to score VERY HIGH for being a hippie/bohemian - college town. Only drawback is the cost of living has soared. I never been to Austin so I don't know but STILL "Texas" being liberal, ethnically mixed, with tolerance and anti-discrimination is hard to fathom. I would never have thought of Texas.
Then again, we're talking "Austin", anyone wish to chime in who has knowledge and facts to share?
All of the large cities on the East Coast (defined as DC and anything north of it), West Coast, and then Chicago in middle would be defined as truly liberal large cities (Mayor Bloomberg is certainly not a liberal, but he's also definitely not anything close to a hardcore conservative). Of course, they all have fairly high living costs. As for the most liberal of them all, I'd still have to go with the old stand-by of San Francisco.
As for smaller cities, I'd put Austin, Texas and Madison, Wisconsin would contend for the "most liberal" title for towns of their size and lower costs of living. You could also argue for places such as Cambridge, Berkeley, Santa Monica and Evanston, but they're also already part of the metro areas of fairly liberal large cities.
Really? I've been to all those places mentioned except Austin and haven't visited Madison in over 7 years. Last I recalled, Madison had a ways to go before I would consider it a "liberal" city. The cost of living isn't bad though. San-Fran now you're talking my neck of the woods.....It's NOTHING like it used to be. I don't feel a day goes by where anyone considers San Francisco "liberal" It has changed DRASTICALLY since the 1960's and COS is on par with Manhattan.
Any other thoughts w/regard to the topic and the city you feel is "overall" most liberal in every facet of society/low cost of living?
Why do you say Portland? I see several people saying that and it appears to be the common view but I'm interested in "individual impressions," and what lead you to such a conclusion?
Really? I've been to all those places mentioned except Austin and haven't visited Madison in over 7 years. Last I recalled, Madison had a ways to go before I would consider it a "liberal" city. The cost of living isn't bad though. San-Fran now you're talking my neck of the woods.....It's NOTHING like it used to be. I don't feel a day goes by where anyone considers San Francisco "liberal" It has changed DRASTICALLY since the 1960's and COS is on par with Manhattan.
Any other thoughts w/regard to the topic and the city you feel is "overall" most liberal in every facet of society/low cost of living?
I guess it's all relative. Large cities such as SF and NYC have enough people and are cosmopolitan enough that you're going to have large contingents of every political stripe (liberal, conservative, libertarian, populists), but when you compare them to their peers of other large cities, I'd have to still consider them liberal. A place such as Austin might have a higher concentration of liberals, but it's an "apples-to-oranges" comparison because there's such a huge size difference. Madison is definitely a liberal town - it's essentially what you would get if you combined Berkeley with Vermont.
It's a little hard to find low-cost liberal locales unless you get down to smaller college towns that are often, ironically, located in generally conservative states (i.e. Athens, Georgia and Lawrence, Kansas). As voting patterns have borne out, the more liberal areas of the country tend to be located in or near large urban areas, which are generally have higher costs of living.
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