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I don't thin it's entirely true but lets give this a shot.A liberal is someone more inclined to be open to change if they believe something is wrong and respects a persons differences more then conservatives.If you look into people who live in cities,they are generally of different races,religions,and sexual persuasions and even though a liberal might be straight,they might also be respectful of a gay couple even if not their own preference. When you think of the country most people think of the Good Old Boys.Ultra white,ultra christian and that plays into what most conservatives are. [MOD CUT/off topic]
All nations which have progressed and achieved a high standard of living have urbanized. All of western Europe, U.S., Asia etc are highly urbanized. Areas of the world which are majority rural are poor and undeveloped. The poorest nations on earth are 70 - 80% rural. Societies need to urbanized to advance to a high standard of living. This is what is happening in China today. The Chinese government is in the process of moving 300 million people into cities, from the country, in the next 10 years. They realize this needs to be done to rise their nations citizens above third world status. The U.S. did this in the late 19 and early 20th century and look at the results. Our cities helped raise us to the highest standard of living ever known. This would have never happened if we remained a rural nation of farmers. All of us love the beautiful country side, but rural folks should not take for granted the great advancements and achievements which were accomplished due to our cities.
At what cost has the last 100 years of so called progress come? Our cities & their gluttony have caused Global warming, widescale polution, decimation of natural flora & fauna. Developing countries are worse environmentally. China is dictateing where people can live, its telling that you think thats progress.
It amazes me that the same liberals that are discusted with pollution & global warming are also those living in cities & contributing the most to almost all of our worlds ills.
The truth is that city folks should not take their current level of comfort for granted, because they themselves cannot maintain it. We do not NEED anything that a city creates or makes possible. They can be convenient & create luxury or the illusion of it, but thats it. I can live without that, but not without food or water.
At some point we will realize the utter stupidity of putting millions of people into tiny areas, they're an environmental nightmare nobody talks about on top of being the number one economic burden we have.
At what cost has the last 100 years of so called progress come? Our cities & their gluttony have caused Global warming, widescale polution, decimation of natural flora & fauna. Developing countries are worse environmentally. China is dictateing where people can live, its telling that you think thats progress.
It amazes me that the same liberals that are discusted with pollution & global warming are also those living in cities & contributing the most to almost all of our worlds ills.
The truth is that city folks should not take their current level of comfort for granted, because they themselves cannot maintain it. We do not NEED anything that a city creates or makes possible. They can be convenient & create luxury or the illusion of it, but thats it. I can live without that, but not without food or water.
At some point we will realize the utter stupidity of putting millions of people into tiny areas, they're an environmental nightmare nobody talks about on top of being the number one economic burden we have.
The concept of urbanization and the rise of civilization is nothing new. This dates back to the time of the Greeks, Romans and others. Developing nations will continue this 5000 year trend without doubt. Highly developed nations such as the U.S. are post Urban and should be considered Suburban societies. Once a nation reaches a point of great wealth it has the luxury of reaching out beyond dense urban neighborhoods.
As far as gluttony and waste of resources and stress on the planet modern suburbs are king of the hill. The amount of resources needed to build and maintain a society of 2500 sq foot homes and everyone equiped with a private vehicle is off the charts. Many many times higher than a high density urban area. The amount of energy and resources need to maintain an American suburban lifestyle is two or three times higher than that of a resident of urban Europe or even Manhattan.
In a nutshell, this is it. A city is generally a very Hamiltonian thing. The design and regulation of it is done by strong central planning and the result is something complex, that requires complex rules and regulations in order to ensure the happiness of a many as possible. In other words, society.
My personal biases aside, the right in this country tend to draw their influences from the very early periods of the nation's history, when the nation was very small and mostly rural, when there was much less regulation of everything. Everyone could own a rifle and there was no need for a central banking establishment. But the problem with that is that society has grown larger and more complex by leaps and bounds since then, and living in a city this is painfully apparent. Living in the country however it is easy to get the idea that decentralisation would work everywhere. It might be feasible in rural areas for there to be very high gun ownership, for example. But in areas where people are in very close quarters, we've seen that it only ever leads to bad things. This is the different. We literally live in different worlds.
As for my own personal position, as I understand, larger societies inevitably grow more complex. Throughout history, I can't recall an example of civilization growing while becoming more decentralised.
What is interesting is that there were a lot of regulations in early communities. Most of it had to do with propriety and religious observance but people were actually banned from communities for not following the letter of the law, whatever it was deemed to be. Great read on this is 'The Wordy Shipmates' by Sarah Vowell.
That being said, I think that other posters have provided excellent reasons why cities tend to be more liberal - better job opportunities, greater differences in socio-economic status between inhabitants, more reliance on shared services and so on. Another factor, I think, is greater population density led to some of the major liberal 'causes' - workplace safety (the Triangle fire), health and building codes (despicable conditions in tenements) , public health clinics (due to the rapid spread of TB, typhoid, etc. among immigrant populations) and the like, and supporters of such programs tend to 'breed' supporters of such programs.
Something else that is rarely considered by those who would paint liberals with one broad brush - I live in what is now considered a very 'blue' city, however, even the most progressive of our representatives are strong advocates of individual gun ownership, as I am as well. No one sees any inconsistency in that here, nor does anyone blink at the fireworks available for purchase in the supermarkets (can you imagine the same in NYC?) for 4th of July and New Year's eve.
What people often forget is that population density, or lack thereof, just demands/allows different rules and regulations and their success, value, etc. has a huge impact on how people regard the government and define their affiliations.
I'll put this pretty raw and uncut lol. Conservatives seem to like there privacy out in the Country, shooting random squirrels. They can do there own thing, and not be bothered by people. The way I kind of look at it is, liberals get on the nerves of conservatives, rather than visa versa. It could be a generalization, or maybe it just seems that way because of what party is holding presidential office. Liberals I think are drawn to the city because they want to feel like there deep and eccentric, sitting in a coffee shop in San Fransisco talking about the enviroment. Yes, these are pretty stereotypcial of me, but I don't care.
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