Most Liberal and Conservative Cities...

A group called the Bay Area Center for Voting Research has released a study ranking what it calls the most conservative and most liberal cities in the U.S. of A. The list is based on the "political leanings" of the various burgs.

Topping the most liberal list: Detroit (shed a tear for the GOP-voting Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent); Gary, Indiana; Berkeley, California; Washington, D.C.; and Oakland, California.

Striding atop the conservative list: Provo, Utah; Lubbock, Texas; Abilene, Texas; Hialeah, Florida; and Plano, Texas (routinely a backround for those unconvincing "heroin is killing our rich young kids" stories).

More cities and info here.

Comments

Curious | August 11, 2005, 10:50am | #

I didn't see the methodolgy in the article or on their site. How did they define liberal?

saw-whet | August 11, 2005, 11:17am | #

Did they poll for the most anarcho-capitalist city? In Ohio perhaps?

rox_publius | August 11, 2005, 11:18am | #

Thus reaffirming that while I may bitch about liberal politics, taken as a whole I'd much rather live amongst liberals than conservatives.

Ammonium | August 11, 2005, 11:37am | #

Ummm... the top two hellholes in this country are also the top two most liberal cities... the rest of the list contains most of the rest of the hellholes. The conservative list has a lot of vacation spots and warm suburbs.

ChicagoTom | August 11, 2005, 11:44am | #

Gary, Indiana is "liberal" ?

I am led to conclude that their definition must be minority or poor or Democrat = liberal ?

Rhywun | August 11, 2005, 11:47am | #

These results don't seem particularly surprising - although I find the high number of suburbs (not cities) on the conservative side to be rather misleading. I mean, Hialeah is a wealthy suburb of Miami - of course it's conservative. More interesting are the actual cities on that list - like Colorado Springs and Allentown (Allentown? PA?? is that a misprint?) - that make you search for reasons why they are conservative other than just being suburbs of liberal cities.

joe | August 11, 2005, 11:48am | #

With the exception of Gary, Detroit, and Newark, the liberal cities seem to be the places with significant income and ethnic diversity, not just high numbers of black and poor people.

Which would also seem to explain Ammonium's "warm suburb" comment.

Rhywun | August 11, 2005, 11:51am | #

And of course, the lists confuse economic and social liberalism and conservatism. I think they just looked at D and R voting patterns.

Yogi | August 11, 2005, 12:04pm | #

“The great political divide in America today is not red vs. blue, north vs. south, costal vs. interior or even rich vs. poor – it is now clearly black vs. white,” said Phil Reiff

Yes, because there are no other causes to why blacks vote Democrat. Its because they are more liberal than whites. Who knew?

What a crappy survey/list.

SR | August 11, 2005, 12:07pm | #

"More interesting are the actual cities on that list - like Colorado Springs and Allentown (Allentown? PA?? is that a misprint?) - that make you search for reasons why they are conservative other than just being suburbs of liberal cities."

I don't know about Allentown, but Colorado Springs has several military facilities near it and is apparently a popular retirement location for military personnel who still enjoy having a winter season.

Lars | August 11, 2005, 12:18pm | #

Having lived in a few places both on and off those lists, I have to seriously question their methodology.

For example, Anchorage (legal pot and otherwise liberal social environment) in no way strikes me as being in the same league as nearly anyplace in Utah.

And how could Portland (Oregon) not have wound up anywhere on the most liberal list? Or, for that matter, Eugene? Or Burlington ("we launched Bernie Sanders' political career") Vermont?

Shelby | August 11, 2005, 12:23pm | #

Portland shows up at #29 on their list, near but not in the top 25. Yeah, pretty crummy survey. What are the 25 most libertarian cities in the US? THERE is info I could use!

The conservative list has a lot of vacation spots and warm suburbs.

Is Lubbock, TX a "vacation spot" or a "warm suburb", Ammonium? I have a relative about to move there from Buffalo for grad school, and I want to know how to characterize it for him.

Rhywun | August 11, 2005, 12:36pm | #

Buffalo

See that's the thing - I lived in Buffalo for 8 years and I would hardly call it a "liberal" city. It's poor, depressed, and all but abandoned by anyone with the means to do so - and it's chock full of intolerant rednecks. Like many of these "liberal" cities, it's liberal only in a narrow sense.

B.D. | August 11, 2005, 12:39pm | #

FWIW, Nugent hasn't lived in the Detroit area for years. He has no real right to the title, so I won't shed a tear for him.

Eric the .5b | August 11, 2005, 1:02pm | #

he liberal cities seem to be the places with significant income and ethnic diversity

In other words, wherever liberals run the place, you see a bigger gap between rich and poor? ;)

Stevo Darkly | August 11, 2005, 1:09pm | #

"Detroit and Provo epitomize America's political, economic and racial polarization," said Jason Alderman a BACVR director

Hey, I thought that having people of different colors and different viewpoints was called "diversity." Didn't that used to be a good thing?

-------

Hmm, so St. Louis is the 20th most liberal city? This must refer to St. Louis City proper, not the politically separate St. Louis County, where most of the people in the St. Louis metropolitan area actually live.

BACVR researchers found a direct correlation between a city's political ideology and its racial makeup.

I also suspect the poor, black cities tend to be more "liberal" in an economic sense than a cultural sense. I remember reading citations from a Gallup poll that the average black voter (caveat, "voter" not "person") is actually more conservative than the average white voter on the specific issues of guns, abortion and school prayer, albeit this was more than 10 years ago. I'm also under the vague impression that black inner cities aren't exactly wellsprings of support for gay rights, either.

ChrisO | August 11, 2005, 1:11pm | #

Is Lubbock, TX a "vacation spot" or a "warm suburb", Ammonium? I have a relative about to move there from Buffalo for grad school, and I want to know how to characterize it for him.

I believe Lubbock is a "dry town," though you can get hooch in the surrounding counties. Pretty much tells you everything you need to know.

Douglas Fletcher | August 11, 2005, 1:12pm | #

FWIW, Nugent hasn't lived in the Detroit area for years. He has no real right to the title, so I won't shed a tear for him.

Just because he's a madman doesn't mean he's crazy.

Shelby | August 11, 2005, 1:38pm | #

ChrisO:

Lubbock is a "dry town," though you can get hooch in the surrounding counties

It's also a college town. Something tells me only the most socially inept will have trouble finding booze on campus.

Good thing, too, given my experience of northern West Texas...

Rhywun | August 11, 2005, 1:39pm | #

In other words, wherever liberals run the place, you see a bigger gap between rich and poor? ;)

If anything, it's the other way around. Most of the rich people flee, collapsing the tax base and leaving all the poor people, who - unless we're going to get a lot less charitable and deny them any medical services - start voting for whoever promises them more money.

Gcouz | August 11, 2005, 1:42pm | #

I guess this doesnt tell me much since the definitions of liberal and conservative vary. Is there any way to determine from the results likely libertarian cities?

linguist | August 11, 2005, 1:47pm | #

The "Nug" doesn't actually live IN Detroit. I don't even think he's close enough to be considered Detroit metro.

And speaking of Texas, I saw today on the news kiosk in my elevator that Texas has become the 4th state to have a non-white majority (they are counting Hispanics as non-white, obviously).

some st. louisan | August 11, 2005, 1:49pm | #

Hmm, so St. Louis is the 20th most liberal city? This must refer to St. Louis City proper, not the politically separate St. Louis County, where most of the people in the St. Louis metropolitan area actually live.

If the survey just goes by dem/rep voting patterns, st. louis county could be considered "liberal" as they have had a democrat for their county executive for quite a while now - and having just elected the first black county executive at that. These democrats have been very moderate, but if that's what the survey is looking at, then they could include st. louis county in the liberal category along with the city.

However, I also suspect that the survey most likely focused on st. louis city proper.

Rhywun | August 11, 2005, 2:07pm | #

However, I also suspect that the survey most likely focused on st. louis city proper.

I agree, since the conservative side mainly features satellite towns or suburbs. Which is another problem with any kind of survey that focuses on cities - the definition of a "city" varies wildly from state to state. They should focus only on metropolitan areas. The same sort of thing happened when Amherst, NY was recently cited as the "safest city in America". Amherst is actually an older suburban township adjacent to Buffalo.

Curious | August 11, 2005, 3:58pm | #

linguist - the others? Hawaii and California? Mississippi?

Rhywun | August 11, 2005, 4:01pm | #

I'm going to guess California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Moon God | August 11, 2005, 6:39pm | #

I don't get this list... where the hell is Madison, Wisconsin? AKA, Mad-town, AKA, 50 square miles surrounded by reality? And Austin, Texas? I find it interesting, also, that Clearwater, Florida, headquarters of the Scientologist Church, is among the more conservative towns. That sort of makes sense...

narciso | August 11, 2005, 10:41pm | #

Only someone who's never been to Hialeah, could consider it a rich suburb of Miami; it's much a more working class town, ruled by the local Daley/Hague/Curley politico; Mayor Raul Martinez

jacob | August 12, 2005, 6:39pm | #

asided from detroit, newark, gary the rest are not poor? what about flint, oakland, etc... oakland is home to the black panthers, a highly crime ridden, dangerous, black, hispanic, and asian community, very poor!

jacob | August 12, 2005, 6:41pm | #

not to mention flint was once the most depressed city in nation!

Mr. X | August 12, 2005, 6:58pm | #

Hialeah is the best city ever