Saturday, August 13, 2005

Most liberal and conservative cities...

Somewhat flawed, but interesting nonetheless. I would guess places with higher than average homosexual populations also greatly influence this subject.



NEW STUDY RANKS AMERICA’S MOST LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE CITIES

Detroit tops liberal list; Provo, UT most conservative

BERKELEY, CA – A new nationwide study released today by the nonpartisan Bay Area Center for Voting Research (BACVR) ranks the political leanings of every American city and finds that Detroit, Michigan is the most liberal and Provo, Utah the most conservative.
In all, the BACVR researchers examined voting patterns of 237 American cities with populations of over 100,000 and ranked them each on liberal and conservative scales.
The list of America’s most liberal cities is dominated by cities with large African American populations that are concentrated in the Northeast, Midwest and California. Conversely, the study found that the staunchest conservative cities are clustered in the South and interior West and have extremely low numbers of African American residents.
“Detroit and Provo epitomize America’s political, economic and racial polarization,” said Jason Alderman a BACVR director. “As the most conservative city in America, Provo is overwhelmingly white and solidly middle class. This is in stark contrast to Detroit, which is impoverished, black and the most liberal.”
Gary, Indiana, a rust belt former steel town, comes in as America’s second most liberal city, followed by Berkeley, California, which ranks third. Washington, D.C. comes in as the fourth most liberal and Oakland, California comes in fifth.
On the list of the nation’s most conservative cities, Texas cements its reputation as America’s most rock-ribbed state, having three cities in the top five. Lubbock and Abilene, Texas rank as the second and third most conservative cities, respectively, followed by Hialeah, Florida in fourth place and Plano, Texas in fifth.

BACVR researchers found a direct correlation between a city’s political ideology and its racial makeup. “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, a BACVR director.
“While there are a few liberal cities without large African American populations, these wind up being the exceptions. College towns like Berkeley and Cambridge have modest black populations but remain bastions of upper middle-class, white, intellectual liberalism. These liberal white communities, however, are more reminiscent of penguins clustering together around a shrinking iceberg than of a vibrant and growing political movement,” Reiff said.
The Bay Area Center for Voting Research is a nonpartisan think tank based in Berkeley, California. A full copy of the report and the complete list of rankings for all 237 cities are available at www.votingresearch.org.
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America’s 25 Most Liberal Cities
(in descending order)
Rank City State
1 Detroit Michigan
2 Gary Indiana
3 Berkeley California
4 Washington, D.C. Dist. of Columbia
5 Oakland California
6 Inglewood California
7 Newark New Jersey
8 Cambridge Massachusetts
9 San Francisco California
10 Flint Michigan
11 Cleveland Ohio
12 Hartford Connecticut
13 Paterson New Jersey
14 Baltimore Maryland
15 New Haven Connecticut
16 Seattle Washington
17 Chicago Illinois
18 Philadelphia Pennsylvania
19 Birmingham Alabama
20 St. Louis Missouri
21 New York New York
22 Providence Rhode Island
23 Minneapolis Minnesota
24 Boston Massachusetts
25 Buffalo New York



America’s 25 Most Conservative Cities
(in descending order)
Rank City State
1 Provo Utah
2 Lubbock Texas
3 Abilene Texas
4 Hialeah Florida
5 Plano Texas
6 Colorado Springs Colorado
7 Gilbert Arizona
8 Bakersfield California
9 Lafayette Louisiana
10 Orange California
11 Escondido California
12 Allentown Pennsylvania
13 Mesa Arizona
14 Arlington Texas
15 Peoria Arizona
16 Cape Coral Florida
17 Garden Grove California
18 Simi Valley California
19 Corona California
20 Clearwater Florida
21 West Valley City Utah
22 Oklahoma City Oklahoma
23 Overland Park Kansas
24 Anchorage Alaska
25 Huntington Beach California

4 comments:

KS said...

Go Texas!!!! Gig'em Aggies!

Kevin Jones said...

Wow, three of the top 10 liberal cities are in my back yard. I wonder how I turned out the way I did!

Chris Meirose said...

The methodology probably leaves a bit to be desired, but it does give a general idea I guess. I am actually surprized at how low Minneapolis ranks, and I suspect that is only because of the smallish minority population. Minneapolis has an 18% black population, which is considerably smaller than many major metro areas. I state this because that was one of the key indicators in the study (and part of the reason I think it is flawed). St. Paul comes in at 36th place, and has 12% black population. An additional article about this is in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis news paper) and can be found HERE

Big Chris

Dave Yaros said...

I have to wonder if there is more than a corelation between the state of decay of the city and the degree of liberalism found in the environs?

I am Gary, Indiana, born, bred and educated. I was quite liberal in my youth (weren't we all?), but I do not consider myself to be a liberal any more.

A feeling for the how/why of Gary being a spawning ground for liberals may be gained from the offerings of the Dave's Den web site. It provides a lot of info on the history of Gary.

The web site name is Dave's Den
The web site url is http://GDYNets.WEBNG.com