Posted on 08/11/2005 1:13:23 PM PDT by TheMole
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.
America’s 25 Most Liberal Cities
(in descending order)
1 Detroit Michigan
2 Gary Indiana
3 Berkeley California
4 Washington, D.C.
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)
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
We didn't make the top ten, that's a shock"
I know, what more do we have to do, Mcdermott, the Lenin statue. Ron Simms. I woulda thought we'd be in the top 5
actually I would have thought that Amarillo was more consevative than Lubbock.
Lubbock is a great place to live. It ain't purty but for some reason people just love the Hub City.
"That's Luckenbach. Lubbock is Buddy Holly and natalie maines" & Mac Davis.
I've spent about 1/3rd of my adult life in Asia. Go to Tokyo, Singapore or Osaka and the central cities are some of the nicest places there-- Ginza in Tokyo, Orchard Road in Singapore and Umeda in Osaka are all prime examples of attractive city centers.
Compare it with the central cities in America. Here in Pittsburgh, you have an attractive downtown skyline, but places you don't even want to park just a few steps away. Ditto for LA-- Little Tokyo downtown is nice, but a block away there is rubble-strewn vacant lots, druggies and winos living out of shoppoing carts. Ditto for almost any American city and for every one run by Liberals.
Why can Asia do it but America can't? You need look no further than who is running the cities. Tokyo's mayor for instance, is probably more conservative than Japan as a whole-- with congestion far more than anything in the United States. I used to walk home from the railroad station in Japan through acres of high rise housing projects. The loudest noise you could hear was some kid practicing the piano 3 or 4 floors up. According to the Jesse Jackson theory of urban crowding and poor housing, these places should've been havens of crime and dispair. Yet, most of the residents went to work, minded their business and pushed their kids to study and do well in school.
In other words, conservative values make a city (or suburb or village or rural area) livable; liberal values turn it into a hell-hole.
Hialeah is the fourth most conservative city? I guess the Cubans are still the largest voting block down there (despite the recent influx of Central Americans).
Evolution doesn't stop just because all the liberals have reached the top of the pay scale in their union contracts and want to remain at the top for all eternity. They got their 20 minutes and now it's time to step aside and let the others have their turn.
There's no way the Helen Thomas or Jimmy Carter look will be making a comeback.
I think you are right. If you follow the link to the full list, Amarillo is not even on it. It goes all the way down to Detroit, from most conservative to most liberal. I guess Lubbock is representative of the panhandle area. I will take it at number 2.
Just having McDermott should have been good enough. Those other cities must really be hopeless.
Midland (city's) population was a tad short of 95,000, according to the 2000 census. So it wasn't big enough to be included.
The thought just hit me that the "panhandle" of every state which has one is very conservative.
Pffttt... We got 7 cities on that list and we have BOXER.
ping
I think it is time to move to Utah. Seattle @ 16??? Something is wrong. No voting records will show a conservative voting trend in this cess pool.
I assume Burlington Vermont is too small to make the list. I doubt any place in America can be as liberal as here.
That, or being so close to Odessa knocks us off the list.
post 153: astonishing images of a socialist wasteland.
Bump for later
Did you note the "liberal cities" are also the most "vibrant" as well? ;-)
It's because the Hub has the most beautiful women.
I think that you are on to something...
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