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
Flawed model...New York City on 21 on the L list? Austin, TX on the conservative list? What a joke.
Oops, that's Arlington, TX...okay, that fits. I lived there for two years.
I did some US Census lookups.
In 2000, the 25 liberal cities had a combined population of 20,056,925. The 25 conservative cities had a combined population of 4,732,782.
In 2004, the 25 liberal cities had a combined population of 19,897,172 -- a drop of nearly 160,000 people, or 0.8%. By contrast the 25 conservative cities had a combined population of 5,059,288 -- growing by 326,706, or 6.5% in 4 years. This is a growth pace 50% higher than the national rate of 4.3%.
Together, the 25 conservative cities made a net gain of nearly half a million people against the 25 liberal cities in only 4 years. That's almost an entire congressional district in a single presidential election cycle, from a small list of cities.
If you believe that demography is destiny, the point is obvious: long term, liberals are screwed.
Get_REAL33
Since Aug 11, 2005.
I'm late getting to this thread, but just in case it hasn't been said............
Every village has it's idiot.
Guess they've never heard of Boulder, CO either.
Not as much of a joke as you may think.
There has been a huge inflow of yuppies move in in the last decade, thanks to the tech industries that have moved in there. They don't know or care about Hippie Hollow or Armadillo World Headquarters (there's a bank building there now). The progs have been griping about it for years, how much the city has changed.
Austin, like any college town, will always be a bastion of liberals, but it's not near so bad as it was in the 60s and 70s.
I'm sure they do. fwiw, i never panhandled or scammed anyone, i wore shoes and stayed clean. i paid my own way. i respected the people of the town. i was just drifting for a while. In fact, I left Boulder pretty quick cuz I didn't like the sleazoids. I didn't like the way they took food from salvation army when they were able bodied. in fact, being around them is probably the first time I realized that a lot of that 60s stuff was bs. my adventures made me more conservative. taught me a lot.
hmmmmmm
#2 Toledo, OHIO
How about Tombstone??
Heh, if it weren't for me, Bethesda, MD woulda broke into the top 25 lefty towns... I'm hanging on to it like on a helo skid, flaying in the air but defying the winds and the fools about me.
You're welcome Bethesda.
Detroit and Gary are considered cities? Ugly hellholes is more like it.
Excellent bit of research.
Just guesstimating but I betcha that most of the liberal cities on this list are near or in bankruptcy as well.
And should be again.....
That Henry Ford's Model T Automobile Plant could be turned into a great tourist location if only it wasn't in Detroit.
Also, notice how the absolute worst city in the country is the most liberal.
Lancaster is about 60,000, IIRC. I'm surprised about Allentown too-- closing all the factories down, Pennsylvania we never found etc.
since Pa cities are on both lists.
Yeah, I looked it up after I posted. I'd looked up pop. stats before, but based on media market. The Lancaster/York/Harrisburg axis is pretty well populated.
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