NEW STUDY RANKS AMERICA’S MOST LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE CITIES

Bay Area Center for Voting Research ^ | August 11, 2005 | Bay Area Center for Voting Research

[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

[lmr]

Lawrence, Ks. - Another Liberal hellhole full of latte-drinking slackers and bohemian hippies.

[AGreatPer]

If you take Lancaster, York, Harrisburg and Carlisle with the other small towns here, this area has about 1.2 million people.

[Tribune7]

It's one of the few metro areas in the state that is growing.

[Tribune7]

Lawrence, Ks. - Another Liberal hellhole full of latte-drinking slackers and bohemian hippies.

Puts Quantrill in a better light, huh? :-)

[ABG(anybody but Gore)]

I'm just happy that Lafayette made number 9 on "Most Conservative". Sort of like Algore losing Tennessee in 2000, Kathleen "Blank-mind" Blanco couldn't even carry her hometown in the 2003 gubernatorial race, although I would say that St. Tammany parish is a bit more conservative.

[Clemenza]

Speaking as someone who until last year lived in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, NYC that had a Republican state Senator and the most conservative congressman in the state (Vito Fosella), I can tell you that NY is not nearly as bad as Seattle, where I currently live. The main difference between Detroit (#1) and Seattle, politically at least, is that while 19% of Seattlites have the sense to vote Republican, only about 7% of Detroiters do.

[Fledermaus]

I'd rather live in Baghdad than Detroit.

[rwfromkansas]

I wonder what the cities would be like with a crime rate comparison?

[GOPJ]

bump

[Ciexyz]

btt

[lmr]

Had to read up on Quantrill, what a nasty dude. Yes, he is better than what exists in Lawrence these days. Interesting that Quantrill was a part of "Bleeding Kansas" and the rivalry between the University Of Missouri and the University Of Kansas which goes back to Quantrill, his raiders and the po'ed Kansans and Union Soldiers who burnt everything down to the ground in that part of Missouri.

Ironically, I am a huge fan of Kansas University basketball. (Yeah, I know we lost to Quantrill, I mean Bucknell) LOL.

[KimmyJaye]

I wonder how the crime rate works out between liberal and conservative cities.

Anyone know where to find that info?

[Tribune7]

I graduated from Mizzou. :-)

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

One fat bad apple....... Yeah Lubbock!!!

[april15Bendovr]

I'm surprised that Portland Maine didn't make the liberal list? It has turned into one gigantic 60's commune smelly arm pit city.

[TypeZoNegative]

23 Minneapolis Minnesota

36 St. Paul Minnesota

Hence my tagline.

[lmr]

LMAO. It's funny who you meet here. My favorite school is WSU. (Wichita State). The Shockers have a hell of a basketball team coming back next year. I know it's irrelevant. We should be mortal enemies, shouldn't we? ;-)

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

“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.

Intellectual liberalism...well that's an oxymoron. Note the implied racism of not mentioning Detroit as being the bastion of black, intellectual liberalism.

[TheMole]

Crime statistics are not totally reliable. Some cites do a better job of collecting them than others, some residents are more likely to bother reporting crimes than others, yadda. The most reliable crime statistics are probably the murder rates, because with murder you usually have a body. Here's an effort at comparing city crime rates from http://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/crime3.aspx. The murder rate per 100,000 population is in the second column from the left.

America's Best and Worst Cities for Crime

The cities listed here are 100 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. Generally, MSAs are defined as a central city and its county, and possibly surrounding counties, if a significant portion of the area's population commutes between the counties on a regular basis.

100 Largest Metro Areas
(Ranked in order from Least to Most Crime)

			Index	Murder	Rape	Robbery	Assault	Burglary	Larceny	Auto theft
*	Nassau-Suffolk	NY	1,968.4	1.7	5.9	48.6	75.3	250.8	1,409.4	176.7
	Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon	NJ	2,210.6	1.3	10.3	65.8	97.2	389.0	1,424.3	222.8
	Ventura	CA	2,265.9	2.7	16.8	80.9	158.4	418.4	1,390.0	198.8
	Monmouth-Ocean	NJ	2,295.9	2.3	10.6	59.9	129.4	382.1	1,589.9	121.7
	Bergen-Passaic	NJ	2,392.0	2.0	7.0	113.7	126.6	390.6	1,420.7	331.4
	Scranton-Wilkes-Barre-Hazleton	PA	2,540.7	3.3	26.1	69.5	159.2	407.0	1,692.0	183.4
	Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle	PA	2,563.4	3.8	34.5	104.4	144.4	387.6	1,772.5	116.3
	San Jose	CA	2,645.5	2.1	31.1	74.4	249.6	349.3	1,650.6	288.2
	Pittsburgh	PA	2,772.0	4.8	24.6	119.7	221.9	449.7	1,702.6	248.7
	Orange County	CA	2,788.3	2.6	15.2	94.5	165.8	449.1	1,692.7	368.3
	Ann Arbor	MI	2,903.8	3.1	36.2	50.1	168.1	570.9	1,873.2	202.3
*	Albany-Schenectady-Troy	NY	2,908.5	2.4	23.0	85.9	168.9	521.6	1,985.1	121.7
	Boston	MA-NH-ME	2,919.5	2.6	23.4	126.2	300.5	400.5	1,667.8	398.5
	New York	NY	2,973.4	6.6	19.2	303.5	387.9	361.2	1,581.8	313.2
	Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton	PA	2,991.3	3.1	30.4	88.5	174.6	460.1	2,041.3	193.2
	Syracuse	NY	3,223.5	4.5	19.1	99.6	202.5	597.1	2,070.5	230.3
	Philadelphia	PA-NJ	3,389.6	7.8	33.4	234.0	313.4	490.1	1,901.4	409.6
	Hartford	CT	3,426.2	3.0	19.7	149.2	145.5	503.5	2,147.6	457.7
	Rochester	NY	3,434.5	4.6	21.1	113.6	113.5	476.7	2,355.1	350.1
	Newark	NJ	3,492.4	6.5	19.0	253.2	239.4	540.9	1,635.9	797.5
	Buffalo-Niagara Falls	NY	3,512.7	4.4	27.6	182.4	263.1	621.1	2,092.2	321.9
	San Diego	CA	3,611.8	3.0	27.4	114.6	336.0	623.8	1,825.4	681.6
	Providence-Fall River-Warwick	RI-MA	3,659.1	3.4	36.0	98.0	212.7	603.9	2,231.6	473.5
	Jersey City	NJ	3,724.8	4.8	17.4	317.2	332.5	674.4	1,693.2	685.2
	Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland	MI	3,760.5	2.1	50.6	74.9	319.8	719.4	2,346.0	247.8
*	Cleveland-Lorain-Elyria	OH	3,769.5	6.4	47.0	206.5	122.6	790.4	1,981.7	614.9
	San Francisco	CA	3,846.6	5.2	22.8	226.1	228.7	554.6	2,294.8	514.5
*	New Haven-Meriden	CT	3,926.0	3.3	22.7	179.2	230.0	574.7	2,508.6	407.6
*	Indianapolis	IN	3,980.3	7.9	39.1	185.6	330.3	832.4	2,143.8	441.1
	Los Angeles-Long Beach	CA	3,998.3	11.8	29.3	303.9	557.4	628.8	1,737.9	729.2
	Minneapolis-St. Paul	MN-WI	4,026.1	3.0	42.2	119.7	167.2	592.1	2,757.9	344.1
	Washington	DC-MD-VA	4,047.1	9.4	22.9	202.9	270.4	501.2	2,361.4	679.0
*	Wilmington-Newark	DE-MD	4,082.1	3.6	35.3	163.4	383.8	686.8	2,347.9	461.3
*	Akron	OH	4,172.0	3.3	46.9	145.8	190.6	808.5	2,582.6	394.3
	Gary	IN	4,182.3	14.9	21.3	152.0	249.1	663.2	2,514.5	567.5
	El Paso	TX	4,227.8	2.4	38.3	84.7	480.4	381.9	2,923.6	316.5
	Riverside-San Bernardino	CA	4,236.5	7.5	30.3	158.8	381.2	877.8	2,060.9	720.0
	Bakersfield	CA	4,249.2	7.4	32.1	113.6	338.4	949.8	2,309.5	498.6
	Detroit	MI	4,297.9	10.9	42.7	191.1	460.3	705.9	2,065.9	821.0
	Fort Lauderdale	FL	4,306.8	5.3	27.6	175.5	336.4	749.3	2,523.1	489.6
	Chicago	IL	4,367.0	9.8	42.6	272.4	408.1	597.7	2,580.0	456.4
*	Youngstown-Warren	OH	4,411.8	5.2	46.4	186.1	166.0	924.4	2,652.9	430.8
	Knoxville	TN	4,440.0	5.0	31.0	109.4	387.8	962.3	2,582.3	362.1
	Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News	VA-NC	4,478.7	6.1	34.9	173.1	249.1	655.6	2,972.6	387.4
*	Milwaukee-Waukesha	WI	4,521.1	7.1	28.3	227.7	155.9	653.1	2,898.5	550.5
	Cincinnati	OH-KY-IN	4,541.5	4.9	46.3	194.4	186.1	810.1	2,889.1	410.6
	Richmond-Petersburg	VA	4,548.3	11.2	27.0	193.3	214.1	671.9	3,001.1	429.7
*	Springfield	MA	4,561.2	3.3	41.3	144.7	719.0	994.8	2,197.6	460.7
	Atlanta	GA	4,638.5	8.3	24.5	214.6	277.7	874.9	2,664.6	574.0
	Birmingham	AL	4,689.7	9.1	43.6	198.1	285.4	928.9	2,819.8	404.7
	Louisville	KY-IN	4,696.6	6.0	18.9	142.4	343.8	956.6	2,786.0	442.8
	Colorado Springs	CO	4,713.4	7.2	56.1	102.3	277.9	906.6	3,019.6	343.8
	Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson	SC	4,725.8	6.4	46.1	116.8	539.1	933.0	2,740.1	344.3
	Austin-San Marcos	TX	4,761.6	3.0	38.4	107.5	221.8	841.5	3,235.6	313.9
	Las Vegas	NV-AZ	4,811.2	9.9	40.1	266.8	362.0	1,003.7	2,181.4	947.2
	Denver	CO	4,821.1	4.6	47.1	110.2	224.2	749.5	2,884.0	801.4
	Sacramento	CA	4,830.2	5.2	35.3	186.7	314.6	887.4	2,543.1	858.0
	Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill	NC	4,871.9	5.9	23.4	175.7	250.3	1,105.0	2,989.5	322.2
	Oakland	CA	4,896.8	7.8	27.5	232.4	293.8	727.3	2,709.9	897.9
	Dayton-Springfield	OH	4,928.6	6.0	54.4	192.7	134.1	1,011.9	2,984.7	544.9
	Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point	NC	4,936.5	6.3	29.2	148.0	265.5	1,102.3	3,074.0	311.3
	Sarasota-Bradenton	FL	5,089.0	3.6	36.1	138.6	446.4	1,079.5	3,095.6	289.2
	Portland-Vancouver	OR-WA	5,095.4	2.1	43.3	108.6	218.3	729.0	3,430.1	564.0
	Baltimore	MD	5,124.3	12.0	24.0	294.3	659.8	794.1	2,847.8	492.3
	Tulsa	OK	5,133.5	5.0	44.5	124.8	496.8	1,078.7	2,826.0	557.6
	New Orleans	LA	5,180.4	24.4	29.3	228.8	410.0	806.2	2,857.3	824.5
	Seattle-Bellevue-Everett	WA	5,219.4	2.9	36.1	121.2	193.1	829.2	3,092.6	944.3
*	St. Louis	MO-IL	5,315.7	8.7	122.8	151.1	441.9	819.0	3,174.9	597.3
	Salt Lake City-Ogden	UT	5,382.9	2.2	46.4	75.2	179.0	761.7	3,862.3	456.2
	Wichita	KS	5,458.4	4.7	50.1	154.1	314.1	1,018.4	3,540.2	376.7
	Mobile	AL	5,494.3	11.0	41.3	200.4	252.8	1,173.3	3,395.3	420.1
	Houston	TX	5,505.4	8.4	36.3	322.1	447.5	1,042.2	2,897.0	751.9
	Nashville	TN	5,560.5	6.4	51.6	188.9	680.2	927.2	3,206.5	499.6
	Orlando	FL	5,709.9	4.5	39.8	195.5	576.9	1,172.2	3,144.9	576.1
	Fresno	CA	5,738.6	7.2	32.8	200.9	371.3	920.0	3,123.7	1,082.7
	McAllen-Edinburg-Mission	TX	5,746.9	7.7	29.6	102.9	346.7	1,091.1	3,786.6	382.3
	Fort Worth-Arlington	TX	5,763.6	5.0	40.1	160.8	278.2	1,113.9	3,699.0	466.7
	Charleston-North Charleston	SC	5,803.2	9.3	49.6	190.6	591.0	985.8	3,318.2	658.7
	Jacksonville	FL	5,821.6	8.9	35.6	205.3	587.2	1,059.9	3,354.5	570.0
*	Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill	NC-SC	5,868.7	7.7	37.1	217.3	503.3	1,254.2	3,466.4	382.6
	Dallas	TX	5,879.3	7.8	37.4	272.6	364.7	1,093.9	3,351.1	751.9
	Omaha	NE-IA	5,890.7	4.6	39.2	157.1	313.4	718.6	3,871.9	785.9
	Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater	FL	5,899.3	5.3	45.3	225.0	612.6	1,135.7	3,199.9	675.5
	Columbia	SC	5,959.2	7.5	49.5	210.4	611.6	1,135.6	3,425.2	519.5
	Toledo	OH	6,040.9	5.1	39.2	243.1	289.8	1,218.0	3,630.7	614.9
	Albuquerque	NM	6,165.8	9.6	56.7	206.5	641.3	1,000.3	3,576.8	674.6
	Tacoma	WA	6,182.0	4.0	56.1	152.9	343.5	1,050.4	3,686.6	888.4
	Columbus	OH	6,233.5	6.6	62.1	265.2	175.4	1,450.0	3,661.5	612.6
*	Kansas City	MO-KS	6,338.5	8.3	47.7	197.1	602.4	1,165.6	3,560.1	757.2
	West Palm Beach-Boca Raton	FL	6,343.4	3.0	39.8	212.4	491.4	1,276.1	3,660.6	660.0
	Honolulu	HI	6,360.4	2.0	33.8	119.1	134.0	992.0	4,136.9	942.7
	Oklahoma City	OK	6,466.6	4.6	59.8	128.9	350.0	1,222.2	4,245.0	456.0
	Stockton-Lodi	CA	6,482.6	10.1	36.1	263.6	627.2	1,045.7	3,479.2	1,020.7
	Baton Rouge	LA	6,680.7	14.2	43.2	232.8	433.7	1,385.9	4,156.0	414.9
	San Antonio	TX	6,775.3	7.3	36.7	139.7	493.3	1,009.8	4,688.3	400.3
	Little Rock-North Little Rock	AR	6,806.4	10.3	43.4	202.1	401.4	1,344.2	4,349.9	455.0
	Phoenix-Mesa	AZ	6,846.6	8.2	27.5	177.1	359.4	1,178.0	3,775.8	1,320.8
	Miami	FL	7,170.6	8.7	35.5	358.0	714.1	1,108.5	4,046.0	899.9
*	Memphis	TN-AR-MS	7,224.6	15.1	55.2	378.0	606.6	1,769.7	3,483.2	916.8
	Tucson	AZ	7,543.0	8.1	48.7	173.5	401.3	1,057.7	4,883.6	970.0

* indicates 2002 UCR crime rates not reported by FBI. Estimated from prior and current statistics.

[Guenevere]

Good for you!...a lot of wisdom in your words.