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
Nah, Freepers should never be enemies :-)
Further, I wonder if the two lists would have a high coorelation?
Ok, so what did GETREAL say to me? (I checked my Posts this morning and the one from him was deleted by Mod) Anything good? ;)
He mentioned something about sending "blacks to labor camps" and "White Power". This had DU rifraff written all over it.
Hialeah (the #4 MOST CONSERVATIVE city according to this survey) is about 90% Hispanic. Of course, since Cuban Americans are the largest voting block in Hialeah (although they are declining as they move out to nicer towns), it should be no surprise that it voted so heavily Republican in 2004.
That study is just absurd. Allentown, PA was one of the "most conservative" cities in America according to the survey, and ìt gave President Bush only 37.29% in 2000 and probably not more than 40% in 2004.
Of course, maybe they meant something else with "conservative," such as how people dress or what sort of nocturnal entertainment is allowed. But if so, why did they say that it was based on the 2004 presidential elections?
Yes, there is a Peoria Arizona. I live about five miles from the city limits. You can find it in MapQuest!
I can't believe all the SoCal cities that made the list! Woohoo! I am thrilled that Huntington Beach is on there because we may not live there but we spend a lot of time there. And L.A. did not make the 25 most liberal! Yeeah-ha-ha! (Or did the illegal aliens skew the polling??)
and there is NO connection, eh?
Yeah, it aint working, folks...
OK, if we are doing songs about our conservative towns on the list... Here's Huntington Beach!
(Brian Wilson/Jan Berry)
I bought a pretty cool wagon and we call it a woody
(Surf City, here we come)
You know, it's not very cherry, it's an oldie but a goody
(Surf City, here we come)
Well, it ain't got a backseat or a rear window
But it still gets me where I wanna go
Chorus:
And we're goin' Surf City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' Surf City, gonna have some fun
Yeah we're goin' Surf City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' Surf City, gonna have some fun, now
They say they never roll the scoops, because there's always
something goin'
(Surf City, here we come)
You know, they're either out surfin' or they got a party growin'
(Surf City, here we come)
Well it's two swingin' honey for every guy
And all you gotta do is just wink your eye
(chorus)
And if my woody breaks down, I'll get somewhere as a surfer
(Surf City, here we come)
I'll strap my board to my back and hitch a ride in my wet-suit
(Surf City, here we come)
And when I get to Surf City, I'll be shootin' the curl
And checkin' out the parties for surfer girls
(chorus)
Most of the hispanic political stickers here in Phoenix are "viva Bush." I don't remember seeing many pro-Kerry stickers around the south side of town but maybe I don't know enough swear words in Spanish.
I like the stick figure family stickers they put on their cars, although I worry about how safe it is to publicly give the names of their kids. But it's cool that they are proud of their families!
Great post!
Greenville, South Carolina is a very conservative city, home of Bob Jones University.
Ok, which conservative ruined the curve for Berzerkley?
C'mon. Fess up. I know it was one of you.
Bump. My town made the second list. :)
Only # 23? That survey is either skewed or they included Saint Paul.
7 Newark New Jersey... the city that some of the terrorist flew out of on 911
If you download the entire list, Madison is number 33.
26 - 50 are
26 - New Orleans
27 - Ann Arbor
28 - Jersey City
29 - Portland, OR
30 - Daly City, CA
31 - Atlanta
32 - Hayward, CA
33 - Madison, WI
34 - Pittsburg
35 - St Paul, MN
36 - LA
37 - Rochester, NY
38 - Memphis
39 - Vallejo, CA
40 - Milwaukee
41 - Dayton, OH
42 - Bridgeport, CT
43 - Springfield, MA
44 - Syracuse
45 - Jackson, MS
46 - Akron, OH
47 - Denver
48 - Richmond, VA
49 - El Monte, CA
50 - Pasadena, CA
Question: aside from being equidistant from Detroit Metro Airport (and this study), I’d like to hear one similarity between the number one liberal city (detroit) and the number twenty-seven (ann arbor)? The term liberal seems to have a very elusive practical definition, no? As for what the study “proves” with regard to population growth/contraction, let’s not forget our psych 101 class—correlation does not necessarily imply causality.
I caught that as well.
ABE has been drifting more and more liberal as its population grows from those fleeing Philadelphia.
I don't think it deserves to be on the conservative list.
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