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Posted on 06/21/2009 1:04:32 AM PDT by Leisler
A new nationwide study released 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 Americas 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, MI, and Provo, UT, epitomize Americas political, economic and racial polarization, says Peter Thai, a BACVR researcher. 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 Americas 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 nations most conservative cities, Texas cements its reputation as Americas 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 citys 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, says 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 says.
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 http://www.votingresearch.org
http://www.votingresearch.org. Americas 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
Americas 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
Boy, you totally missed it! Inglewood is in LA county. Inglewood is totally black. But LA isn’t totally Liberal. But it is in your mind.
I’ve lived in LA for 60 years and it is not totally Liberal. I know, I work in a office that is 80% Conservative. That does not fit your view of LA, does it?
No, Inglewood. Sorry, I should have been clear.
My hubby is from Conservative #14.
Gosh, I’d never have guessed Detroit and Flint. ;’)
Lubbock Texas is a college town - Texas Tech University and Lubbock Christian University, as well as several branches of small colleges- and ranked #2 conservative for the second year in a row.....!
I expect that they are all under the population requirement.
>BACVR researchers found a direct correlation between a citys 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, says Phil Reiff, a BACVR director.<
So much for all that “healing” of racism in America that was supposed to happen if they all voted for Zero.
Suckers.
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
I'll bet there are far more conservative cities than those listed. They aren't rated because they are under 100k pop.
I was thinking more along the lines of "Idiocracy".
President Camacho would still be an improvement over Obama, though.
Wasn't a bad place, but could be a bit rough.
Now, it looks like little LA, but is still the conservative bastion of California.
Detroit may be the most “Democratic Party” city in America, but it is nowhere near Berkeley in terms of being “liberal”. Liberals in Detroit and liberals in wacko leftist places like Berkeley are two different animals. Seems this study just took the places with the highest percentage of Democratic Party votes and labeled them the most liberal.
Even before seeing the list, I wouldn’t have wanted to live in any of the ranked liberal cities. Flint, MI is an armpit (my apologies to anyone trapped in Flint). Detroit....that place hasn’t been livable for 30+ years.
“Can you really have meaningful comparisons between places like Detroit and Peoria, Arizona. I’m not even certain all of those sites on the conservative list actually qualify as “cities”.”
For sure Peoria and Gilbert, AZ are towns by my assessment.
I am Sure you are Absolutely Correct. I Noticed that the Most Significant Factors - From the information they provide - Are Marriage & Foreign Language Spoken in the Homes. In the More Conservative Cities, a Significantly Higher % of the people Are Married. And In the More Liberal Cities, a Significantly Higher % of the People Speak a Foreign Language in their Homes.
I Realize that many people assume that Conservatives discriminate Racially & that that is why Conservative Cities have significantly lower Minority Population. While its Hard to tell what causes - or is caused by - what; Perhaps it is b/c Minorities believe the Democrat policies will be better for them & b/c Democrats pursue the votes of & Seek to Say, what Minorities want to hear; That Both Liberal Politicians & Minorities are in the same Cities in Higher numbers.
By the Same token, Married folks tend to Believe Conservative Policies are better for them. And Conservatives tend to promote Family b/c they believe that is best for society.
Once you put all of those things together, its easy to see that the combination of More Marriages/Families and Conservative Politicians produces less Poverty... AND the Combination of Liberals & homes that do not assimilate by learning to speak English tend to produce more Poverty.
That is my Hypothesis.
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