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
Bakersfield is the redheaded stepchild in California. The butt of many a joke. Personally, I didn’t think it was that bad. A bit hot, but what would you expect for a town in the middle of a desert?
I’ll bet every one of those top liberal cities are bleeding Red Ink and they’re draining their tax payers of their last dime.
The impoverished part is do to the fact that Detroit has been controlled by the democrats for over 40 years.
The residents call it [bad word]wood. It’s a word they can say but I can’t, being white.
Nice city with great weather, but filled with smug folks NOT counting the military. Visited about three times in my life, but not a fan of the west coast in general.
Yes, and Atlanta is conspicuously absent, a raging liberal “black mecca” and homosexual haven. Crime is so out of control, I saw it made the overall #2 in the country recently.
But I’m not sold that it’s a black and white issue as the author contends because blacks aren’t even any longer the largest minority in this country, hispanics are.
The fewer of you that move here the better.
My parents were living in Seattle when I was born. What used to be a great city has been turned into a liberal bastion of idiocy over the last 40 years or so. It now has more dogs than it has children. What does that tell you?
Fine. But acknowledge the fact that SD City AND County both voted for the most left wing major party presidential nominee in history.
Most of the large cities on the list of most Dem are heavily black or metrosexual.
Generally, the larger the city and the greater the population density, the more liberal the city. Big cities are, in general, full of freeloading liberals living off the fruit of other peoples’ labor.
Perhaps the most Liberal cities should just be called what they really are...”Hell Holes”.
What are you talking about? Hollywood? The residents do not call LA Hollywood ... Hollywood is a part of Los Angeles.
I have lived in LA for 60 years. I have lived in Hollywood for about 40 years. There are Conservatives and Liberals in LA and Hollywood.
You’re asking me to so something I already did. What’s the point? I already told you about the county and you mentioned a one-time election. What else needs to be said?
This is a crock. It is not white vs. black or north vs. south. All it proves is that the larger the city the more likely it is liberal as those seeking handouts flood to the cities.
You’re wrong. The cities mentioned are not the LARGEST cities. It turns out that they are have very high percentage of black residents.
So they are small [as the study shows] yet with high black populations.
Where is NY, or LA or Atlanta? There are hundreds of cities over 100000 in population. They picked what they wanted to pick to try to prove there presumption. Those cities on the liberal side are some of the biggest.. Detroit, Chicago, Seattle...
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