When you read up on U.S. political basics, you can’t help but come across the detail that many of the people in cities in the U.S. seem to lean left, yet what isn’t as clear is why and what influences their concentration in cities/urban areas.
Cities don’t exactly appear to be affordable, and left-leaning folks in the U.S. don’t seem to necessarily be much wealthier than right-leaning folks, so what’s contributed to this situation?
It’s more that cities tend to make people liberal. Some folks in small towns have never met a Muslim person or a Korean person. They have only a family tradition of racism in their small white racist town. People in cities have to live alongside many different types of people, and get to eat different foods and have different experiences. That cures racism.
Yep. There’s nothing like face-to-face interactions to dispell myths, bias, and assumptions.
Oh, like the myth that cities are a utopia where there is no racism? Because guess what, bud, there are plenty of fucking racist pieces of shit in the city. Or how about the myth that only white people are racist? Because there is racism between Asians and Black people. Or Black people and Hispanics. Or between the various religions. It ain’t just white people.
Yes, there tend to be more liberal viewpoints in large cities, but this broad-stroke painting a picture of a lack of racism in cities needs to stop. People need to re-learn nuance.
Maybe ask them if they’re generalizing before a tirade? Yes, hate and stupidity exists everywhere, but I’ve lived in rural and metro areas and their generalization is accurate. And for that matter, there’s a lot of warm people that live in back country who aren’t stupid or racist, but, depending on a few factors, you can easily run into rural stereotypes. All the same I imagine a lot of us are talking in general views.
What tirade? And it’s amazing how I’m downvoted for pointing this shit out. It’s that same old ploy when someone doesn’t like hearing the truth so they just keep saying, “stop yelling at me”, no matter how calmly you try to say it. It’s almost like there’s a narrative trying to be controlled and yinz don’t like it when you’re called out.
And since you missed it in my last comment: GENERALIZATION IS WHAT’S HARMFUL. LEARN NUANCE.
Haha, the irony of a person screaming, “learn nuance.” Generalization isn’t the problem, income inequality is. You clearly have a lot of energy and passion which is great, but you need to learn how to punch up.
Brother, I do punch up, because punching down is for suckers and only serves to injure one’s own hand. And when it comes to people continuing to push generalizations, because generalizations only serve agendas, I’ll punch them too.
Punch yourself, then. You just “generalized” the gender of a random lemmy commenter. Again, hilariously ironic.
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I bet you’ve figured out that low fat food isn’t fat free too. Bud.
It’s also why college can make someone more liberal
Well that is my childhood and then I moved to a big city.
Being liberal is more than just an issue of race and culture though. It’s a whole philosophy. And there are things in every established philosophy I can’t see myself getting behind.
Left leaning people tend to be better educated. The majority of the jobs for better educated people are in cities. Cities are more expensive because jobs for better educated people tend to pay more.
This is my take too. Reality has a liberal bias, and people doing skilled/educated work tend to have a firmer grasp on reality
Really like this answer. Agree. Reality has a liberal bias. Religion and wishing for a return to rose colored past times is foundation of conservatives I know.
So you think someone who designs cars has a better grasp on reality than a person who fixes cars?
What?
What do you mean what?
This is the correct answer from my observation and personal experience. Get educated and move to your dream job which is probably in a city. Leave behind the religious and conservative echo chamber.
So if we set aside those that simply lived there already & so that affected their leaning, then the other part may be the employment opportunities?
Which then may shift the question to matters concerning the employers’ location decisions, so that’s another route to research, I suppose.
Employers go where they can find a well-educated workforce that will sustain them. And round and round we go.
Economic location geography is a lot more complicated than that (not every business is labour-intensive, cluster economics, IO logistics et cetera). Political geography of population also isn’t equal or similar to economical geography, given that social factors like class or race and discourses around sometimes heavily distort those maps we imagine.
I’m not sure that it’s simply that a city attracts left leaning people.
I grew up conservative, religious, and from the country, and had to move to the city because that’s where my mom took us. My move to the left ocurred due to what the city offered: cultures. I was exposed to many other ways of thinking, to art, to music, to trends, to drugs. I came to see other types of people as just people like me, with different points of view but each deserving their own chance at the American dream. I also became atheist.
The city might attract the left, but it also creates the left.
Incidentally, I want to move to a more secluded part of the state, probably where you’d see the F**k Biden billboards. We can’t all be pigeon holed so easily.
Incidentally, I want to move to a more secluded part of the state, probably where you’d see the F**k Biden billboards. We can’t all be pigeon holed so easily.
I’m trying to move to the sticks right now, and a high likelihood of having trumpers for neighbors is honestly one of the things that’s bothering me the most.
I concur, cities are cosmopolitan in their nature. Being confronted to diversity brings socialist ideas more easily than living in a secluded countryside, where everyone is the same.
Though it can bring rejection and discrimination as easily.
Not even “Socialist ideas”.
Just simply a better understanding that people are people, no matter what they look like.
You have it backwards. Living in cities (and especially growing up there) move you to the left. You see people suffering and you know it’s not entirely their fault. You get to know other cultures, eat at their restaurants, hear their music etc.
Maybe, but I’m asking what draws those that may be more left-leaning to them apart from those already there, given aforementioned cost of living issues.
Again, you have this backwards. I’m suggesting that exposure to people and their cultures “moves you to the left”. Being “drawn to the right” is easier in isolation from other cultures.
If you live in a place and most of what you know comes from talk radio and Joe Rogan you will have a very different view of the world than if you live in a major city.
I understand what you (and others responding similarly) are suggesting, but that doesn’t address the question I’m asking, which is inspired in part by the fact that there are folks on the left that don’t come from the cities, but may eventually find themselves there.
The responses that have addressed that question have related the variety of stuff as a draw, economic opportunities (albeit that runs into unaddressed problems concerning how one affords the move & living), cultural variety, and the like. Those address the question better than the supposition that I have this backwards, and that cities serve as the primary producers of leftism.
That being said, I’m not dismissing those expressing that view, as I don’t think it’s entirely wrong, only that they appear (in some instances) to be overlooking rural leftists in favor of their view that cities just are or produce leftists and rural areas just are or produce only right-leaning folks/conservatives. Those may be the prevailing trends, but trends are not the whole picture.
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Very good point
You’re confusing cause and effect, mostly.
If you’ve:
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Met a bunch of people that don’t look like you or live like you
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Have a high paying job that requires a good education
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Encountered a ton of new concepts and ideas frequently
You’re more likely to be a liberal. These things also tend to occur at much greater frequencies in cities.
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Agreed with others that city living causes liberalism.
There’s a flip side too - rural areas experience many kinds of change more slowly and that can lead to conservatism. While we all enjoy new things, I feel like it’s easier to notice what is being lost - when things change - in a small rural community.
Maybe it’s just that we become used to putting up with older things and older social norms, so we feel the downsides less and so become less eager to replace them with what is next.
A less generous way of saying this is that in a small town it’s easier to not feel how much harm is being done by “the way we’ve always done it”.
All cities also tend to have tremendous cultural output. There’s music and art here. Conservatives aren’t known for embracing new culture…
You’re more likely to find your people if you’re looking for something outside of the utter mainstream here. The suburbs aren’t known having strong queer scenes, a wide and deep variety of faiths, and so on. Conservatives also tend to drop the ball on this.
That and conservative art just isn’t that good or ground breaking.
It’s where all the stuff is. We like stuff, varieties of stuff of all kinds. including types of people. Conservatives hate stuff, and are generally anti-variety, so they stay where the stuff isn’t. they want to feel safe from the stuff, and they never feel safe unless there is a substantial buffer zone between them and stuff and a stockpile of guns to protect themselves from stuff, or books about stuff.
This is some good stuff.
Good jobs are in cities. Usually good jobs require a college education. Educated people are more left-leaning.
Hol’ up, Anticorp saying there are good jobs? What universe is this?? 😛
There really are! LOL. But you have to be willing to move across the country to get one, and they’re only good because there are fewer qualified people than companies need, so they have to create attractive work environments and compensation packages to attract talent. When that situation changes those good jobs go away.
But you have to be willing to move across the country to get one
But first: rob a bank or two, so the will is well-financed! 😂
Except tech. We are stuck in the burbs.
I grew up in the city. My parents were punks. I lived in the city my whole life. I’m out in the hills now in my isolation. I get to interact with the people the left kind of ignores. I’m a tradesman. I work with and interact with a lot of well meaning smart but under educated people that get written off as nazis pretty much by alot of my peers. Now I’m not saying they are right, I’m just saying they’re working class and have the same immediate goals, they just happened to be indoctrinated af by the entire system around them and haven’t experienced different. Most mean well ime and good conversation is not out of the question. Hopefully we can avoid a potential masacre. I’d like to think my small interactions are making some tiny wave for the future. Progress is slow. I personally can’t live in the city anymore.
Grew up in a small town and its just made me realize the koolaid everyone is chugging on a daily basis.
“city folk” aren’t trying to turn you gay and cut off your dick or gun, and most “country folk” really just want to live a simple life with some light work and independence, not kill all races/sexualities (the hardest workers I know couldn’t give more of a shit what other people do)
But hey divide and conquer works I guess, cause were all poor as fuck in the end
Both are
You think you’re so fucking important
I’ve lived in several rural areas and I’ve never been to a rural area where there wasn’t at least one whole street dedicated to each political party. If the stereotype was true, Bernie Sanders wouldn’t be so glorified in his native Vermont (he grew up on what was a river island of farmers), the nation’s whitest and (after Alaska) most rural state.
Americas a statistical anomoly, y’all are the Guinea pigs of the latest mass manipulations.
Most people, without external influence really don’t actually care
I don’t think so much that cities attract left-leaning individuals as much as the people who live there tend to be (or become) left leaning.
In rural communities you tend to get a lot of families who have lived in the area for a long time, and not much movement. So they tend to be more homogenous. Cities tend to attract lots of different people (and more tends to happen), so you’re gonna be exposed to a lot more and it will be harder to stay isolated.
Another factor is the white flight that occured after ww2. Lots of cheap housing was put up outside cities, and lots of white families moved out to live in them (in some cases they didn’t even let black people buy houses in these developments). So you get a lot of conservative, white people moving out in the suburbs, leaving a lot of minorities who tend to be more liberal.
Cities add efficiency. By pulling together and sharing resources, you can suddenly have nice soccer fields, insider pools for winter, or a national sports team. Also, companies are more efficient doe to a larger pool of labor. It is easier to have rewarding careers when there are many companies to choose from.
People in cities tend to output far more per person than rural areas. That is why states like CA have much higher gdp per person than states with mostly rural people, or even TX that is about average with a big mix of both.
And this leads to higher potential wages for more people. That person living paycheck to paycheck in a high cost of living area is usually building wealth much faster than the same person in a low cost of living area. Just don’t try to live there if you cannot make enough to afford it.
I’d say it’s really simple. Cities have more laws than rural areas. Government is more complex in a city, and conservatives are defined by their desire for simple government.
In the countryside, the conservative ideal is actually possible. In the city, you can’t just hunt for food and be self reliant; you have to be part of a complex mesh of society.
Just adding that this is not a US-only phenomenon. It’s all over the Western world. It just seems so much prevalent in the US because of the polarized political situation and because of the two-party, winner-take-all electoral system.
