why are big cities more liberal

[sfcalifornia]

It's a simple fact that the average level of education is higher in urban areas than rural ones.

Prove it.

It's stunning that even the most basic facts require "proof" in these parts. But here ya go:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/rdrr98/rdrr98_lowres.pdf

This isn't exactly an unknown or hidden fact.

Dat dere Google is a nifty invention, ain't it?

 

[thereisnospoon]

Because the most easily accessible census data doesn't cut it that direction.

The rural areas are less educated than the urban areas, so the assumption you dismiss is not "hogwash", it's fact.

Easily accessible?

Yes. The most easily accessible census data cuts urban / rural.

....Conservative view.,....WORK HARDER....
Don't come here with low hanging fruit statistics.

Oh, I see. Go work harder yourself and prove me wrong instead of yapping your "conservative" ass values. I'll wait.

Excluding an entire demographic based solely on geography is at best, lazy. At worst, negligent.

They aren't excluded. I can't be held accountable for your ignorance here.

We don't prove negatives here.
You stated very clearly that suburban dweller stats WERE EXCLUDED.
You wrote THIS. " The most easily accessible census data cuts urban / rural."
It is your unwillingness to face the facts at hand that clearly states you are the one with the knowledge problem.
Stop arguing and insisting. YOU are incorrect.

 

[thereisnospoon]

I grew up in Chicago, I saw more hatred and prejudice than I have ever seen in Georgia. I lived in the city with over 50 houses on one block, many of them two and three flats. I didn't know but a handful of my "neighbors". Why?? Because you might say something that offends them, you might do something against their culture, you might just have a different color skin. 'Cause if you do you might get your tires slashed, you might get your house burned down, you might get jumped walking down the street. Diverse does not mean tolerant, it means you do what you can to "avoid" taking your life in your hands. It's easier for the "government" to do it because it just might save your car, your house and your life.

I live in a very rural area, know most of my neighbors within a 5 mile radius and have been helped when needed. I just had major surgery and had people bringing over meals they cooked, deserts they made and had offers to clean, mow and run errands even from people I barely know. That would never happen in the city, ever!! Most of my neighbors don't know and don't care what color I am, how much money I make or my political affiliation. They help anyway, any way they can.

So if helping your neighbor isn't politically correct and depending on the government to "solve" your issues is, I'll take rural any day!!

So are big cities more liberal or are the people that live there forced to be more liberal thinking government is the answer because they can't control anything themselves.

To the lib/progressive "diverse" equals "tolerant".
Lib/progressives especially Caucasian lib/progressives, who believe they are smarter than everyone else, claim to be in tune with the "minority experience". They claim to have the right to speak for others. To actually tell others HOW to think.
This is arrogance. Arrogance is part of the lib/progressive template.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Liberals tend to have a more "worldly" and "sophisticated" view.
I've lived in big cities and in the country.
People in the country have often never personally knew or spent a lot of real, close, personal time with a hispanic, a gay or often times, even a black.
People in the cities couldn't avoid personally knowing every kind of person you could imagine. So even if they started with the prejudices of Gomer McHick, they eventually learned those people weren't as evil as they were led to believe.
I moved from a small town to L.A. and worked alongside a really great woan for a year before I realized she was a lesbian. I mean it was SO obvious but I was clueless at the time. OMG she was nice, caring, funny and.... a human being. Turned out there was a gay man working at the same company but he wasn't so obvious about it. I didn't understand! Where was his pink silk pants!?!?! How could he be so normal and likeable?!?!? Direct interaction is the biggest enemy of prejudice.

There are very few major universities in small towns. Even then, those universities have people from every race, denomination and persuasion you could imagine. Direct exposure to something different than that to which you are accustomed, teaches you the difference between the prejudices that you have been taught, and the reality. Sometimes, people from Europe are nice! Gay people are nice! Whatever you have been taught to hate, is really not as bad as you've been told. Hell, even Muslims can be nice, beer-drinking, funny people! I know a couple. Didn't meet them in the country.
That's why.

No. Liberals ASSUME they are "worldly" and "sophisticated"....What you witness is arrogance and elitism. Liberal/progressives believe they are better than everyone else. Lib/progressives compare people. They classify people into groups.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

Liberals tend to have a more "worldly" and "sophisticated" view.
I've lived in big cities and in the country.
People in the country have often never personally knew or spent a lot of real, close, personal time with a hispanic, a gay or often times, even a black.
People in the cities couldn't avoid personally knowing every kind of person you could imagine. So even if they started with the prejudices of Gomer McHick, they eventually learned those people weren't as evil as they were led to believe.
I moved from a small town to L.A. and worked alongside a really great woan for a year before I realized she was a lesbian. I mean it was SO obvious but I was clueless at the time. OMG she was nice, caring, funny and.... a human being. Turned out there was a gay man working at the same company but he wasn't so obvious about it. I didn't understand! Where was his pink silk pants!?!?! How could he be so normal and likeable?!?!? Direct interaction is the biggest enemy of prejudice.

There are very few major universities in small towns. Even then, those universities have people from every race, denomination and persuasion you could imagine. Direct exposure to something different than that to which you are accustomed, teaches you the difference between the prejudices that you have been taught, and the reality. Sometimes, people from Europe are nice! Gay people are nice! Whatever you have been taught to hate, is really not as bad as you've been told. Hell, even Muslims can be nice, beer-drinking, funny people! I know a couple. Didn't meet them in the country.
That's why.

No. Liberals ASSUME they are "worldly" and "sophisticated"....What you witness is arrogance and elitism. Liberal/progressives believe they are better than everyone else. Lib/progressives compare people. They classify people into groups.

Do you really not see your own hypocrisy here?

 

[asterism]

I wanna hear your reasons why. What is the main reason ?

Liberals tend to have a more "worldly" and "sophisticated" view.
I've lived in big cities and in the country.
People in the country have often never personally knew or spent a lot of real, close, personal time with a hispanic, a gay or often times, even a black.
People in the cities couldn't avoid personally knowing every kind of person you could imagine. So they learned those people weren't as evil as they were led to believe.

There are very few major universities in small towns. Even then, those universities have people from every race, denomination and persuasion you could imagine. Direct exposure to something different than that to which you are accustomed, teaches you the difference between the prejudices that you have been taught, and the reality. Sometimes, people from Europe are nice! Gay people are nice! Whatever you have been taught to hate, is really not as bad as you've been told. Hell, even Muslims can be nice, beer-drinking people! I know a couple. Imagine that!
That's why.

You apparently need to get to the rural areas a bit more if that's your perception of country folk.

 

[asterism]

Cities attract people who tend to be more liberal, more social, and more inclined to want the things that only a complex society can provide.

That's not true. Rural areas are much more social. Cities have people who live in the same apartment for decades and only know a few people in their building. A week-long guest in a small town gets a reception in his honor.

People in cities tend to better understand that if one wants the things that collectivism can provide, then one needs to pay taxes and give up some freedoms for those benefits.

They understand the concept, but then the underground economy rampant in every city shows the natural human tendency to avoid taxes as much as possible. Go offer cash for that camera lens in NYC. You'll get a discount.

People who don't live in cities tend not to care so much about those things that civilization can provide and since they also don't benefit from those things (they don't live near) they also quite reasonably object to having to PAY for those things, too.

There's some truth to that. People living in Albany, GA derive no benefit from MARTA (Atlanta's boondoggle of a light rail transit system) and therefore should not pay for it.

This divide between urban dwellers and rural dwellers isn't new and it isn't particular to America, either.

This difference in POV is found thoughout history and thoughout various cultures, too.

One of the main differences being that people today don't understand that their food isn't grown in the cities. That's new.

And when revolutions against the government happens, often what we find is that the revolution is started and supported by most city dwellers, and the rural folks tend NOT to support those revolutions and often fight for the King

But that is "often" not the case also.

We certainly saw that difference between city v rual folks in both the French and the Russian revolutions, as well as in the US revolution, too.


Rural people TEND to be have more conservative outlooks in just about every way one can have an opinion about anything.

I think it's the choice factor. Most rural people are there by choice. Most urban people are not.

 

[asterism]

Prove it.

It's stunning that even the most basic facts require "proof" in these parts. But here ya go:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/rdrr98/rdrr98_lowres.pdf

This isn't exactly an unknown or hidden fact.

Dat dere Google is a nifty invention, ain't it?

It's a simple fact that the average level of education is higher in urban areas than rural ones.

Prove it.

It's stunning that even the most basic facts require "proof" in these parts. But here ya go:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/rdrr98/rdrr98_lowres.pdf

This isn't exactly an unknown or hidden fact.

Just so you know, that old study considers suburbs and any area deemed as part of an MSA to be non-rural. It also considers any portion of any county "urban" or "metro" if the county has a city of over 50,000 residents. So that means the very rural town of Frostproof, FL (3000 people or so) is not counted in this study because it's in the same county as Lakeland, over an hour away.

It does not compare urban and rural areas.

 

[asterism]

It's a simple fact that the average level of education is higher in urban areas than rural ones.

As was noted, suburban arias generally have a higher education level and you conveniently seem to leave them out. I would actually like to see you source your supposition that cities have a higher education level. I call bullshit on that.

Actually if your closest neighbors are a half a mile away, you are quite likely to know them, their kids, their parents, even the names of their pets. Living in a building of 1500 or more? Not so likely. Your work hours aren't in sync, neither of you have kids, etc.

This is a good and interesting point. Liberals are all over the 'community' and 'tolerance' bandwagon here but if any of them actually lived in a city you can't tell. There is far more community in rural areas and the people out there actually do look out for, and trust, one another. That is a very rare thing in a large city.

i don't think that's true at all.

in fact, i think living in a city, you tend to make your own area smaller, by making it yours and creating a community.

but then again, i actually live in a city.

you?

It really depends on the area and the person. I've lived in a few cities and some places were actual communities and other places were not. However, in each and every rural community I've seen everyone knows everyone else. You sneeze at Bob's house and Judy at the store says God Bless You.

 

[asterism]

I don't buy the premise. Not all big cities are liberal. Big cities are diverse (sorry, I know this word strikes at the bowels of some) in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, language, education, income, political philosophy, etc. etc. So are our suburbs today. Big cities differ in many ways from small rural communities but in one major area the difference is striking: Cities and many large suburbs have institutions of higher learning.

However, one cannot surmise that all persons exposed to higher education become 'liberal' in the pejorative use of the word. Exposure to higher education, and in particular a liberal arts education does open ones eyes to other ideas, historical and contemporary, and I suspect most learn that change is inevitable and not something to be feared.

It's change that differentiates the liberal from the conservative within the conventional use of these terms. The liberal seeks change, rapidly; the conservative values tradition and accepts change slowly.

That's false.

Conservatives want rapid change in the tax code.
Conservatives want rapid change in the business regulation structure.
Conservatives want rapid change in labor law.

Your other premise is false too. Too much of higher education lately is low quality and only teaches regurgitation of the instructor's talking points and opinions.

 

[Annie]

I don't buy the premise. Not all big cities are liberal. Big cities are diverse (sorry, I know this word strikes at the bowels of some) in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, language, education, income, political philosophy, etc. etc. So are our suburbs today. Big cities differ in many ways from small rural communities but in one major area the difference is striking: Cities and many large suburbs have institutions of higher learning.

However, one cannot surmise that all persons exposed to higher education become 'liberal' in the pejorative use of the word. Exposure to higher education, and in particular a liberal arts education does open ones eyes to other ideas, historical and contemporary, and I suspect most learn that change is inevitable and not something to be feared.

It's change that differentiates the liberal from the conservative within the conventional use of these terms. The liberal seeks change, rapidly; the conservative values tradition and accepts change slowly.

Please name some 'big cities' that are not liberal. In DuPage County, a 'bastion' for the GOP, we've two suburbs, make that one and part of another, that are cities over 100k. They both tend liberal. One is 'highly educated,' the other, 'highly diverse population', meaning poor. Both stream liberal. Different rationales of course, but voting? Same.