Is it just my imagination, or do capital cities seem to be the most (or close to the most) liberal place in the areas they govern? Austin is well-known for being a liberal bastion in red-state Texas. The capital of Canada’s Texas, Edmonton, Alberta, seems to be the one spot in the province that would provide the token legislators from other, non right-wing parties in either provincial or federal elections. And even the capital of the US, Washington DC, is long known as being a Democratic bastion. (This is, of course, comparing it to other states, which is somewhat unfair, but even compared to other cities, it seems to be quite solidly Democratic. Perhaps only San Francisco is more liberal than the nation’s capital?)
If I’m actually right, why is this? It can’t be due to the liberal nature of large cities (which has been discussed elsewhere, I’m pretty sure here on SDMB as well, where the increased population means increased exposure to other ideas and a preponderance towards liberalism, as Austin is the only large city in Texas (as Edmonton in Alberta) to have this trait, in fact much larger Texan cities (Dallas, Houston) are most decidedly not liberal (and Calgary, roughly the same size as Edmonton, is a predictably conservative bastion). So, what’s up?
Here in the Midwest, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’d say that Indianapolis, Jefferson City, MO, Springfield, IL or Topeka, KS are more liberal than the overall mood of their states. In fact they are a good deal more conservative than the cities of Gary, Chicago, St. Louis and even Kansas City.
I live in Austin, and don’t think that the fact that the state legislature happens to do their thing here contributes in any way to the liberal (for Texas, anyway) nature of the city.
OK, then maybe it’s not that the capital city is more liberal than the rest of the state, but that the capital city is more to the other political extreme than the rest of the state. In the case of Austin and Edmonton, I chose capitals of two very conservative areas, perhaps in liberal areas (although I don’t think Indiana or Kansas (or Illinois outside of Chicago) are “liberal” that I know of)
How many of the liberal leaning capital cities are also college towns? Madison, WI (as far as I can tell from an hour and a half away) is pretty liberal. But I’ve always assumed that has more to do with so many of the residents of the city (10% or so) being college kids. Many of the rest of them are recent grads that either haven’t found a job yet or found a job in the area (or now teach at the a school).
That’s coming out kind of clumsily. What I’m saying is, if the city is a college town that may swing the political pendulum to one side or the other when you have such a huge group of like minded individuals living in such closer quarters.
Is Albany really more liberal that New York City? Sacramento than San Francisco or Los Angeles? Tallahassee than Miami? Baton Rouge than New Orleans? The US is full of states where the capital is some small town rather than the biggest city so one would perhaps expect the opposite to be the case.
To the extent that it’s true, I would expect it to be that the kind of people who end up working in the Public Service would tend to be more from the left. That’s the case here, our capital Canberra is solidly Labor (centre-left) and is only the 8th largest city in the country.
So Sacramento is the most conservative city in California? Can I suggest you go through the list I linked to and qualify what exactly it is you are saying?
It may be that the liberal influence you notice is coming from higher education rather than government. Edmonton and Austin have huge college populations. OTOH the state capitals I listed are not centers of higher education (in fact, each of their state universities are located 30-60 miles away.)
Columbus, OH, which is both the capital and has a huge university presence, is probably one of Ohio’s more liberal cities.
New York City is almost definitely more liberal than Albany, NY, which is run by an old school moderately conservative Democratic machine, is demographically made up largely of working and middle class Catholics, and which, while still probably more liberal than the surrounding area, isn’t some great leftist bastion.
Cities and urban areas are generally more liberal everywhere in the country than rural areas.
That’s the only correlation that works. There’s nothing special about capitals except that they’re cities. If they are more urban than the state as a whole, they’ll be more liberal. If they are less urban, they’ll be more conservative (except for some college towns). Washington, D.C. is perhaps the city with the largest black population, and that’s the only explanation needed.
I’d say that the OP is using confirmation bias on a ridiculously limited sample.
I don’t think this is really the case in Canada (except for Edmonton as you mention), beyond the extent to which large cities tend to be more left-wing than less populated areas in general. As a matter of fact, Quebec City tends to be substantially more right-wing than Montreal (although at the federal level this was rather obscured by the Orange Wave), while Vancouver has a reputation as much more bohemian than Victoria.
I agree with kunilou that the more likely factor for Austin or Edmonton is presence of universities rather than capitalhood.
cities are more liberal than suburban or rural areas.
university cities are more liberal than other cities.
government workers are more liberal than other workers.
younger voters are more liberal than older voters.
All of these factors combine in the examples you gave, to make those capitol cities more liberal. That’s probably true in many capitol cities. There are exceptions, but often they are often non-relevant. Springfield is not liberal, compared to the Chicago-Gary area; but it’s not much of a ‘city’ either, compared to that area.
I spent six years in Madison, getting my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. It’s extraordinarily liberal, compared to the rest of Wisconsin, and the presence of the University of Wisconsin is undoubtedly the primary reason. In addition to current and recent students, it also seems to have a fair number of people who came to Madison once upon a time for school, fell in love with the liberal culture of the city, and just stayed. If you’re truly a “crunchy granola” liberal type, there are few towns or cities of any real size in the Midwest where you’ll feel at home…Madison is one of them.
Santa Fe is extremely liberal, even more so than New Mexico’s largest city, Albuquerque. It’s not a “college town” even though it is home of the very liberal liberal-arts Saint John’s College.
I’m not sure anyone would categorize Oklahoma City as liberal, but compared with the rest of the state, maybe a little.
Johnnies might be hippies, but they’re not particularly liberal, as far as college students go. That being said, there’s only about 500 of them, which even in a city the size of Santa Fe, doesn’t change the demographics much.
Raleigh, NC is an example of a large capital city that’s relatively conservative, particularly in relation to other large cities in NC. It’s not an extreme either way, as well.
Actually, it’s cities in general. See this “red-blue” map shaded from red to purple to blue and broken down by county. The divide is not North vs. South, or East vs. West, or Coasts vs. Flyover, it’s City vs. Countryside.
I don’t think that’s really what that map shows. It looks like there tons of rural blue or at least purple counties, and most of the red state cities that aren’t college towns or state capitals are at best reddish-purple. Rural counties with Indian reservations or large Hispanic populations are much more distinct than cities. Most of the big cities are blue, but even big cities like Houston or Phoenix or Dallas are barely purpler than their red surroundings and important medium-sized regional cities surrounded by rural areas like Wichita or Billings or Amarillo are invisible.
The county seat of my county is more liberal than the rest of the county… probably because of the easy access to government services. Probably the same for state capitals.
