What benefits do you see from living in a blue state vs living in a red state

I’ve only lived in red states, but I’ve lived in both small towns and urban areas.

The urban areas had many more benefits like better health care, better food, better entertainment, etc.

But at the end I still live in a red state. I really don’t know what benefits there are of living in a deep blue state, or what drawbacks as I’ve only visited deep blue states, never lived in them long term.

For one thing, I like my guns and I may not be able to take all of them if I moved to a blue state. However thats not a dealbreaker for me.

In some blue states like the west coast ones, they make voting extremely easy, which is nice.

Also in some blue states you don’t have to worry about abortion repeals or ACA repeals, as the state government will still protect these rights and programs. Not only that, some blue states (CA, NY, etc) have expanded programs like the ACA to offer better subsidies on top of what the federal ACA offers.

Blue states have higher minimum wages (which wouldn’t help me personally, but its still a nice thing to have).

Blue states have better public transit I would assume, since I’d assume they get more financial assistance from the state government.

But blue states may have higher taxes (but I don’t know if those are higher progressive taxes or higher regressive taxes).

In blue states I have more faith that I would have workplace protections or that the government would have my back if the employer tries to take advantage of me; I also have more faith that the water might be cleaner.

In red states I would have more faith that there would be voter ID and measures taken to ensure a voter is who he claims to be.

guns.

I’m retired, and lived almost my life in a California. About 15 years ago I moved to a red state (Montana) for a variety of reasons. While there were benefits to living in a blue state as you mentioned, there are certainly downsides, especially if you live near a big city. While I do own some guns, I don’t think I own any that would be illegal in a blue state. Even if I had to give up my guns that wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me at this point.

As far as California goes, you can’t beat the weather, although living near an active earthquake fault can certainly be dicey. What is a deal breaker is the cost of living, taxation, traffic, overcrowding, crime, and pollution that comes along with living in a blue state metropolitan area.

There are some blue states that don’t have those issues, and if you live far enough away from the city you can avoid many of them, but to me, the freedom and beauty of a state like Montana outweighs any benefits I can imagine from living in blue state.

I grew up in a blue state in the 50s and 60s and enjoyed every minute of it, but you can’t go back. I can no longer afford to buy a nice house in a decent neighborhood in California, if I wanted to move back there. I visit my family in California once a year, and that’s enough blue state for me.

As a female, I would never live in red state. Their view of women and women’s rights predate the fifties as far as I’m concerned.

You make it sound like those things are unique to blue state metros. Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, and Georgia are red states with many/large metros, and they have all those rather ill-defined issues too.

That’s true. I was thinking more about the North East and the West Coast, which are almost all blue states.

Less crime. Red states have much higher rates of violent crime.

Better educated populace.

Longer life span.

More freedom.

Other than that, I got nothing.

They have different values too. Anecdotally:

Bluer areas are less religious, are more tolerant of homelessness and drug use and immigration (legal or otherwise) and diversity, don’t like guns, wear puffies instead of camo, do a lot of virtue signaling that don’t amount to much, have pretty dysfunctional cities (especially SF, Portland, and Seattle). Better protections for women and take sexual assault more seriously. Various government subsidies, but usually only if you’re really poor. Often have obscene costs of living and can be very gilded. Hard for the shrinking middle class. It’s a lot of cultural progressivism mixed with rampant economic despair that only seems to be getting worse. Climate change is taken for granted and various policies are implemented to support that, though not at any truly impactful level. Wildfire management is a big part of life.

Red areas are more homogeneous and tribal and of course religious. Lean more towards traditional family values that blue women don’t like. Lots of ranching and farming, less tech (though Musk is changing that). Much less gilded, from what I’ve seen (ie income inequality feels less extreme because costs aren’t being dragged up by the tech new money). Guns and crosses and US flags galore. People seem more authentic and less pretentious / holier than thou that what I see in the blue areas.

I grew up in another country and lived in deep blue areas once I moved to the US. There’s a lot of petty bickering there and the governments never really felt very functional or practical, more concerned about appearances than services. I’ve only visited a few deep red places and met people from them. Typically nicer and more community & family oriented than the blue state people I’ve met, but also kinda stuck in very traditional ways of thinking and being, especially religiosity, and it gets kinda hellfire and brimstone-y. They seem highly authoritarian and tribal and minority voices (whether you’re a woman, not white, queer, liberal, etc.) get squashed. I’d fear for my life if I said the wrong thing or looked at someone the wrong way. I’d never even step foot in them if I were a queer black woman. The blue cities make me uncomfortable too, but just because they’re so dysfunctional. Violent machismo is less of a thing there, replaced by broken bureaucracies and the everyday acceptance of life circling the drain.

Now I live in a purple part of rural Oregon and much prefer it to either deep blue or red. Our services and facilities are much nicer than California’s (especially our state parks), costs of living aren’t as crazy, there’s still cultural diversity (by that I mean a mix of red and blue, not racial), people for the most part get along, though there’s still the occasional shouting match during protests. It feels like how more of America used to be in the 90s, before everything became both hyperpolarized and hypergilded. It’s a small enough town where it still feels like there’s a sense of internal community that tries to distinguish itself from the national battlegrounds. Local still means more than big red or big blue here. I worry that towns like this tend to lead to their own destruction though, drawing in outsiders who bring their old values (and money) with them instead of assimilating in. Tired old tale, I guess.

The blue / red state thing paints an incomplete picture. There’s often small urban/semi-urban blue fortresses amidst a sea of red. The state policies determine your healthcare, access to abortion, etc, but the day to day depends more on your local (metro and county) makeup.

I wish it weren’t so polarized. More purple and less violence would be nice. There are some areas I’d love to live in for their natural beauty, but can’t / won’t for various political and economic reasons.

Missouri: used to be reliably purple, now deep red. And I live in a VERY red county in this very red state.

Fireworks laws can most charitably be described as “freewheeling,” and a better descriptor is “borderline nonexistent.” I certainly wouldn’t move into or out of a state because of their fireworks laws, but if you’re like me and enjoy backyard pyrotechnics, you could do worse than the Show Me State.

Same for liquor laws. I /think/ Missouri even allows for home delivery of beer & wine, but I could be mistaken.

Child labor laws: I neither have children nor employ any, but if you’re a business owner here you can employ children as young as 12 in some capacities. I’m not here to debate whether or not this is a good thing, society-wise, but it’s certainly a good thing for (some) Missouri business owners. For whatever it’s worth, the 8-year-old boy who worked the same scene as his father in the haunted attraction where I work every autumn, and who reliably scared the shit out of everyone, was living his best life all season, and I’m sure he’s going to be all about the gaming system he’s going to buy with his wages.

The roads here are infinitely better than they are in the one other state where I’ve lived, that state being blue Illinois.

Taxes are lower, particularly on cigarettes (I think Missouri has the cheapest smokes in the country outside of Indian reservations). I don’t smoke so I have no iron in this fire.

Pot is legal here, but any more that doesn’t seem to be a blue state/red state thing. And our abortion ban is /probably/ going to be overturned by the voters tomorrow, so there’s that.

A blue state is generally going to be a lot safer in terms of workplace and industrial regulations. Whether it’s pollution, workplace safety or things like putting potentially explosive/toxic industry near residential areas.

I live in blue Washington. I’ve never seen a MAGA hat in the wild. We fight about things like whether the state should fund a long term care insurance program through payroll tax, rather than whether abortion should be banned after 6 weeks.

Yeah. If you are on the “blue” side the relative lack of the “red” will be good for your blood pressure if nothing else. I don’t think it works the other way though; the Right keeps itself in a near-continuous state of rage and fear regardless of how dominant it is.

My granddaughter recently moved from Washington to Montana. She wasn’t big on the idea but it’s what her husband wanted. She works as a 1099 employee for an equestrian supply company out of Dublin, Ireland. In Washington, she only had to make quarterly payments for federal taxes. In Montana, she has to make monthly payments for state income taxes. She did not realized this about Montana when they moved. She is not happy about this.

I would like to say as a public school teacher that Blue Colorado is supportive of public education but no. I have done lobbying and despite all of our executive officers being Dems and being one Senate seat away from Dem super-majority in both houses of the Legislature, there is almost no movement to support education here. It doesn’t matter where I go in the state: military and first-responders have almost god-like standing but people find out you’re a teacher? Go fuck yourself.

I live in rural Massachusetts. People are highly educated, including farmers. Excellent health care. Very low crime rate. One of the lowest rates of gun ownership in the country, but lots of hunters (it’s bow hunting season at the moment). Very accepting of sexual minorities. Women’s rights a given. Natural lands are protected. Every little town has at least one independent bookstore and an excellent public library and a farmers’ market.

The down side is that there aren’t many good jobs except in education and social/medical services. Farming, which a lot of people are engaged in out here, is a marginal occupation as farms are small. Massachusetts bureaucracy is incredibly arcane and poorly managed, by California standards. But that’s peculiar to MA, I believe.

I would never live in a red state, which are, by definition, run by misogynist homophobic racists. Why would I? There are plenty of lovely people living in those states, but they have no political power. By definition. If you are a gun-toting white male, yes, particularly if you don’t care about anyone other than yourself. They are bad for everyone else.

What qualifies your opinion of what women think about traditional family values?

Do you have cites? Are you a woman?

If not, please don’t assume what women think or value.

Having lived in very-blue college town in a reddish state, a reddish area of a blue state, and a purplish city in a very red state, I would say that the local community makes a way bigger difference than the way the state as a whole votes.

Stuff I miss from Very Blue College Town: Public transit. Free public transit, actually. Curbside recycling. Generally better infrastructure and public amenities. A more diverse population, restaurant options, etc. Some of these might have more to do with being in an affluent / more densely populated area than with politics per se. At any rate, there were, and are, plenty of places in the same state as Very Blue College Town that didn’t have these things, and they affect my day-to-day life way more than anything going on at the state level.

What does affect my life, since I work at a public university, is the state legislature periodically getting a bee in its bonnet about higher ed issues, but weirdly, I think this is less of an issue in deep-red states than in reddish-purple ones like Florida. If you’re in a place where college graduates are still more likely to vote Republican than not, Republican politicians are less likely to cast universities as The Enemy, and you have lots and lots of Republican alumni who feel a sense of ownership in your institution and are willing to advocate for it.

I’m a cishet, white male who has a middle class job. So I’m protected from a lot of the damage and cruelty the GOP tries to inflict.

I’ve always felt relatively safe living in Pennsylvania (sort of blue) but as retirement nears I am not so sure.