I don’t know how big of an issue it is in Europe, but in the US racial politics plays a big role in our elections. Non-whites tend to lean democratic and people who feel threatened by non-whites tend to be republican. Non-whites are about 25% of the total electorate, but generally are 50% or more in large cities. So with large cities being majority non-white, they go liberal democrat.
I have no idea if that same dynamic exists in other wealthy nations.
Paris has been in the hands of a left wing coalition for ten years, so is Lyons and a shitload of major French cities. Most of the local power (city or Regions) tend to be dominated by the left. I guess this is another profoundly inspired comment OOYA, like your other one praising the OAS for blindly murdering Arabs and Frenches, while apparently having it completely wrong in regard of the chronology of the Algerian war.
I know I did this before but I have to ding it again. This is narrative masquerading as fact. It’s the triumph of myth over analysis.
I, too, have spent years living in highly concentrated urban areas (Los Angeles, Chicago, and DC) and I have spent years in rural Iowa, Maryland, Virginia, and for the last seven years have been living in the most rural parts of Ohio.
In my experience rural areas brand themselves as more ‘self-sufficient’ where they can pull from larger urban areas within an hours drive or so. Outside of those areas those who would label themselves as ‘self-sufficient’ are using government resources (handouts, welfare, and other services) at a higher rate per capita than in the big cities.
Not unlike the fabled ‘bridge to nowhere’ a road that stretches 15 miles to service a town of 100 (I know several just in this county alone) uses and enormous amount of governmental dollars for few people but it must be done or those people are cut off. It’s not a pretty picture but the myth does persist.
We pay taxes on everything. If they could find a way to tax farts, they would.
Mainly because the OP is conflating “liberal” with “votes democratic”.
Cities (proper) are where most working poor people congregate.
Most of the minorities in this country are working poor, compared to whites
Minorities tend to vote Democratic, as the Republican party has never really courted their vote and depressed minorities have all the reason in the world to vote against a political party which espouses maintaining the status quo (i.e. conservatism)
Ergo, the majority of cities will be populated by working poor minorities who have historically voted for one party over the other. Mischaracterizing these voters as being liberal across the board is incorrect.
Now, if you’re asking why big cities in america are liberal, instead of being democratic vote strongholds, then I will point you towards such shining beacons of municipal liberalism as: San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas
and ask you if you really feel these cities are “so liberal”. The only flamingly liberal large cities in this country are SF, Portland, and Seattle. The rest of them are very middle-of-the-road.
But then, government services are abundant in cities because they have to be. NYC obviously couldn’t function without its extensive transit system and thousands of first responders, and this is true on a smaller scale in every other major city in the country. Beyond those obvious examples are building inspectors, public health officers, streets and maintenance people, and so on. Where so many people live on top of each other, you usually need to be more considerate of neighbors, and you are much more likely to rent rather than own. It’s inescapable that a population of renters, whether poor or better off, will support policies that protect them–like rent control, which is usually anathema to conservatives.
More to the point, OP, why can’t any of your thread titles have a question mark at the end of the question/title?
Machine politics are fascinating, but irrelevant in this case since, with the partial exception of Chicago, every machine has been dead for decades.
He doesn’t want anyone to think he lacks confidence in his starting premise?
I was talking about national elections.
Are people who live in cities really more accepting of those who are different versus those who live in suburbs or in rural areas? Certainly for many people in cities there is a degree of anonymity that makes it a bit easier to get along in a city versus getting along in a small town. Homosexuals in particular have taken advantage of the anonymity of cities for more than a century here in the United States. I ask my question because many black people I’ve worked with or gone to school with certainly voted Democrat but when it came to Latinos, homosexuals, Jews, and Asians they certainly didn’t sound very tolerant to me. In fact, on those points at least, they sound a lot like some of the white folk I’ve met in rural areas.
In Canada, the continuation of basic single payer government health insurance isn’t even an issue, for any party. It is simply assumed as Gospel that it will continue. It is the most popular government initiative in the history of the country. Even allowing private care OUTSIDE the public system is a hot button issue; not having a public system is no more viable a suggestion than suggesting that the Sun rise in the West.
If the Conservative Party of Canada were to suggest getting rid of universal health insurance there would be an immediate vote of no confidence and the party would be utterly annihilated in the ensuing election and would never be elected again as currently constituted.
True, RickJay, but what this means is that different countries have different political cultures and different hot-button issues. We can’t exactly say, as many people try to do, that the right in most Western countries is actually left of the US Democratic party. You just can’t really plot them on the same political axis.
Which absolutely doesnt make sense when you’re talking about cities. National elections determine deputies, who are supposed to represent their local voters but most of all all voters. If you’re talking about the political leanings of a city, the first thing you check is its mayor, the Left tends to lead by far in this domain in France. Let me sum it up for you:
local power is in the hands of the left, national power (presidential, deputies) in the hands of the right. IT’s been like this for at least ten years.