This thread is an eye-opener for me; I had no idea liberals were view3ed as hating suburbs.
I suppose I count as a liberal and don’t hate suburbs. I slightly despise them for the obvious reasons, most of which have already been mentioned (and I should know because I live in one).
In Chicago certain suburban areas have been traditionally and dependably Republican for a long time. However, that is changing rapidly, so that any war on the suburbs by liberals would necessarily result in some difficult tactical decisions–it’s hard to wage war against your own neighborhood…
If a liberal is living in a urban community instead of a “way cheaper” suburb, that liberal is exactly who I am talking about. I look askance at an individual who is able to afford more expensive housing than presumably working class folks in the suburbs, yet classifies his or her position as a “low” earner.
If you can afford to live in one of these mini liberal oases in a large American city, I’m happy for you. Are you living like the vast majority of your fellow city dwellers? Are you being harassed by police for no reason whatsoever? Are your children attending failing schools? Are you forced to choose between McDonald’s and New York Fried Chicken for dinner? I am doubtful.
You say I am generalizing about universal sociological findings in a post entitled “Why do Liberals Hate Suburbs”.
There is nothing more you can do but make generalizations in a post like that. Well off urbanites are usually liberals. Do you dispute that? Their love of cities is blind to the realities of city living conditions? Do you dispute that? They don’t associate with working class and go so far as to congregate in trendy urban communities and send their children to private schools. Do you dispute that?
What is it that you are disagreeing with, exactly? The fact that I am lampooning clueless culture vulture liberals instead of greedy libertarians and racist conservatives?
I don’t think it’s a completely unreasonable question. But it’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Do liberals tend to gravitate towards urban areas or do urban areas tend to liberalize people?
People with traditional conservative “corporate job, 2.4 kids, wife and a car” values do tend to gravitate towards the suburbs. Mostly it’s for practical reasons. They prefer to have the space and affordability that suburban living offers.
Liberals tend to be more educated and drawn to subjects like the arts and media (Fox news not withstanding). These sort of jobs tend to be in cities like New York and LA.
Suburbs, by design, tend to be isolating and less diverse. While not segregated formally by race, they do tend to be fairly homogenous in terms of socioeconomics. And suburbanites tend to be isolated from each other. So typically they tend to develop a “groupthink” among their peers from PTO meetings and children’s soccer practice.
Cities, especially places like New York, are extremely diverse. People do tend to cluster amongst their “type”, but at least you are exposed to other races and sexual persuasions. Plus, for certain lifestyles that skew liberal, I think the cities do tend to offer more.
One thing I have noticed among my friends is that many of them will appear moderate enough while living in the city. But all of a sudden when they move to someplace like the South or one of the Sunbelt states that skew red where everyone is more or less like them, they tend to become rabidly right-wing.
I wouldn’t expect a ton of right wing types waiting in line for a Big Gay Ice Creamcone.
You keep using that term “liberal”. I do not think it means what you think it means. I think you are begging the question by defining “liberal” as anyone who doesn’t live in a stand alone single family home and earns more than $50k a year. Also, most of the rest of your post is fantasy and wishful thinking.
Neighborhoods become gentrified because people who have money move into them to be closer to their high paying urban jobs. They also enjoy other aspects of urban living like being able to walk to decent bars and restaurants. I feel I’m relatively liberal because I’m pro-choice, pretty accepting of other races, creeds and sexual persuasions and believe in smart gun control and some level of social safety nets. But I don’t have any particular interest in “feigning camaraderie” with little minority children or working class folk.
The only school I ever attended in Baltimore was the UM Law School. Not really relevant to the discussion, and of the public schools I know nothing. Of the police and government, no complaints. Of the food – I drool with reminiscence! Dessert, not desert! As for living there, I found it a highly unusual city in being an apparently random patchwork of good neighborhoods and bad – like, you cross one street and suddenly you have to avoid stepping on empty liquor bottles (but, never empty crack vials). I became a socialist there, just from seeing how many hopeless defeated-looking poor people were walking the streets, and many of them people with jobs and many of them white. One thing I liked was that it was compact enough to walk most places, and to bike anywhere if you had strong nerves and a high tolerance for noise. For two years I commuted on foot from Ridgley’s delight to the law firm on St. Paul where I clerked.
The OP made some big generalizations and got called on it, so you have to generalize as well?
I’ll take that one as a given.
Yes. Can you back it up?
Yes. Where do you get this stuff? I’m sure this stuff applies to some portion of people, but from where do your get your confidence that this is true of practically all liberals?
Are you implying that this is supposed to be revenge?
Those are both pollsters Nate Silver viewed as legitimate and used in his computer model.
The people who insist Obama is center right are the mirror image of the Tea Partiers who keep eating their own solidly conservative incumbents alive in primary challenges.
A Marxist would be much more doctrinaire, rather than taking inspiration from Marx (particularly his critique of capitalism) without being beholden to all of his policy prescriptions. A Marxist also would be much less likely to defend Obama, as I do.
I’m not attacking the pollsters, I’m saying the citation doesn’t support the point. ‘ number of people think Obama is more liberal than they are’ doesn’t prove Obama is a liberal because it doesn’t define what liberal means. That being said, this is not worth arguing about further.
You’re correct, partisan was the word I wanted. Thank you.
I’m a her. The “miss” in my name should have been a tip off, but whatever.
Also, I don’t particularly care what you look askance at. I am a working class person. I do not earn a large income. I moved out of the suburbs because the city fits my lifestyle better, and I like being a part of this community. It means I have less disposable income, but I also don’t have to use a car. I also think it serves my values better, and I like that my kids are exposed to a more diverse group of people. I think sprawl is bad for the environment and the psyche, and I wanted to practice what I preach. It’s worth the monetary cost, to me, to live like this.
Who said I’m living like this? I sure as hell didn’t. Once again, you cannot distinguish reality (my posts) from fantasy (your nutball stereotypes)
How can I even answer this? I think I am living in an average community. It’s neither the worst area, nor is it anywhere close to the nicest. The city overall is quite poor though, so it’s slightly slanted in that direction.
I’m sure at this point you’ll define “vast majority” in some way that makes me look like an elitist.:rolleyes:
I’m an attractive 30 year old white woman. I don’t get harassed by the police. I recognize this privilege. I fail to see what this has to do with cities though; the police in my former suburb were FAR more likely to bother non-whites than they are here.
They aren’t failing. They are public and they are about 80% black, neither of which means failing.
I don’t eat out, I can’t afford it. Last week I made dinner for four people for four nights for less than $25 (total) because that was all the money I had. I’ve been eating lentil soup the last two days because lentils are cheap and I can’t afford meat.
Is that enough, or do you want me to take a picture of myself wearing a fucking barrel for pants?:rolleyes:
Urbanites are just as susceptible to groupthink as anyone. Have you seen election returns? Nearly every neighborhood that exists is “fairly homogenous in terms of socionomics”. This includes urban ones. Suburbs I am familiar with are just as much or more diverse racially than city neighborhoods.
I will agree that people are “exposed” to a more diverse crowd than in suburbs. Whether this has anything to do with making people liberal, I doubt it.
No I am defining liberal as someone who identifies as liberal. You are broadening liberal to mean any Democratic voter who favors one or two liberal policies.
The gentrified neighborhoods are just as isolated and white as the suburbs. In fact even more so than working class suburbs because being upper class means you are more likely to be white. The urban liberal romanticizes city life because he wants to get drunk and walk home. He advocates public schooling and diversity but doesn’t send his kids to city schools. He doesn’t protest as police wreak havoc in minority neighborhoods only blocks away.
Which suburbs? Which city? None of this is a description of anyplace I know.
You JUST SAID suburbs are more diverse than cities.
WTF?!
So, “liberal” you take at face value, but “low-earner” has to be proven in various demeaning ways? Hmmmmm
I am absolutely certain there are people like this. But for you to pretend that all, or even most, “liberals” live like this is just asinine. I send my kids to city schools. I volunteer my time for several causes that promote social justice. Hell, the main reason I moved was because I wanted to be closer to my meetings (I hate driving) and I felt like a hypocrite protesting the actions of the city police when I wasn’t actually a resident.
It’s a lot more than that, but how is even just that such a bad thing?
This does drive me crazy–it’s one of the few ways that Obama has gotten me really mad. One of my formerly really good friends has become less so, more of a strained relationship, since his oldest hit school age and he sent them to private school (Catholic, despite his and his wife’s atheism!) instead of the perfectly good local public schools. And he and the other professors, lawyers, and doctors who do this are happy to dip their toes into the public school system to send their kids to gifted classes once a week (or to special ed if they are disabled). Urgh, don’t get me started.
Well then we have probably lived in different areas.
Neighborhoods are more diverse racially in many suburbs. Cities as a whole seem to have different cultures, but they are highly segregated. as you move out to the suburbs, people of different races seem to behave similarly and they lose their original culture.
You felt the need to prove yourself. I didn’t request that you do so.
Because one person doesn’t fit my description exactly I must be laughably wrong. If you are the rare bird who is liberal, and not a raging hypocrite, I am happy for you.