6 Reasons Why City Dwellers turn into Liberals

I am not sure it is as simple as "people in cities get these issues." I grew up in what was a more "heartland-y" place, as I have posted -- central valley of CA in an agricultural area -- and I got out of there as soon as I turned 18 because I wanted city life and the various cultural things it had to offer. Unemployment in my area was double-digit when I was growing up. Surely for many people, moving to places where jobs were developing would have been preferable. But one of the things I think is that it isn't just that we have different perspectives based on where we live/were raised, but that we *choose where we live now* based in part on our perspectives. People move to SF for weather and natural beauty and jobs, eg, but also because if you are LGBTQ+, liberal, enjoy museums and fancy coffee, etc., it's a place that suits your cultural and personal values.

TL;DR: think what happens when some of your rural friends visit the big bad city. I said, "wooooo! If I get good grades in HS I can go to university somewhere like this," my mom said, "traffic, homeless people, expensive, who would live here on purpose?"

That's a hard article for me to really comment on because I don't live in a city. I have never lived in a city. And yet I am liberal.   So while I know there are large percentages of liberals in cities, I never thought about the city being the reason that some people became liberal.       It's interesting.  TFS.  

It's one of those bizarre articles that's written by someone who doesn't understand that we have local, state and a federal government. The notion that conservatives don't appreciate - or better yet understand water and trash services is just ridiculous. I grew up in a a major metropolitan area in California. I've lived in cities on both coasts and the closest I've come to "country" living is Boulder, Colorado. I used public transportation for 15 years - almost a decade of which I never owned a car. By the author's criteria, I must be a liberal - I'm not, and it's not because I don't realize people get shot - hell I know people who've been shot, and unfortunately people who've shot other people. FYI a lot of people who aren't liberals know immigrants - hell a lot of IMMIGRANTS aren't liberal. This is basically a caricature of who liberals and conservatives are with very little deep thinking.

I grew up by you (based on what you say) and agree. We also moved our liberal selves out of the area ASAP.

There are many reasons why city-dwellers are more likely to be liberals. I don't know that I agree with the 6 the author listed, though.

My main reasons would be that:

1. City-dwellers are more likely to have exposure to 'others' - and maybe even an appreciation of them. If you live in a city with a mixture of people, you are going to be exposed to different people and cultures more than you would in a small town. You may not necessarily like the other cultures, but you won't be afraid of them because they will be familiar. But in many cases, you may well find that you really like other types of food, music, etc. If your only experience with Muslims is seeing them beheading people on tv, or your only experience with Mexicans is hearing that one of them committed a crime, you will be scared. But if you are surrounded by other groups, you will absolutely see those incidents and being perpetrated by individuals, not the group as a whole. We are used to being around white people in the US - when there is a school shooting, it's usually a white guy. Yet that doesn't make us all suspicious of all white guys because we know that's ridiculous - we can name 100 white guys who aren't interested or involved in shooting up schools, so it doesn't occur to us that it's a 'white guy' thing.

2. Educated people/professionals are more likely to live in the city. There aren't a ton of jobs in rural areas for people with advanced degrees. Not all educated people are liberal, but it does skew that direction.

3. City dwellers do see the result of government programs more readily. this was mentioned above - if I live in a city and the roads don't get repaved, if the homeless problem gets bigger due to cutbacks in funding for programs, if the library hours are cut - I'm going to notice. More people = more programs. It's easy for a city dweller to see the difference a program makes when the results are right on their doorstep. Change the regulations on gasoline, the smog is going to get better or worse in the cities first. It's just a matter of scale. If you're used to seeing results from government spending, you're more likely to feel that government spending can solve problems.

Do you consider yourself prejudiced, bigoted, or narrow-minded? No? Then why is this throwaway post getting you so worked up?

(It IS possible to be non-prejudiced, non-bigoted, and non-narrow minded, and still be a conservative. They are really not mutually exclusive. Except maybe in Trumpworld.)

When I was five we moved from the US to Germany and lived off base with no American neighbors, only Germans. And their only exposure to US culture and our way of life was what they saw on TV. It was hilarious how far from reality their impressions were. When we told them some of our family lived in Texas, they no-shit thought that people in Texas all wore cowboy hats and owned horses. The Oma downstairs asked us if we ever had to be afraid of Indians. I know it sounds completely ridiculous but they really thought that outside big cities like NY and Chicago, it was exactly like an episode of Bonanza.

And this is how far from reality it is to be scared of immigrants or Muslims or any other group. If all you ever see on television and in the news is the worst of any group, it's very easy to slide into fear. And what you see on TV *is* the worst. You don't see the commitment to community service that is simply part and parcel of the Muslim community, never met any of the vast numbers of cultural Muslims who attend mosque but eat egg mcmuffins like they're going out of style, never interacted with Pakistani immigrants who live on pennies so they can send all their money home to their families.

I don't know how to make this better. I just know it's a problem and I wish it were easier to shake the culture of fear. It's simply unfounded and is harmful to us as individuals and to the nation as a whole.

No, not at. Never said that.   Just saw this photo and found it relevant to my previous comment of getting to know your neighbors, near or far, once you get to know them it may help in removing the fear, thus the prejudices. The comment was not taking a dig at anyone- the "travelers" can be anyone.

As in above mentioned "city dwellers" experiencing life with all types of folks, so do travelers.