Most Liberal City in the U.S.? Not Berkeley!

Posted by Monica Mehta at 12:03 PM on August 15, 2005.

Contrary to what you may think, Berkeley is not the most liberal city in the country. Nor is San Francisco, or even New York.

That label is reserved for Detroit, Michigan, according to a study conducted by the nonpartisan Bay Area Center for Voting Research that examined voting patterns in the 2004 presidential election. Included in the study were 237 cities with populations over 100,000.

The rest of the top five most liberal cities were as follows: Gary, IN; Berkeley, CA; Washington, D.C.; and Oakland, CA.

New York ranked all the way down at No. 21. The Bay Area is the most liberal region in America, with 11 cities ending up on the list of the most liberal cities in the country.

Provo, Utah and Lubbock, Texas were the two most conservative cities in the country, according to the study. The mayor of Provo said its ranking as the most conservative city was owing to the fact that 75% of the city's residents are Mormon.

Of course, President Bush's home state of Texas has three of the five most conservative cities: Lubbock, Abilene and Plano. Arizona, Florida, and Southern California cities also figured prominently among the list of most conservative cities.

Not surprisingly, race played a major role in political ideologies. "As the most conservative city in America, Provo is overwhelmingly white and solidly middle class," said director Jason Alderman. "This is in stark contrast to Detroit, which is impoverished, black and the most liberal."

Monica Mehta is an associate editor at AlterNet.