Living in a Liberal Area is a Privilege
These days there is a lot said and written about White Privilege and White Male Privilege which many times turns on the lighted sign that says “Ugly Conservative”. On the other hand how much is said about well educated, urban Liberals who live in large cities such as San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and other mostly Blue State cities. This Liberal group enjoys many benefits that those in small rural remote monocultural towns miss out on. Of course, some people might enjoy the simplicity, clean air, friendliness, lower cost of living, and more bucolic environment of a small town that harkens to yesteryear.
From an economic taxation perspective, large Liberal areas pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits. Whoever said that living in large Blue area cities came cheap? Housing and living costs are definitely higher and even out of economic bounds for many in areas such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, and New York.
Most major highly regarded universities such as Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, and University of California Berkeley lie in large cities or near large urban areas. San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, and New York are epicenters of many prestigious schools.
Larger cities have much more cultural diversity which attracts tourism, educated and moneyed people, and creativity. Most younger people or the better educated do not want to live in an area where the main cultural activity is attending church on Sunday or staying glued to a NASCAR race or a football game on TV.
Typically younger people want to move from smaller Red State cities to the larger cities where there are better education, as well as employment, and cultural activities.
As people are younger, more educated, and better traveled they skew away from religions which many times conflict with critical thinking, lean toward intolerance, irrationality, and judgementalism. Evangelical Jews, Christians, and Muslims do not want their children exposed to free thinking multi-cultural environments that are typically in big cities.
People in larger cities have a greater chance of inter-coupling with those of different religions, ethnicities, and gender varieties.
Some might say that Blue Area cities smack of cultural, educational, and technological elitism. If that’s true, then I plead guilty, because variety, mental stimulation, and diversity are the spice of life. Those of us in Vallejo and Benicia get the many of the benefits of both urbane and small-town life with reasonable living costs, people and pet friendly shopping areas, cultural and ethnic diversity, as well as a close drive to superb educational institutions and cultural events in Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, or Silicon Valley.
