Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
marginalrevolution.com
Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
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Re: Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
#2First, article is talking more about ideological divide (democratic/republican) than ideological diversity (which would presumably mean many other viewpoints).
Not sure about ideological diversity, and how to even measure it, but ideological divide to me seems as an inevitable result of two party system (and majority voting system), as both parties struggle to get supporters. In order to do that, they often abandon or shift in ideology. The result is that the "ideological divide" is so very fluid that it is not really representative of any particular ideology.
In short, I think measuring the "ideological diversity" in terms of democrats/republicans is probably quite misleading.
Re: Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
#3> Washington DC: The intellectual class in this city is about half conservative/Republican/libertarian and always will be.
While I think the 50 percent figure is high, people tend to only think of DC as a liberal city.
Of course it primarily is, but there is a large population of well-educated conservatives and libertarians living here.
Most of my social circle leans left, but it was always good living in DC to hear different perspectives, rather than shouting into an echo-chamber.
Also an extremely diverse population (51% Black) along with on-going gentrification leads to DC being one of the more intellectually stimulating cities to live in.
Re: Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
#4Houston for sure. It’s close to a true melting pot. You have everything from cowboys to Marxists, libertarians to La Raza activists. You have an old, tight knit African American community mixed with limousine liberals, George H.W. Bush style globalist conservatives along with large Latin American communities, GLBT flag-wavers and evangelicals. There is even a small, but extremely tight-knit Jewish community along with a large and welcoming Islamic community. I could go on and on. Houston wins by far when it comes to ideological diversity. The ciry itself does trend leftwards, however if you add Harris Coubtry into the mix, it’s almost an even split with many people straddling the left-right ideological divide (voting for liberal mayors but conservative county commissioners.)
Re: Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
#5How can this question be reasonably answered?
Maybe places with high numbers of academics and articulate people can be measured but that's about it.
There's multiple dimensions when it comes to ideology and multiple approaches to each dimension. There's even fundamentally different interpretations of the categorical differences on how to subdivide the classifications of these systems. And each of these facets have wide diversity at every nuanced level.
For instance, many San Francisco "lefties" are anarcho-capitalists who want to do away with market oversight along with having drug legalization, amnesty for all immigrants, gay rights, and unlimited gun rights for all. They want to privatize all public services and call that process "progressivism".
Some of them call themselves libertarians, others "classical liberals" and yet others will tell you long stories about how they aren't either of those... It's really quite complicated and throwing them all in a "liberal" column with people who believe entirely different things for entirely different reasons (such as, for instance, those who believe "money"(another debated term) is a fundamentally corrupting influence and the state needs to tame the market through strict oversight), is pretty incorrect. In fact, some socialists I've spoken with consider the entire libertarian project as a form of tyrannical autocracy by the ruling class - so they view those lefties as actually far-righties.
But let's pretend you can map all those out and ignore that perspective matters. Do you need population size? Representation in governments? Places of discussion?
I really can't see how to even approach this question.
Re: Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
#6First, article is talking more about ideological divide (democratic/republican) than ideological diversity (which would presumably mean many other viewpoints). Not sure about ideological diversity, and how to even measure it, but ideological divide to me seems as an inevitable result of two party system (and majority voting system), as both parties struggle to get supporters. In order to do that, they often abandon o…
Surely, true ideological diversity begins with (but indeed doesn't end with) the capacity to have democrats and republicans successfully coexist, something that parts of California and parts of the south, respectively, has struggled with.
Re: Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
#7Cowen uses intellectual and ideological diversity interchangeably.
I would argue that intellectual and ideological bubbles are only partially intersect and most of his readers are more interested in intellectual diversity.
I also suspect that binary conservatives/liberals division is not bringing enough diversity either ideologically or intellectually. The political diversity is large cities with large universities with lots of students and immigrants far outweighs the diversity in local politics. Smart Nepalese student who is communist may cut trough the conservative/liberal axis in a surprising way that is really new and interesting.
Re: Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
#8What is the point diversity for the sake of diversity? What you want is a community of people who can analyze data and have sufficient knowledge of statistics to know how to distinguish valid information from garbage. There's no point in being around anti vaccine people, or people who base their arguments in assumptions (beliefs) from old stories.
Re: Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
#9> Washington DC: The intellectual class in this city is about half conservative/Republican/libertarian and always will be. While I think the 50 percent figure is high, people tend to only think of DC as a liberal city. Of course it primarily is, but there is a large population of well-educated conservatives and libertarians living here. Most of my social circle leans left, but it was always good living in DC to hear…
51% black doesn’t make it “extremely diverse.” That makes it “majority black.” Hispanics are only 4% of the population, Asians less than 3%. Whites are roughly 43%
I am not sure how diverse that is and certainly questionable to call that “extremely diverse.”
Re: Which is the most ideologically diverse American city?
#10I hypothesize NYC