Liberals (actually now defined as members of the Democratic Socialists for America and the Communist Party USA) believe themselves to be more sophisticated, more intelligent, and more tolerant because they predominately live in big cities. They look down on small towns, cities and suburbs because, generally, conservatives live there.
Thomas Frank, writing in The Guardian, in an article titled, “The intolerance of the left: Trump’s win as seen from Walt Disney’s hometown,” claimed, “Small-town people, we liberals think, are Republican people. At their best, they are pious, respectful, conservative; at their worst they are smug and self-righteous, small-minded and yet capable of broad prejudice. People in the hinterlands, we think, are just different: all the adults are church-going puritans with a neatness obsession, and all the kids long to escape and finally be themselves.”
There is something about small towns, cities and suburbs that so-called liberals hate. But let’s look at states with large cities “managed” by so-called liberals. In California, one in five residents are poor. This state, with 12% of the country’s population, is home to one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients.
In San Francisco, on any given day, there are just under 7,000 people sleeping in the streets. San Jose may be the center of Silicon Valley but is home to one of the largest homeless populations in the United States. San Diego has the second largest population of homeless veterans in the country, at 1,156. Total homeless in Los Angeles and Los Angeles County is just over 57,000 people. So-called liberals run these cities and counties. One does not see this degree of homelessness in small towns, cities and suburbs.
In Seattle, Washington, total homeless in King County is almost 11,000 people. Seattle’s University District has the highest poverty rate. Seattle’s high poverty neighborhoods have more than doubled since the year 2000. While Seattle is the 23rd largest city in the United States, it has the country’s fourth largest homeless population. Seattle is run by uber-liberals.
In New York City, during the 2015-2016 school year, there were 100,000 homeless students, a number equal to many small cities. The ten cities with the most homeless people are: New York, 73,523 homeless people; Los Angeles with 57,000 homeless people; Seattle, at 11,000 homeless; San Diego City and County, at just under 9,000 homeless; District of Columbia with 8,350 homeless; San Francisco with 7,000 homeless; San Jose, Santa Clara and Santa Clara County, at just under 7,000 homeless; Boston at 6,240 homeless; Las Vegas and Clark County, at 6,208 homeless; and Philadelphia with 6,112 homeless. What do these cities have in common? They are all managed by liberal administrations.
The ten cities with the highest murder rates per 100,000 people in 2017 are (1) St. Louis at 59.29 murders; (2) Baltimore at 55.37 murders; (3) Detroit at 43.82; (4) New Orleans at 41.68; (5) Birmingham at 37.21; (6) Jackson at 31.08; (7) Baton Rouge at 26.23; (8) Hartford at 25.69; (9) Salinas at 25.29; and (10) Milwaukee at 24.15. Chicago came in as number 25. What do these ten cities have in common? So-called liberals run them all.
What are the ten worst cities for traffic congestion? Number one is Washington, D.C. with a total congestion cost of $4.6 billion. Number two is the Long Beach-Los Angeles-Anaheim complex with a total congestion cost of $13.3 billion. Number 3 is San Francisco-Oakland with a congestion cost of $3.1 billion. Number four is New York-Newark (NY-NJ-CT) complex with a total congestion cost of $14.7 billion. Number five is San Jose with a total congestion cost of $2.2 billion. Number 6 is Boston with a total congestion cost of $3.4 billion. Number seven is Seattle with a total congestion cost of $3.3 billion. Number eight is Chicago with a total congestion cost of $7.2 billion. Number nine is Houston with a total congestion cost of $4.9 billion. And number ten is the Riverside-San Bernadino with a total congestion cost of $2.2 billion. What do these cities have in common? So-called liberals run them all.
All these cities have something else in common. They are all becoming “third world” cities. The cost of housing, the lack of existing housing, is forcing homeless numbers to skyrocket. Homeless people are living on the street, sleeping under bridges. Murder rates are soaring. Traffic congestion is the worsening. And all these states are financially in the red because of government pensions and paybacks to public sector unions.
But the trends may start reversing with young Americans beginning to abandon large cities. As Michael Barone noted, “During the sluggish 2008-2013 economy, young Americans stayed put in tiny child-unfriendly apartments in hip central-coastal cities like New York and San Francisco, and paid high rents resulting from stringent environmental restrictions. This was hailed as a move toward progressive attitudes. But evidently not. As Newgeography proprietor Joel Kotkin has noted, since growth returned, young people have been heading to child-friendly suburbs and exurbs, ditching subway cards for SUV fobs.”
The liberal mindset of command and control economies is not working. Government is causing these problems, not solving them. Conservative and moderate small towns, cities and suburbs seem to do much better than population dense illiberal large cities and counties.