Cold Climates

[English]

Areas with a history of heavy industry are always left wing. That's the nature of left wing parties surely? Historically they are the parties of working class, blue collar workers. The Cornwall seat of Falmouth & Camborne used to be safely Labour for years, because of the tin mines, similarly with Forest of Dean (coal). I'm sure this is applicable in all developed countries?

Yep, probably is! What about capitol cities? In Sweden it leans to the right but D.C. (to put it mildly) leans to the left. What about London, or other capitols? Paris has been right-winged for a long time, but was recently won by the left.

Gustaf, there is a very good reason for this. In Europe, cities, (especially capital cities) still contain many affluent, middle class people. Paris is *very* middle class and right wing, it's suburbs are poor and very left wing. To a lesser extent, London and Edinburgh are also pretty middle class and have quite recently elected Conservatives to parliament. The inner city London seat of Kensington and Chelsea is the RICHEST place in the country and the SAFEST Tory seat in Britain. In the US however cities are usually poor and populated by blacks and other minorities. DC is no exception. In many European cities the city cores are the affluent part, the suburbs are poverty striken, completely the reverse of the US. UK cities tend to be quite poor, however not overwhelmingly so. Places like Glasgow and Manchester still have a great many affluent people. Compared to Detroit, Manchester is positively rich!

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Paris is *very* middle class and right wing, it's suburbs are poor and very left wing.

I was told Mexico City is like this too.

[English]

Seemingly the US is unique in that it has very rich suburbs and very poor inner cities. I used to live in Manchester, England. That has a bizzarre mix of poor/wealthy areas. The city centre is the richest part, with 1 million pound apartments galore. Yet just a stones throw away are very deprived areas. Similarly some suburbs are wealthy, yet the next door suburb is dire poverty! London is the same story.  Suburban Thamesmead is truly awful!

[English]

Areas with a history of heavy industry are always left wing. That's the nature of left wing parties surely? Historically they are the parties of working class, blue collar workers. The Cornwall seat of Falmouth & Camborne used to be safely Labour for years, because of the tin mines, similarly with Forest of Dean (coal). I'm sure this is applicable in all developed countries?

Not always my friend, not always. I live in Marquette, Michigan, the Iron Ore Mining range of the Upper Penninsula. It's the area commonly mistaken as being part of Wisconsin. We are connected to Lower Michigan via the Mackinaw Bridge. IN Election 2000, my District, the Largest voting district in the U.P. OR Upper Michigan, went Republican. We are loaded with Blue Collar Workers.

Yes, I agree the GOP are attracting more blue collar workers nowadays. Generally however blue collar workers are still more reliably Democrat than white collar workers, is that not true? In the UK the boundaries have blurred too, with a lot of rural/suburban blue collar's voting Tory and urban professionals voting Labour.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Paris is *very* middle class and right wing, it's suburbs are poor and very left wing.

I was told Mexico City is like this too.

It is: the PAN dominate the city, while the PRD dominate the "inner suburbs" of the Federal District.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Paris area(the Ile-de-France) is immensely complicated.

The City of Paris itself is divided between the rich west and poor east(which is not "really Paris". Call it an "inner-inner suburb"), while the suburbs are also divided.

The Ile-de-France is composed of 8 cantons, however only 7 are part of the Paris area. They are:

Outer suburbs: Yvelines, Essonne, Val-d'Oise
Inner suburbs: Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne
City of Paris: Paris

Yvelines
Cantonial Government: UMP
Deputies[M.P's]:
UMP:11
UDF: 1

Essonne
Cantonial Government: PS
Deputies:
UMP: 7
PS: 3

Val-d'Oise
Cantonial Government: UMP
Deputies:
UMP: 7
PS: 2

Hauts-de-Seine
Cantonial Government: RPF
Deputies:
UMP: 9
PCF: 3
Ind-D: 1

Seine-Saint-Denis
Cantonial Government: PCF
Deputies:
PCF: 5*
PS: 4
UMP: 3
UDF: 1
*includes a Deputie elected as an independent who later re-joined the PCF

Val-de-Marne
Cantonial Government: PCF
Deputies:
UMP: 7
PS: 5
PCF: 1

Paris
Cantonial Government: PS
Deputies:
PS: 10
UMP: 7
Verts: 2
UDF: 1
Ind-D: 1


Complex, eh?      

[Gustaf]

The Paris area(the Ile-de-France) is immensely complicated.

The City of Paris itself is divided between the rich west and poor east(which is not "really Paris". Call it an "inner-inner suburb"), while the suburbs are also divided.

The Ile-de-France is composed of 8 cantons, however only 7 are part of the Paris area. They are:

Outer suburbs: Yvelines, Essonne, Val-d'Oise
Inner suburbs: Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne
City of Paris: Paris

Yvelines
Cantonial Government: UMP
Deputies[M.P's]:
UMP:11
UDF: 1

Essonne
Cantonial Government: PS
Deputies:
UMP: 7
PS: 3

Val-d'Oise
Cantonial Government: UMP
Deputies:
UMP: 7
PS: 2

Hauts-de-Seine
Cantonial Government: RPF
Deputies:
UMP: 9
PCF: 3
Ind-D: 1

Seine-Saint-Denis
Cantonial Government: PCF
Deputies:
PCF: 5*
PS: 4
UMP: 3
UDF: 1
*includes a Deputie elected as an independent who later re-joined the PCF

Val-de-Marne
Cantonial Government: PCF
Deputies:
UMP: 7
PS: 5
PCF: 1

Paris
Cantonial Government: PS
Deputies:
PS: 10
UMP: 7
Verts: 2
UDF: 1
Ind-D: 1


Complex, eh?      

How do you know all these things??!!

[Bandit3 the Worker]

It is: the PAN dominate the city, while the PRD dominate the "inner suburbs" of the Federal District.

I guess New York City is kind of like this in a way. I think Manhattan is more Republican than the Bronx is (even though Manhattan includes the city's downtown). Manhattan has a lot of expensive high-rises and stuff. Staten Island, however, is more Republican than either one, so that fits the usual pattern of outer parts of a city being more Republican.

I would bet that St. Louis is more Republican than East St. Louis, IL.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

How do you know all these things??!!

I'm an obsessive researcher!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I guess New York City is kind of like this in a way. I think Manhattan is more Republican than the Bronx is (even though Manhattan includes the city's downtown). Manhattan has a lot of expensive high-rises and stuff. Staten Island, however, is more Republican than either one, so that fits the usual pattern of outer parts of a city being more Republican.

I would bet that St. Louis is more Republican than East St. Louis, IL.

I don't know a lot about the politics of NYC(although by this time tomorrow I probably will!), but I would guess that Bronx and the other inner-suburbs would be very strong Democrat.

East St Louis is dog poor so I'd guess the same.

[CHRISTOPHER MICHAE]

I guess New York City is kind of like this in a way. I think Manhattan is more Republican than the Bronx is (even though Manhattan includes the city's downtown). Manhattan has a lot of expensive high-rises and stuff. Staten Island, however, is more Republican than either one, so that fits the usual pattern of outer parts of a city being more Republican.

I would bet that St. Louis is more Republican than East St. Louis, IL.

I don't know a lot about the politics of NYC(although by this time tomorrow I probably will!), but I would guess that Bronx and the other inner-suburbs would be very strong Democrat.

East St Louis is dog poor so I'd guess the same.

RealPolitik, I am wondering what you mean when you said: "By this time tomorrow." Are you coming to the United States to visit NYC?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I mean I'm probably going to spend about an hour wading through statistics on NYC!

[dazzleman]

The Bronx is probably the most heavily Democratic county in the country.

I would not consider the Bronx to be a close-in suburb.  It is inner city, much of it slums and crime-ridden public housing.  There are also some "better" areas, but in the context of the Bronx, that's not saying much.

New York City politics is heavily Democratic, although they've had a Republican mayor for 3 terms now.  The reason for that is that the Democrats have tripped over and gotten burned by the racial issue.

In New York City, Democratic doesn't always mean liberal.  Manhattan is the most liberal borough, since the northern part consists almost entirely of poor blacks and Hispanics, while the middle section consists of wealthy white limousine liberals.  There is little white working class in Manhattan.

Brooklyn and the Bronx are heavily black and hispanic, balanced off by some white working class voters.  The white voters are generally Democratic, but strongly hostile to blacks and, to a lesser extent, some hispanics, and will vote Republican, as they did in the mayoral election, if the racial issue is prominent in a given year.

Queens is like a pale imitation of the Bronx and Brooklyn.  It has more of a white middle class than those two boroughs, and is not as strongly Democratic, but still generally Democratic in orientation.

Staten Island is the only borough that could be classified as Republican.  It has a relatively small number of minorities, and many of the whites have fled from crime-ridden sections of Brooklyn.  Working and middle class whites in Staten Island, like their counterparts in other parts of the city, are strongly anti-black for the most part.

Race has played a major part in the last 3 mayoral elections.  In 1993, there was a black Democratic mayor (Dinkins) who had allowed crime and rioting to run rampant, and the city voted almost exclusively among racial lines to oust him in favor of Rudy Giuliani.  Giuliani was highly successful in reducing crime, and was strongly re-elected in 1997.  Term limits prevented him from running in 2001.

The Democrats fell into disarray in 2001 because the one minority candidate who was running, Bronx Borough President Ferdinand Ferrer, was defeated in the primary run-off, so some of the blacks and hispanics refused to vote for the Democratic candidate that won the run-off.  The result was that Michael Bloomberg, a nominal Republican, won the election.

The close-in suburbs consist of Westchester County to the north, bordering on the Bronx, and Nassau County to the east, bordering on Queens.  Staten Island is close to New Jersey.  In the past, the suburbs have been reflexively Republican due to their deep-seated hostility toward New York City and its politics.  Ironically, NYC's Republican Mayor Giuliani helped to dull this trend by improving conditions in the city and the image of the city to the point that suburbanites don't feel that they have to vote a certain way out of hostility toward the city.  The suburbs still generally vote Republican in state-wide elections, but not national elections at this point.

I hope this gives you a little bit of perspective on New York politics.  There is a lot more, but time is limited right now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've been looking at a load of statistics, articles etc. and here's what I've found out:

Manhatten(New York County) can be considered as the original city, and has gradually absorbed the other cities in the area.
Brooklyn(Kings), Queens and Bronx are what I would term inner-suburbs(ie: they have been absorbed by the rest of the city, a bit like the East End of London or Seine-Sainte-Denis in the Ile-de-France)
Staten Island can be considered as an outer-suburb(like Yvelines or Barnet), which has been partially absorbed.
Nassau and Westchester are outer-outer suburbs(like Epping Forest or Seine-et-Marne)

Bronx is mostly working class Hispanic(with a large working class black population), and is incredibly safely Democrat, Brooklyn has a higher % of both Blacks and non-hispanic whites and is strongly Democrat, although less than Bronx, Queens is more white and more middle-class, it's strongly Democrat but less than Manhatten, which is a combination of working class blacks and white intelligentsia, while Staten Island is white middle class and leans Republican.

Overall NYC resembles a large European city more than most other large American cities, this seems to be a result of it's age as much as anything else.

[dazzleman]

A lot depends on semantics.  The typical American definition of a suburb is an area outside a city in which single family, owner-occupied housing (as opposed to multi-family and rental units) predominates, with separation between commercial and residential land uses.

By this definition, Staten Island and parts of Queens are quasi-suburban, but the Bronx and Brooklyn are not.  Even some close-in parts of Westchester and Nassau County have become so urbanized and built up that it's hard to consider them suburban.

Suburbs also have the connotation of being desirable places to live, a level above the close-in urban areas.  This is definitely not true of the Bronx.  I know many people who grew up there, and they all virulently hate it.  They talk about living there as if it were a prison sentence, and vow to either get out at the earliest possible opportunity, or, if they have already gotten out, to never go back.  They would also laugh in your face if you called it a suburb.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's a decaying "inner-suburb", in otherwords it was once seperate but has been absorbed by the urban sprawl.
Like Seine-Ste-Denis or Woolwich.
It certainly is not in suburbia!

[nclib]

Another one is religiousity or strength of religious belief. Its not a widely applicable rule. African Americans are exceptions to this rule but then they would be exceptions to almost every rule, voting democrat no matter who they are or what they do
Otherwise its one of the best indicators of voting behaviour in the US>

Okay while we are pushing theories here are a couple

The more urban an area, the more liberal. (This actually works in the US but is not applicable in most other places-then again the US definition of liberalism/conservatism that I'm using is not applicable in most places)

Let me know major exceptions in the US.

Of course, there are exceptions, but the urban-liberal/rural-conservative trend is quite accurate. Just for fun, let's list exceptions:

Rural:

-African-Americans (and Hispanics, to a lesser degree)
-counties/cong. districts along/near the Mississippi River (other than the state of Mississippi)
-Upstate New York/Vermont/Maine
-West Virginia (Democratic, but socially conservative)

Urban:

-Cubans in Miami-Dade County
-Jacksonville, Fla.
-Dallas
-Houston
-San Diego
-Phoenix
-Cincinnati
-Salt Lake City (conservative by national urban standards, but very liberal compared to the rest of Utah)

Also, in Wisc. and N.H., Dems held their own in rural districts (WI3, WI7, NH2) and actually did better than some urban districts (WI4, NH1)--(according to 2000 CD map)

[nclib]

I have a theory of my own, that people who live on the coast, or near large bodies of water are very liberal. But I'm sure you can all point out instances where my theory does not hold to truth as well.

But of course
In the U.K, most of the South East is coastal(and right wing), while South Yorkshire is landlocked(and very left wing)

Also in the Carolina's, the coastal parts of both states seem to lean more GOP than much of the interior(although that could just be the gerrymandering)

In Poland, the industrial areas on the southern border are far more left wing than the coastal areas.

In N.C., the coast is quite conservative, more conservative than the state's major metropolitan areas, but is less conservative than rural inland eastern N.C.

[nclib]

I would bet that St. Louis is more Republican than East St. Louis, IL.

I remember seeing somewhere that East St. Louis went 98% for Gore.

[© tweed]

Upstate New York is fairly conservative, that is Pataki's stronghold.  And Houston is liberal compared to the rest of texas.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Oddly enough much of the rural areas that the Dems do very well in are in the Appalachian Mountains(which also contain very conservative areas like eastern TN)

Mind you they are HUGE(starts in the extreme North East of MS and finishes in Newfoundland), and tend to be poorer than average and have a large coalfield in them.
Interestingly the foothills tend to be more right-wing than the higher mountains(with the exception of the Pittsburgh area)

The other major area is the Mississippi Basin
Again poverty may be a factor.

[Cairo_East]

I vote Republican, but only when it's above 70F.

Good thing the election is in November.

[Gustaf]

I vote Republican, but only when it's above 70F.

Good thing the election is in November.

Haha...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've just been looking up Norwegian politics, and there are some very interesting trends there.

The Northern part of Norway (very cold) votes DNA (Labour), which backs up the cold climates theory.

But a very interesting trend is that the DNA do best in rural counties (as do the centrist Christian Democrats and the Senter Party) while H (conservatives) do best in more urban counties.

[Gustaf]

I've just been looking up Norwegian politics, and there are some very interesting trends there.

The Northern part of Norway (very cold) votes DNA (Labour), which backs up the cold climates theory.

But a very interesting trend is that the DNA do best in rural counties (as do the centrist Christian Democrats and the Senter Party) while H (conservatives) do best in more urban counties.

It's same in most of Scandinavia. In Sweden the Conservatives always do best in urban districts and rich suburbs, and I believe the same thing goes for Finland. The Swedish SAP do good everywhere...basically whereever there are poor people...