Well suburbs aren't exactly so Republican, depending on the part of hthe country. Boston's suburbs are liberal and have been for awhile. new York's suburbs (especially Long Island, & Westchester) have gone from GOP to DEm & now is fairly liberal. Philly's suburbs Montco & Bucks have done the same & are now fairly liberal. D.C's subrubs are moving leftward (Fairfax especially) Denver's suburbs are pretty liberall, Seattle's suburbs are fairly liberal, same with the bay area.
You can take this urban-suburban-rural politics thing on many different levels. You have the downtowns of many Northeastern cities (CC Philly, Manhattan ,etc.) being fairly well off and white , but overwhelmingly Democratic and "trendy". Mostly younger professionals, make a decent living, but not overhwemingly weatlhy, live w/ roomates and socially liberal. GOP policies strangle them because they don't have families.
You get another layer (North and West Philly, Bronx, parts of Brooklyn) of African American and Hispanics who are also overhwhelmingly Dem as well, but largely on economic issues. They can at times have conservative stances on some social issues, especially gay marriage, but will almost never vote GOP.
Your next layer gets tricky, yet this is an area I can best describe. This is where the urban and suburban areas kind of mesh. Areas such as Northeast Philadelphia, Staten Island, Yonkers, Queens, Upper Darby, and Bristol describe what I'm talking about next. Basically the outer city, inner industrial suburbs. These areas lean Dem, but have a fairly large GOP influence. Issues and their stances on them vary greatly, but these areas are mostly white ethnic Roman Catholics with a sizable number of minorities. <Don't shoot me for PA 13-izing this.> One thing about the city parts is you have a lot of Philly and NYC cops that need to keep a city residence. A fair number work in African American precincts and think minorities cause problems, tend to have an attiude they are racially superior and these attitudes spread down to their kids and sometimes neighbors. Many send their kids to Catholic schools and some attend Mass. Socially conservative "values" are further enforced in this environment. However a good number of other people are in Unions and "vote their wallet". Also, a fair number want to get as far away from the Church as possible.
Next layer are the suburbs. Funny, most older residents are GOP, yet when their kids return from living in a trendy area of a downtown to raise a family, they keep their liberal, Democratic politics..I guess the first is due to economics and I've explained the latter. Another thing I can think of is in the suburbs, you have to pay for EVERYTHING such a property taxes and trash pickup. Some suburban residents are not fans of the local GOP controlled government. Teens, 20 and early 30 somethings I find are VERY socially liberal though.
Rural areas beats me!
