Will Liberal Cities Leave the Rest of America Behind?

In Virginia the contrasts between liberal areas and ultra-conservative areas of the state are stark, with higher incomes and economic growth increasingly concentrated in urban and liberal areas such as Northern Virginia.  In sharp contrast, in conservative areas of Virginia - largely in Southwest Virginia, so-called Southside and parts of the Shenandoah Valley, unemployment is high and economic activity is either stagnant or declining.  Yet the Republican Party of Virginia continues to favor the policies backed by the conservative regions which would drag the Commonwealth as a whole backward in time and economic progress.  The phenomenon is not unique to Virginia and highlights the contrasts between the GOP policies of "no," obstructionism and reaction and efforts being made in liberal cities to move the working and middle classes forward.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the possibility that liberal cities will leave the rest of America in the dust economically and socially.  Here are column highlights:

The declining ability of the American political order to deliver a steadily rising standard of living to the vast middle and working classes began to show itself in the 1970s, well before most people grasped the significance of what was happening around them. Decades of globalization have been accompanied by diminishing opportunity for those in midlevel jobs; by stagnant wages, especially for men without college degrees; and by the virtual collapse of private-sector unionization.

Standing in opposition to these adverse trends, a wave of newly elected mayors from New York to Seattle has taken office committed to deploying the power of city government and aggressive wage and tax policies to attack inequality and revive social and economic mobility.

These outspoken mayors have generated a growing optimism on the Democratic left that local officials can restore support for government activism. Mayors and city councils, in this view, can lead the drive to improve the prospects and living conditions of those in the bottom third of the income distribution.

Harold Meyerson, the editor at large of The American Prospect, argues in “The Revolt of the Cities” that this insurgency is already in motion. Urban chief executives are raising minimum wages; requiring contractors to hire inner-city residents and to increase pay on municipal projects; backing local union organizing efforts; initiating or expanding pre-K schooling; extending public transit into poor neighborhoods; and requiring police to videotape contacts with citizens.

“They are, in short, enacting at the municipal level many of the major policy changes that progressives have found themselves unable to enact at the federal and state levels,” Meyerson writes. “They also may be charting a new course for American liberalism.”

The political impetus behind this ideological development is the fact that American cities are on the cutting edge of the current demographic transformation of the United States into a majority-minority nation.

Minorities are significantly more liberal and more pro-government than whites, according to survey data from American National Election Studies.

While Meyerson’s political and demographic data is on target, and he accurately describes a movement toward more redistributive policies, there are reasons to be cautious. 

First and foremost, a number of the cities Meyerson points to have exceptional, built-in advantages: major research universities; financial and high-tech corporate centers; substantial and strong artistic and intellectual communities. 

Another way to look at this is that it takes money and resources to become a liberal city. “You can’t be a progressive without prosperity,” Bruce Katz, director of the Brookings Institution’s metropolitan policy program, said in a phone interview.

In their book, “Toward a 21st Century City for All,” John Mollenkopf, a professor of political science and sociology at CUNY, and Brad Lander, a Brooklyn city councilman who represents Cobble Hill, Park Slope and Boro Park, acknowledge the disparity favoring already successful cities.

The larger question is whether the current left-leaning urban agenda is restricted to small elite of well-off municipalities with substantial resources. If so, the cities equipped to finance major enhancements will leave their less well-off counterparts sinking ever deeper in the hole.

Urban America is now on a reconnaissance mission for progressive politics. What we’re still waiting to find out is whether the policies and programs developed in the nation’s thriving urban core will prove to be broadly applicable. Can the new progressive mayors lay the groundwork for a national agenda, or will bold and innovative policy experiments that privilege New York and Seattle fail their disadvantaged cousins like Stockton, Detroit, Buffalo and Baltimore?

One thing that is certain is that the Virginia GOP's policies are not working and will only impede Virginia's progress.  To date, Virginia has moved forward in spite of, not because of the policies of today's GOP.

 

Obama's Agenda Is Not Liberal

In the wake of Barack Obama's second inaugural address, the far right noise machine has been in overdrive depicting his announced policy positions and agenda items as "liberal," "far left" and every other negative term they can think of to whip the knuckle dragging Neanderthals and religious extremists in the GOP base into a spittle flecked frenzy.   Truth be told, Obama's agenda isn't overtly liberal - it only seems that way when compared to the GOP agenda which has drifted into far right lunacy.  Numerous polls show that a majority of Americans - in some instances a significant majority - support Obama's announced positions.  It is the GOP which has become the fringe political party that is increasingly out of step with the country.  Hence the GOP efforts to gerrymander districts and subvert the Electoral College in the face of the reality that a majority of Americans reject the GOP agenda.  A column in the Washington Post underscores the reality that Obama's agenda is not liberal.  Here are highlights:

If there was one word that was used most often to describe President Obama’s second inaugural address Monday, it was “liberal.”  .  .  . the next day, the White House expressed surprise at the notion that the president’s speech amounted to an affirmation of liberalism. Press secretary Jay Carney told reporters that he rejected “the idea that this was an ‘ism’ speech.” He added, “It’s on behalf of ideas that represent who we are as Americans.”

Opinion polls show that on almost all of the major positions Obama espoused in his speech — entitlements, immigration, climate change and same-sex marriage — a majority of Americans agree with him.

By that measure, Obama did not advance a liberal agenda. A consequential one, certainly, but one that reflects centrist views or center-left ones at most. The agenda seems liberal only when judged against the liberal-conservative divide we’re used to in Washington.

According to one poll, 74 percent of Americans support regulating greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change. According to another, 68 percent oppose cutting spending on Medicaid, the public health insurance program for the poor. And other polls show that more than half of Americans favor a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, a vast majority oppose cuts in education or transportation funding, and a slim majority support same-sex marriage.

The president’s embrace of same-sex marriage in his inaugural address illustrates how he emulates public views, even as he uses terms that sound bold and progressive. He said on a questionnaire in 1996 that he supported gay marriage, but he later said he backed only civil unions. His announcement of his support for same-sex marriage last year — which he carefully said was an expression of his personal view — tracked closely with public opinion as a majority of Americans came to share the same view.

Obama’s call to battle climate change in his second term underscores a similar phenomenon. His position sounds liberal because it appeases the environmental base of the Democratic Party and because Republicans have increasingly opposed efforts to stem global warming. But there wasn’t always such an ideological gap between the parties. In the 2008 presidential race, Obama and his opponent, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), had almost exactly the same plan to help solve the problem of a warming planet.

Looking at this history and today’s opinion polls, it would seem pretty easy to find consensus in America on a lot of big issues — not just “liberal” or “conservative” solutions.

Again, it is the Republicans who are out of step with a majority of Americans.  Yet rather than moving towards the center, the party seems determined to move further towards the lunatic far right.

Liberals Need to To Recover 'Hijacked' Christianity

Dan Savage is saying something that I have long advocated: progressive, non-hate filled Christians need to stop yielding the field to the Christofascist who have turned Christianity into something abhorrent that seems focused on the dissemination of hate and fear rather than the Gospel message of Christ.  These "good Christians" need to forcefully speak out and boldly confront the lies and despicable propaganda campaigns of the Christofascists.  From time to time it happens - e.g., some of the ELCA and Episcopal bishops who spoke out against anti-gay initiatives in Minnesota and Washington State - but sadly such is the rare exception and not the norm.  Why does this happen?  Because, in my view, too many pastors and bishops are more afraid of offending hate filled bigots than doing what is morally right.  Because of this cowardice, the Christian brand , if you will, is being destroyed and younger generations are simply walking away from religion.  Candidly, nowadays when I heard someone loudly pronounce that they are a Christian, my initial reaction is negative - I assume that they are a horrible bigot and hypocrite until it is proven otherwise. I suspect that I am not alone in this reaction.  Here are highlights from The Advocate on this issue:

Dan Savage wants liberal Christians to speak up in their churches and speak out about supporting their LGBT friends, family members, and fellow parishioners, the columnist and LGBT activist said in a video released today.

In the latest episode of Savage's new web series, American Savage, the founder of the It Gets Better Project says he's used to fielding complaints as a columnist from Christians who take offense at his across-the-board condemnation of Christians as antigay. 

"We're not all like that," Savage says he hears on a regular basis from people of faith responding to his syndicated sex advice column, Savage Love. He's heard the refrain so often that he's conjured a clever acronym to refer to liberal Christians who support LGBT equality: NALT Christians, or "Not All Like That."

"But the reason so many of us have the idea that you are, indeed, all like that, and the reason that Christian has become synonymous with antigay is because of these loud voices on the Christian right," says Savage in a featured clip of the gay activist speaking at Arizona State University. "And they've hijacked Christianity, with your complicit silence enabling their hijacking of it."

Ann Romney, Not a Representative Woman

I have been biting my tongue on the Ann Romney-Hillary Rosen dust up, but find it difficult to do so any longer. Sure, raising five children is a lot of work. But far less work when one has relatively unlimited amounts of money and can have hired help to do the menial daily tasks that most stay at home mothers face. Yet the GOP has incredibly decided to transform Ann Romney into the archetype stay at home mother in the apparent hope that the disingenuous argument will counter the party's otherwise severely anti-woman agenda. Yes, Hillary Rosen should have chosen her words more carefully, but her underlying analysis was correct: Ann Romney has no clue what it is to be a typical stay at home mom. In saying this, I don't mean to malign her, but rather merely look at objective reality. A column in The Daily Beast looks at the GOP's ridiculous messaging effort:

[C]onservatives have no business pretending that she represents anything beyond what she in fact is, which is a woman who was born to fantastic privilege and who married into even more fantastic privilege, and who simply hasn’t had to make the hard choices that many women have to make. She turns out not even to represent stay-at-home moms very well at all, and if Republicans think this little fracas is rallying stay-at-home moms to their reactionary cause, they’re deluding themselves.

First, a bit about Ann nee Davies. She grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, one of American’s wealthiest suburbs. She attended the posh private sister school of the posh private school her future husband attended. Her father was the president of a company that made maritime machinery. While still in college, she married the son of an ex-automobile company CEO. The couple would have to make its own way in the early years, as young couples do, but surely they knew that if a serious crisis hit them, they’d have someone to turn to. They’d never end up on the street or on a relative’s Castro convertible.

I’m plenty aware that I am going to be accused in the comment thread of class envy, but I’m just laying out facts. They shouldn’t be held against her: For all I know Ann Romney is the most generous, empathetic, and self-abnegating woman in the United States. But it’s simply a fact that she’s never had to worry about how she was going to feed her kids, or what she might do if tragedy befell.

But what of the millions of women who share her bad luck health-wise but don’t share her good luck wealth-wise? We don’t know what she thinks, and maybe since she’s not the candidate she is under no obligation to tell us, interesting as it might be to find out. But we do know what her husband, her own presumed insurance provider, thinks. He thinks the hell with them. He used to care about them, when he passed a law giving them a fair shot at buying affordable coverage, but now he wants to repeal the law that does the same thing nationally, and the only reason is political calculation and cowardice.

The interesting thing about all this is that your “typical,” if there is such a thing, stay-at-home mom bears not the remotest resemblance to Ann Romney. The Census Bureau studied this question for the first time (?!) in 2007, and the results were, to me, totally surprising and fascinating. Stay-at-home mothers, you probably think, are more likely to be white, well-off, proper, all-around June Cleaver-ish. Uh, June Cleaver was around 50 years ago and lived on TV. In today’s actual America, stay-at-home moms are more likely to be: younger; Hispanic (Latina, if you prefer); foreign-born; less well educated.

[A] significant number of women who stay at home don’t do so by choice, but because they don’t have marketable skills—or because they can’t get jobs that pay enough to cover the cost of childcare.

[T]hese women are not staying home by “choice,” and they tend to be the women society really forgets about and pays no attention to. I doubt pretty strongly that they identify much with Ann Romney or are rallying to her husband’s cause.

This whole fracas happened simply because conservatives saw an opportunity to accuse liberals of being elitist. There was a whiff of that in Rosen’s wording, but at least Rosen is affiliated with the side in American politics that wants women who didn’t grow up in Bloomfield Hills and marry well to have a chance to receive excellent health care if they ever find themselves in Ann Romney’s position.

Do Gays Really Boost Property Values?

Friends and I frequently joke that if you want to raise property values and spur gentrification, then get the gays and lesbians to move into the neighborhood. We also have been documented as being a good measure of the attractiveness a city to the so-called "creative class." These stereotypes hold true in many areas even in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, particularly in Norfolk's Ghent area which has transformed itself form borderline slum a number of years ago to one of the most sought after areas replete with shops, restaurants and arts venues. The stereotype even extends to our neighborhood in Hampton which for the most part - sadly, we do have a few reactionary, bigoted residents - is gay friendly and has seen LGBT homeowners make major upgrades to properties. The same phenomenon has even been seen in Cape Charles on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Now a study has conformed the positive influence that gays have on property values. At least in liberal, open minded neighborhoods. In areas favored by conservative bigots, we don't work the same magic. Here are highlights from the Vancouver Sun on some of the new study findings:

A controversial new study suggests that in neighbourhoods where extreme conservatism prevails, the presence of one more same-sex couple for every 1,000 households is linked to a one per cent drop in housing prices. In liberal neighbourhoods, by contrast, researchers find the associated effect of gays and lesbians on housing prices to be positive.

The study, which appears in the Journal of Urban Economics, draws data from more than 20,000 home sales, and controls for such mitigating factors as access to amenities, racial homogeneity, education, income, housing characteristics and quality of nearby schools.

"Gays and lesbians feel that they're not welcome in certain areas," says Susane Leguizamon, a professor of economics at Tulane University. "This study suggests it's not just a feeling; people are responding to the presence of gays and lesbians in the ways we'd expect."

Leguizamon suggests cohabitating same-sex couples are actually quite visible to their neighbours, and thus can have an effect on what people will pay to come or go — much the same way ethnicity has been shown to do in other studies.

She and co-author David Christafore used voting outcomes of the U.S. Defense of Marriage Act to classify neighbourhood values (the Act stated that marriage could only be entered into by a man and a woman), and called on census data to determine the number of same-sex couples in the area.

Affirming previous research, their analysis showed that sexual diversity was positively correlated with housing prices in most neighbourhoods — and most significantly in very liberal areas, dubbed "gaybourhoods."

In communities with high levels of conservatism, however, greater concentrations of same-sex couples was linked with lower housing prices.

Importantly, however, research led by Richard Florida at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management has consistently shown that higher concentrations of gay people are linked with economic prosperity, innovation and creativity within a region.

Economically Booming Northern Virginia Far More Liberal than Rest of Virginia

I noted a Washington Post poll yesterday that showed that a plurality of Virginians now favor gay marriage and a majority favor gay couples adopting. The poll also showed something that I have discussed a lot on this blog: that liberal social views equate to economic growth while closed mindedness and bigotry towards others equate to stagnation or decline. The Washington Post has discussions of this phenomenon which ought to be a wake up call to political leaders in other parts of Virginia who need to grow a spine and flat out say that catering to Christianist policies is economic poison. Will it happen? Probably not. At least not in most areas of the state, especially those at the bottom of the economic heap like southwest Virginia (the city of Martinsville is a prime examle) where bigotry and prejudice are more akin to what existed back at the time of Loving v. Virginia than what ought to predominate in 2011. Not surprisingly, many college educated residents of Hampton Roads leave the area to settle in Northern Virginia and/or D.C. Here are some findings from the Washington Post poll on that parallel directly with progressiveness and economic growth:
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In case there was any doubt that Northern Virginia is a liberal enclave in an otherwise conservative state, check out these tidbits from the new Washington Post poll of Virginians:
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• In the entire Commonwealth, 42 percent of those polled support the Obama health care reforms — but that number jumps to 60 percent in Fairfax-Arlington-Alexandria.

• Asked to classify themselves on social issues, fully 50 percent of Fairfax-Arlington-Alexandria respondents called themselves “liberal,” compared with 31 percent for the rest of the state.
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Though 60 percent of Fairfax-Arlington-Alexandria respondents support Obama’s health care plan, that number drops to 44 percent in the Rest of Northern Virginia. In the rest of Virginia, the support is 38 percent.
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When it comes to support of gay marriage, 64 percent of Fairfax-Arlington-Alexandria backs it, while only 47 percent of the Rest of Northern Virginia does. Combining the two groups, 63 percent of Northern Virginia supports gay marriage, compared to 42 percent of the rest of the state.
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The exurbs were slightly more liberal on gay adoption and abortion. While 68 percent of Fairfax-Arlington-Alexandria respondents supported legalizing adoption by gay parents, 56 percent of those in the Rest of Northern Virginia did too. The rest of the state came in at 51 percent.
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But when respondents were asked about their economic status, 32 percent of Fairfax-Arlington-Alexandria residents said they were “getting ahead financially.” Only 17 percent of the Rest of Northern Virginia respondents said that. For the rest of the state, the total was 15 percent.
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A graphic of these findings can be found here.

Liberalism and Atheism Linked to Higher IQ

I have long maintained that far right and fundamentalist religion depends upon ignorance to perpetuate itself - hence why Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity are growing in uneducated parts of the world while withering in most advanced countries. Similarly, a denomination's adherence to Bible literalism has been shown to track with the overall level of education of denomination members (Episcopalians and Lutherans are more educated on average and less likely to see the Bible as inerrant and something to be taken literally). Now a study out of the London School of Economics and Political Science has correlated liberalism, being an atheist and (in men) being sexually exclusive with higher level IQ. It comes as no surprise in some way since it seems obvious that higher intelligence, logic and reasoning are mutually exclusive in terms of clinging to dogmatic religious beliefs that do not track with objective reality. It is also humorous that the fundamentalist Christians have the highest divorce and remarriage rate among believers, so they fail on this test too. Here are some highlights from CNN:
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Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.
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Religion, the current theory goes, did not help people survive or reproduce necessarily, but goes along the lines of helping people to be paranoid, Kanazawa said. Assuming that, for example, a noise in the distance is a signal of a threat helped early humans to prepare in case of danger. "It helps life to be paranoid, and because humans are paranoid, they become more religious, and they see the hands of God everywhere," Kanazawa said.
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Atheism "allows someone to move forward and speculate on life without any concern for the dogmatic structure of a religion," Bailey said. "Historically, anything that's new and different can be seen as a threat in terms of the religious beliefs; almost all religious systems are about permanence," he noted.
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The study found that young adults who said they were "very conservative" had an average adolescent IQ of 95, whereas those who said they were "very liberal" averaged 106. It also makes sense that "conservatism" as a worldview of keeping things stable would be a safer approach than venturing toward the unfamiliar, Bailey said.
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Vegetarianism, while not strongly associated with IQ in this study, has been shown to be related to intelligence in previous research, Kanazawa said. This also fits into Bailey's idea that unconventional preferences appeal to people with higher intelligence, and can also be a means of showing superiority.

Homo politicus: brain function of liberals, conservatives differs

This is an interesting story on an interesting study (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070909/hl_afp/scienceneuroscience_070909173324) which shows significant differences in brain function and reactions. It tends to re-enforce my view that conservatives in general (and religious conservatives in particular) seek to avoid having to have meaningful innovative thought and analysis. I guess it goes a long way in explaining Chimperator Bush's behavior. Here are a few highlights:

PARIS (AFP) - The brain neurons of liberals and conservatives fire differently when confronted with tough choices, suggesting that some political divides may be hard-wired, according a study released Sunday.

Conservatives tend to crave order and structure in their lives, and are more consistent in the way they make decisions. Liberals, by contrast, show a higher tolerance for ambiguity and complexity, and adapt more easily to unexpected circumstances.

Using electroencephalographs, which measure neuronal impulses, the researchers examined activity in a part of the brain -- the anterior cingulate cortex -- that is strongly linked with the self-regulatory process of conflict monitoring. The match-up was unmistakable: respondents who had described themselves as liberals showed "significantly greater conflict-related neural activity" when the hypothetical situation called for an unscheduled break in routine. Conservatives, however, were less flexible, refusing to deviate from old habits "despite signals that this ... should be changed."