When you read up on U.S. political basics, you can’t help but come across the detail that many of the people in cities in the U.S. seem to lean left, yet what isn’t as clear is why and what influences their concentration in cities/urban areas.
Cities don’t exactly appear to be affordable, and left-leaning folks in the U.S. don’t seem to necessarily be much wealthier than right-leaning folks, so what’s contributed to this situation?
Agreed with others that city living causes liberalism.
There’s a flip side too - rural areas experience many kinds of change more slowly and that can lead to conservatism. While we all enjoy new things, I feel like it’s easier to notice what is being lost - when things change - in a small rural community.
Maybe it’s just that we become used to putting up with older things and older social norms, so we feel the downsides less and so become less eager to replace them with what is next.
A less generous way of saying this is that in a small town it’s easier to not feel how much harm is being done by “the way we’ve always done it”.