To lead this story, we turn it over to Lloyd Christmas.
A study from Livability.com has found that the top 10 cities in the country for liberal-minded individuals to call home comprise mostly college towns. They span coast-to-coast, which for those who imagine California and the Northeast as victims of an environmentally calamitous blue paint spill makes for a funny image.
Checking in at number one on the countdown for what must be 7,000th straight week is Berkeley, Calif., home to UC-Berkeley, bicyclists, and the historic anti-Panda Express movement. Minutes before Neil Young was slated to perform in 1991 on a stage fashioned of recycled tweed jackets, the noted anti-war rocker murmured into the microphone, “This is too much for me,” before walking off.
Number three is Somerville, Mass., the location of Tufts University. Boulder, Colo., home to the former employer of professor Ward Churchill, is number four. The Big Ten gets quite the representation between numbers five and seven: Evanston, Ill. (Northwestern University), College Park, Md. (University of Maryland), and Ann Arbor, Mich. (University of Michigan).
For good measure, the affluent Alexandria, Va., just a leisurely yog south of the nation’s capital, ranks eighth.
Livability.com took into account politics and cultural preferences to conduct its study, which also included the best cities for conservatives and centrists. It examined the political leanings of a particular city’s congressional representation, how the city’s individuals self-report their politics, and 2012 election results. It also incorporated a “basket of goods” favored by people of an ideological bent — one restaurant, one automotive brand, one magazine, one retailer and one TV show — and studied where such goods are in high usage.
For example, Alexandrians are likely to be fans of HBO’s “The Newsroom,” which features creator Aaron Sorkin’s favorite kind of Republican, the kind who hates himself.
