What does it take for a metro area (outside the coasts) to become "liberalized"?

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm talking about places like Madison, Denver, Austin, and Minneapolis which lean strongly D and lack any sort of substantial R vote netting suburbs at this point.

On the flip side, you have cities like Cinci, Dallas, Pheonix, Houston, and Charlotte, which are growing, college educated, and have clear industries, but are just so much redder and have all these R suburbs and exurbs that almost cancel out the D votes from the city.

The difference seems to be strongest amonst white voters, which have huge variations in their political leanings across these different metros.

Is it a self-sorting cultural thing, or is there some sort of "formula" that leads to certain metros becoming liberalized over others.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I'm talking about places like Madison, Denver, Austin, and Minneapolis which lean strongly D and lack any sort of substantial R vote netting suburbs at this point.

On the flip side, you have cities like Cinci, Dallas, Pheonix, Houston, and Charlotte, which are growing, college educated, and have clear industries, but are just so much redder and have all these R suburbs and exurbs that almost cancel out the D votes from the city.

The difference seems to be strongest amonst white voters, which have huge variations in their political leanings across these different metros.

Is it a self-sorting cultural thing, or is there some sort of "formula" that leads to certain metros becoming liberalized over others.

In your second list are a lot of metros with large populations of suburban evangelicals, who are still very much a key part of the GOP coalition (and in some ways are more influential than rural voters).
With the exception of Austin (where these voters still exist but are just outvoted), they don't exist in your first list.

[Sol]

Well, half of your second list is southern cities, which is going to be a lot of it of course. As ExtremeRepublican points out, this also patterns with these places being quite evangelical (though it's worth pointing out that suburban Minneapolis is also quite evangelical iirc, or at least used to be).

A lot of this has to do with the local economy. All of the cities you mentioned are dominated by particular economic sectors which skew leftward: tech, education, entertainment, and tourism.

The industries which dominate the second cities are not those first four, though they're certainly present. Instead you have cities dominated by logistics and shipping, finance, resource extraction, manufacturing, and real estate. None of these really have a Democratic skew in the present era (manufacturing is complicated but most people in these cities are non-union so it doesn't matter).

[Orser67]

Agreed with what the last two posters said, but I'd add that a particularly striking difference between the two groups of cities listed is that the first group of metro areas (by combined statistical area) have both the state capital and the state flagship university. Of the latter group, none have the state capital and only Phoenix has an institution that's at least sometimes referred to as a flagship (Arizona State University), and the University of Arizona might dispute that. Edit: Phoenix also has the state capital

[King of Kensington]

Evangelical

Dallas  38%
Houston  30%
Phoenix  25%
Minneapolis  15%

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/

[GALeftist]

Agreed with what the last two posters said, but I'd add that a particularly striking difference between the two groups of cities listed is that the first group of metro areas (by combined statistical area) have both the state capital and the state flagship university. Of the latter group, none have the state capital and only Phoenix has an institution that's at least sometimes referred to as a flagship (Arizona State University), and the University of Arizona might dispute that.

Point of order: Phoenix is the capital of Arizona. Otherwise, though, yeah, I think both factors generally make areas much bluer than they would be otherwise.

[King of Kensington]

FWIW the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area has voted D in every election since 1976.  There was a 10 point increase in the D vote in 2020, however.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis%E2%80%93Saint_Paul#Politics

[Del Tachi]

The main determinant is industry mix.  Left-leaning cities have more science, research, tech and government jobs.  Conservative-leaning cities skew toward finance, engineering, and manufacturing industries.   

[King of Kensington]

College degree, 2021 ACS

Austin  50%
Charlotte  39%
Cincinnati  36%
Dallas  38%
Denver  48%
Houston  36%
Madison  49%
Minneapolis-St. Paul  45%
Phoenix  36%

College degree (NHW)

Austin  59%
Charlotte  43%
Cincinnati  38%
Dallas  47%
Denver  56%
Houston  48%
Madison  50%
Minneapolis-St. Paul  48%
Phoenix  41%

[freepcrusher]

in general - the more postindustrial the economy is - the more supportive of the democratic party said community will be

[Hope For A New Era]

A related phenomenon is the growth prediction feature set: The cities that are growing right now are sunbelt cities, cities with universities, and state capitals.

What are the two cities defying the rust belt decline? Columbus and Madison, both state capitals that contain the flagship state university.

What is the fastest growing metro in the country? Austin, the only city in the country that is all three of these simultaneously.

There are a few places that defy this pattern, but it generally holds pretty well.

[ProgressiveModerate]

A related phenomenon is the growth prediction feature set: The cities that are growing right now are sunbelt cities, cities with universities, and state capitals.

What are the two cities defying the rust belt decline? Columbus and Madison, both state capitals that contain the flagship state university.

What is the fastest growing metro in the country? Austin, the only city in the country that is all three of these simultaneously.

There are a few places that defy this pattern, but it generally holds pretty well.

Yeah, now that I think about it these rules generally hold true. I htink because I'm from NYC which is insanely massive, I underestimate how much a large 20k-40k flagship state school can impact a metro area of a million or so.

One city I find interesting that sort of defies your rules is Pittsburg which has Carnegie Mellon and who's industry has been changing to more white-collar jobs, yet the population still shrunk according to the 2020 census. It could just be the revitalization is fairly new and Pittsburg was coming from a bad place to begin with so we've only just gotten to the point where it's netting growth.

Pittsburg feels like a weird mix of Columbus and Cleveland

[Sol]

A related phenomenon is the growth prediction feature set: The cities that are growing right now are sunbelt cities, cities with universities, and state capitals.

What are the two cities defying the rust belt decline? Columbus and Madison, both state capitals that contain the flagship state university.

What is the fastest growing metro in the country? Austin, the only city in the country that is all three of these simultaneously.

There are a few places that defy this pattern, but it generally holds pretty well.

Yeah, now that I think about it these rules generally hold true. I htink because I'm from NYC which is insanely massive, I underestimate how much a large 20k-40k flagship state school can impact a metro area of a million or so.

One city I find interesting that sort of defies your rules is Pittsburg which has Carnegie Mellon and who's industry has been changing to more white-collar jobs, yet the population still shrunk according to the 2020 census. It could just be the revitalization is fairly new and Pittsburg was coming from a bad place to begin with so we've only just gotten to the point where it's netting growth.

Also worth noting that Pittsburgh is well below most averages for international immigration.

[Hope For A New Era]

A related phenomenon is the growth prediction feature set: The cities that are growing right now are sunbelt cities, cities with universities, and state capitals.

What are the two cities defying the rust belt decline? Columbus and Madison, both state capitals that contain the flagship state university.

What is the fastest growing metro in the country? Austin, the only city in the country that is all three of these simultaneously.

There are a few places that defy this pattern, but it generally holds pretty well.

Yeah, now that I think about it these rules generally hold true. I htink because I'm from NYC which is insanely massive, I underestimate how much a large 20k-40k flagship state school can impact a metro area of a million or so.

One city I find interesting that sort of defies your rules is Pittsburg which has Carnegie Mellon and who's industry has been changing to more white-collar jobs, yet the population still shrunk according to the 2020 census. It could just be the revitalization is fairly new and Pittsburg was coming from a bad place to begin with so we've only just gotten to the point where it's netting growth.

Pittsburg feels like a weird mix of Columbus and Cleveland

There are some rulebreakers. Another big one is Sioux Falls, which is not a state capital, not in the sunbelt, and doesn't have a university, yet has grown like 25% per decade for four consecutive decades now.