What draws U.S. left-leaning folks to cities to begin with?

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?

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It’s more that cities tend to make people liberal. Some folks in small towns have never met a Muslim person or a Korean person. They have only a family tradition of racism in their small white racist town. People in cities have to live alongside many different types of people, and get to eat different foods and have different experiences. That cures racism.
- Yep. There's nothing like face-to-face interactions to dispell myths, bias, and assumptions.
  
  Oh, like the myth that cities are a utopia where there is no racism? Because guess what, bud, there are plenty of fucking racist pieces of shit in the city. Or how about the myth that only white people are racist? Because there is racism between Asians and Black people. Or Black people and Hispanics. Or between the various religions. It ain't just white people.
  Yes, there tend to be more liberal viewpoints in large cities, but this broad-stroke painting a picture of a lack of racism in cities needs to stop. People need to re-learn nuance.
  
  Maybe ask them if they're generalizing before a tirade? Yes, hate and stupidity exists everywhere, but I've lived in rural and metro areas and their generalization is accurate. And for that matter, there's a lot of warm people that live in back country who aren't stupid or racist, but, depending on a few factors, you can easily run into rural stereotypes. All the same I imagine a lot of us are talking in general views.
  
  What tirade? And it's amazing how I'm downvoted for pointing this shit out. It's that same old ploy when someone doesn't like hearing the truth so they just keep saying, "stop yelling at me", no matter how calmly you try to say it. It's almost like there's a narrative trying to be controlled and yinz don't like it when you're called out.
  And since you missed it in my last comment: GENERALIZATION IS WHAT'S HARMFUL. LEARN NUANCE.
  
  Haha, the irony of a person screaming, "learn nuance." Generalization isn't the problem, income inequality is. You clearly have a lot of energy and passion which is great, but you need to learn how to punch up.
  
  Brother, I do punch up, because punching down is for suckers and only serves to injure one's own hand. And when it comes to people continuing to push generalizations, because generalizations only serve agendas, I'll punch them too.
  
  Punch yourself, then. You just "generalized" the gender of a random lemmy commenter. Again, hilariously ironic.
  
  Not every conversation and discussion can contain every edge case. Generalizations are okay some times
  
  Make a generalization and people attack your argument with exceptions and lack of specificity.
  Make an argument with specificity and it has to be written with exceptions, caveats, disclaimers, becomes long-winded and nobody wants to read it. Or they throw a generalization at you.
  Can’t win, but conciseness and a level of brevity are still good policy.
  
  I bet you've figured out that low fat food isn't fat free too. Bud.
- It's also why college can make someone more liberal
- Well that is my childhood and then I moved to a big city.
- Being liberal is more than just an issue of race and culture though. It’s a whole philosophy. And there are things in every established philosophy I can’t see myself getting behind.
  
  It’s a whole philosophy
  ... I kinda feel I might regret this, but what do you mean? Are you sure you're not too deeply invested in your own biases about what "a liberal" is?
  There are a lot of people that identify as liberals, and a lot of people that identify as conservatives. They're still all very different people. It's a better grouping than say, someone's preference of coke vs pepsi, but it's not all encompassing.
  
  The comment I was replying to was implying two things, one, that exposure to cultural diversity magically changes someone, and two, that rural areas lack that diversity (one could argue a third implication, that cultural diversity is the only diversity).
  Both of these are wrong. If you live close to people of all backgrounds, sure, you're going to be less likely to double down on people who are culturally different than you, and I welcome this. But exposure to people all around the world isn't going to equate to, say, making you believe in raising the minimum wage or that reparations would be great as an idea. I'm not saying there aren't things that would make someone conclude such things, but there's nothing in "exposure" alone that will do that.
  In their traditional senses of the words, "conservative" and "liberal" are political philosophies, two of several political philosophies, which include the likes of such things as "libertarianism", "marxism", "communitarianism", "futurism", "fascism", "socialism", and sometimes "stoicism". Imagine asking a presidential candidate a single question like "do you support civilian gun ownership", and if they give an answer you agree with, thinking "the candidate gave a liberal answer, and I'm a liberal, so I must vote for them". That's not how it works. These are fleshed out things. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder if the original commenter just hated rural people (and yet I'm downvoted into oblivion for mentioning "liberal" means something more fleshed out and I end up being asked if I'm the biased one, like you're better than this, Lemmy). I'm a rural societal member (side note, rural society has its own types of diversities that are not common in urban areas, such as more tolerance to the handicapped) and I seem to get along great with the liberal cause even though I'm not a liberal (I don't know what I would be considered).
  
  But exposure to people all around the world isn’t going to equate to, say, making you believe in raising the minimum wage or that reparations would be great as an idea.
  Raising the minimum wage I'd say is a "liberal" talking point, but I think reparations crosses the line into "leftist" territory (this is a common problem -- at the danger of not having read the article, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/09/12/stop-calling-bernie-sanders-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-liberals/).
  This ties back into my whole:
  Are you sure you’re not too deeply invested in your own biases about what “a liberal” is?
  ~~The OP's post the comment was responding to references "left-leaning" which is a spectrum, not "liberal."~~
  EDIT: I don't like how this reads. What I'm trying to convey is that liberal means a lot of things to different people, and it's got multiple definitions floating around. You may have attached ideas to that word the commenter didn't mean, and may have misplaced feelings about what it means to "be a liberal" or to "become more liberal."
  that exposure to cultural diversity magically changes someone
  I don't think they're claiming that at all. They're just saying ... to put it in non-political terms, if you've never read a mystery book before, and suddenly you're forced to, you might change your thoughts on what a mystery book is really like.
  I'll give you, I think the comment is a bit too "racism" focused. The idea that exposure to new experiences might change your prior feelings is I think pretty reasonable. e.g., you have a bad experience with one mystery book, now reading some others might now change your feelings. It doesn't need to be a matter of hostility, but there is an effect that quantity can have on perception... and that's what I think "exposure" can do for a person's perspectives.
  that exposure to cultural diversity magically changes someone ... that rural areas lack that diversity
  This may not be true for you, but I grew up in a poor county in rural Ohio and found myself in a public high school with (per my recollection) roughly 800 white kids, 3 black kids, and no other racial identities. Things have changed there some in the years since, but AFAIK not by much.
  To "out myself" and openly discuss one of those "taboo" talking points folks reference vaguely; for me, moving to the city definitely challenged some inward racism I had. It wasn't coming from a bad place, but I just didn't have much experience with encountering (to set the scene, at night on okay-ishly lit city streets near a bad part of town where I knew people were being mugged) big black dudes (that could've snapped my -- at the time -- very scronny self in half) in baggy dark hoodies and big baggy sweats. They sure looked like what I imagined a robber to look like, they sure looked like what I saw in movies, and they were really different from the carhartt, blue jeans, and baseball hat wearing dudes I was used to; but, the more of them that I walked past without incident, the more I realized I had a warped perception of who's a threat.
  It wasn't just "casual racism" though, it was also things like one of my early college friends. He was as white as can be, but he wore some seriously intense gothic clothing. When he first engaged me in class, I wasn't sure what to think, his clothes to my mind threw up red flags... SUPER friendly guy, I'm sad to say I've lost touch with him, but he was a genuinely great guy.
  that cultural diversity is the only diversity
  I agree; I can say my background doing stuff like building a vortex simulator from literal junk yard trash at my rural high school while modding Minecraft in my spare time is a pretty unique background that few others I've met have been able to match.
  I’d wonder if the original commenter just hated rural people
  And maybe; more likely, they're just angry with them and lashing out a bit. I'm angry with how my "home town" has chosen to carry itself myself; I've seen lots of Democratic politicians trying to do things to genuinely try to help people, and then Republican pulling what can only be described as fraught stunts to stir up anger and piss off people in the cities or disenfranchise them. It's a hard thing our country really needs to reconcile, way too many people are "vaguely mad that-a-way."
  and I seem to get along great with the liberal cause even though I’m not a liberal
  You're an American, we all are, and that's what's important. Don't get caught up on the label on anything.
  
  Aspects of liberal political philosophy:
  The belief that human ingenuity is better than tradition at solving problems
  The belief that heavy government interference is more likely to help than to cause trouble
  Belief that everyone deserves to be taken care of, and that it is everyone’s responsibility to do this
  Belief that violence begets violence and that the most stable and predictable path to peace is disarmament
  Belief that progress is best accomplished through consensus-based central planning
  Belief that the primary cause of human suffering is lack of resources
  Belief that evil is a disease state that can be eradicated through provision of adequate care and attention
  
  Wikipedia says:
  Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property and equality before the law. Liberals espouse various views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion, constitutional government and privacy rights.
  Where did you come up with your list?
  (My point in saying that was not to be combative but in effect this; it's an overloaded term that has a multitude of definitions depending on who you're talking to. To say that "it's a whole philosophy" is an oversimplification of the diversity of views that fall under "liberal" or "left leaning" -- the latter term I prefer for most conversations these days)
  
  To be fair, the word “liberal” has two meanings. In the US and Canada, the word commonly means “vaguely leftish”, as when people say “the liberal media” or “college makes you liberal”. I think the person you’re responding to is using it this way. This usage is slowly phasing out I think.
  The definition you cited is another totally correct usage of the term. It is close to the idea of libertarianism, and is associated with conservative economic policies. So it has the opposite meaning.
  
  I came up with my list by talking to liberals and living in the United States for forty years.

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