Conservative Christianity and cities

[Cismontane]

In general, LA is more conservative than San Francisco.

San Diego, Bakersfield, Irvine, and Fresno are among the large cities in California that are conservative and Christian. Central Valley and Orange County are the only larger counties in California with a larger conservative percentage.

um. San Diego? Seriously? Are we talking about the same city? Sanctuary City, gay friendly, sueing Arnie over Prop 8, city council and mayor at war with and boycotting the State of Arizona, school district officials not allowed to travel to Phoenix.. that city?

The City of San Diego IS a lot more conservative than San Francisco, but that's a relative thing, and the city can only be characterized as conservative relative to Bay Area communities and Portland. LA is not really directly comparable as it is more highly polarized. The 'burbs (outside of the city) are much more conservative - especially East County (locally considered to be John Birch territory - namely Republican/evangelical strongholds Lakeside and Santee) - and North County (including several Republican strongholds on the upper-15, like Fallbrook and Escondido, a few 78-corridor cities near Camp Pendleton are also pretty conservative - like Vista and San Marcos), but those areas hardly represent the city proper and none of these people are registered to vote in the city itself (kind of like saying that the two majority Republican-registered Long Island counties in NY State are more conservative than midtown Manhattan - which is just saying the obvious). The metro area has 510,000 each registered Repubs and Dems each, as of the current election runup, but San Diego proper has 250,000 registered Dems and 178,000 registered Repubs - which makes it one of the more progressive major cities in America (and 175,000 independent voters, greens and libertarians, in that order). Overall 68% of City residents identify themselves as more liberal than conservative. Mayor Sanders is a nominal Republican himself, but of a left-leaning sort and got elected as an indie - running against Steve Francis, who was the doctrinaire Republican party nominee. The current Council is, I believe, entirely Dem (well, if you count the one socialist).

The City does seem to me to have a lot of Christians but the local variety doesn't necessarily mean conservative. I'm a liberal Dem and a practicing Mainliner, as are most of my friends - including some of my evangelical friends. Ditto for many local Catholics, who are primarily Dems. Local Jews - a big community - tend toward Democrats as well.

[jeafl]

New Urbanism is simply old urbanism in a very idealized form. Old idealism is the foundation of conservatism. An old city based on local self-reliance (Mom and Pop stores as opposed to Walmart) and neighbors looking out for and helping each other and above all conservation of natural resources (for future use) by having smaller houses and fewer cars is the epitome of conservatism. Whether they know it or not New Urbanist planners are striving to create a society that a conservative would want.