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

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.
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.

Left leaning people tend to be better educated. The majority of the jobs for better educated people are in cities. Cities are more expensive because jobs for better educated people tend to pay more.

This is my take too. Reality has a liberal bias, and people doing skilled/educated work tend to have a firmer grasp on reality
- Really like this answer. Agree. Reality has a liberal bias. Religion and wishing for a return to rose colored past times is foundation of conservatives I know.
- So you think someone who designs cars has a better grasp on reality than a person who fixes cars?
This is the correct answer from my observation and personal experience. Get educated and move to your dream job which is probably in a city. Leave behind the religious and conservative echo chamber.
So if we set aside those that simply lived there already & so that affected their leaning, then the other part may be the employment opportunities?
Which then may shift the question to matters concerning the employers' location decisions, so that's another route to research, I suppose.
- Employers go where they can find a well-educated workforce that will sustain them. And round and round we go.

I'm not sure that it's simply that a city attracts left leaning people.

I grew up conservative, religious, and from the country, and had to move to the city because that's where my mom took us. My move to the left ocurred due to what the city offered: cultures. I was exposed to many other ways of thinking, to art, to music, to trends, to drugs. I came to see other types of people as just people like me, with different points of view but each deserving their own chance at the American dream. I also became atheist.

The city might attract the left, but it also creates the left.

Incidentally, I want to move to a more secluded part of the state, probably where you'd see the F**k Biden billboards. We can't all be pigeon holed so easily.

Incidentally, I want to move to a more secluded part of the state, probably where you'd see the F**k Biden billboards. We can't all be pigeon holed so easily.
I'm trying to move to the sticks right now, and a high likelihood of having trumpers for neighbors is honestly one of the things that's bothering me the most.
I concur, cities are cosmopolitan in their nature. Being confronted to diversity brings socialist ideas more easily than living in a secluded countryside, where everyone is the same.
Though it can bring rejection and discrimination as easily.
- Not even "Socialist ideas".
  Just simply a better understanding that people are people, no matter what they look like.
Exactly where I was going to go with it. This question comes with a lot of assumptions about causation rather than just examining the correlation of political views and population density.
It's as weird as asking the question as "why are conservatives moving to the middle of nowhere?"
- Tbh I was considering flipping the question and asking, "Why aren't leftists moving to rural areas?" but that seemed a similarly mucked up form of the question.
  The question wasn't aiming to be academic, so wasn't carefully formed to account for causation and examining demographic details, but regardless, it could be better. I'm simply not sure how I might better ask the sort of question I'd like to ask to get the kind of info & responses that would satisfy my curiosity concerning this area.
  Despite the malformed query, some of the responses here have given some useful insights, direct or indirect as they may be.
  Edit:
  Also, despite several of the anecdotes about moving to the city and city life influencing them to more left-leaning views, part of what influenced this question is experience in rural areas and developing as a leftist there among other left-leaning folks.

You have it backwards. Living in cities (and especially growing up there) move you to the left. You see people suffering and you know it's not entirely their fault. You get to know other cultures, eat at their restaurants, hear their music etc.

Maybe, but I'm asking what draws those that may be more left-leaning to them apart from those already there, given aforementioned cost of living issues.
- Again, you have this backwards. I'm suggesting that exposure to people and their cultures "moves you to the left". Being "drawn to the right" is easier in isolation from other cultures.
  If you live in a place and most of what you know comes from talk radio and Joe Rogan you will have a very different view of the world than if you live in a major city.
- 💀

This is a huge factor. Rural people pay all of their taxes but from their perspective, they are getting nothing back. There is no point in building a huge new Hospital 50 miles from any settlement, nobody can use it and it will be a complete waste. Why would they ever vote for politicians that plan on spending taxes to fund services, when another group is saying they will cut taxes?

I'm no anthropomologist by any means so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I'd figure its the other way around. People raised in contact with more diverse groups of people (eg. raised in a city) are probably more likely to become left-leaning, where people raised in a more homogenous environment (eg. small towns) are more likely to become more right-leaning

Yes, it's both - both the effect of seeing diverse people on those who first live there, and the self-sorting that people who are interested in diverse experiences and cultures are either drawn to / not afraid of the city.

You're confusing cause and effect, mostly.

If you've:

Met a bunch of people that don't look like you or live like you
Have a high paying job that requires a good education
Encountered a ton of new concepts and ideas frequently

You're more likely to be a liberal. These things also tend to occur at much greater frequencies in cities.

All cities also tend to have tremendous cultural output. There's music and art here. Conservatives aren't known for embracing new culture..

You're more likely to find your people if you're looking for something outside of the utter mainstream here. The suburbs aren't known having strong queer scenes, a wide and deep variety of faiths, and so on. Conservatives also tend to drop the ball on this.

That and conservative art just isn't that good or ground breaking.

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".

It’s where all the stuff is. We like stuff, varieties of stuff of all kinds. including types of people. Conservatives hate stuff, and are generally anti-variety, so they stay where the stuff isn’t. they want to feel safe from the stuff, and they never feel safe unless there is a substantial buffer zone between them and stuff and a stockpile of guns to protect themselves from stuff, or books about stuff.

This is some good stuff.

You said it yourself: Cities lean left, but a significant minority of urbanites are still conservative. There are more conservative in the city than in the country, in fact, it's just that in rural areas we're in the majority.

Another factor: People who are wary of change are less likely to move away from where they grew up.

Speaking as someone that made this transition....

I think liberals in general tend to be more optimistic and open to change and doing things new ways. Small towns tend to harbor pessimism, yearning for days gone, and a more strict adherence to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I remember countless times I was frustrated with folks doing things one way, "because it's always been done that way." An example from my childhood is the lunch room at the school, there were two doors but students were only allowed to use one, which always became a choke point. When I asked why they don't just change that policy, they said "because that's how we've always done it [and it works well enough]."

As for why this mentality prevails, I think it's because there are few stabilizing forces in a small town, often just a handful of business control the economy; I think that naturally ties people to being fearful of change that might harm the stability of said businesses, and many small towns have been burned. If you lose your job in the city, there's a pretty good chance you can just get another one with reasonably comparable pay. If you lose your job in a small town, you might have to get a whole new town and leave long time friends (or enter a period of emotionally draining economic hardship -- my family chose the later in the 09 financial crisis, neither option is great).

Cities also tend to offer more choices, amenities, better health care, better emergency services (read faster, much much faster), lower utility bills, and in the right neighborhood (with a bit of work) an equally (if not more) cozy relationship with neighbors... the mindset is why you leave, these things are why you stay.

Cities have a bad wrap with some because of... a variety of forces in the last decade, but IMO that's reversing and "living in the inner city" isn't a bad thing anymore; the blip in human history where cities became unpopular and undesirable is reversing.

Anyways, that's my two cents.

I hate the "if it works, don't fix it" mentality. I have to fight it all the time at work. Personally, I think it comes from an inability or lack of motivation to consider how something could be better, or a lack of curiosity

Good jobs are in cities. Usually good jobs require a college education. Educated people are more left-leaning.

Hol' up, Anticorp saying there are good jobs? What universe is this?? 😛
- There really are! LOL. But you have to be willing to move across the country to get one, and they're only good because there are fewer qualified people than companies need, so they have to create attractive work environments and compensation packages to attract talent. When that situation changes those good jobs go away.
Except tech. We are stuck in the burbs.

I grew up in the city. My parents were punks. I lived in the city my whole life. I'm out in the hills now in my isolation. I get to interact with the people the left kind of ignores. I'm a tradesman. I work with and interact with a lot of well meaning smart but under educated people that get written off as nazis pretty much by alot of my peers. Now I'm not saying they are right, I'm just saying they're working class and have the same immediate goals, they just happened to be indoctrinated af by the entire system around them and haven't experienced different. Most mean well ime and good conversation is not out of the question. Hopefully we can avoid a potential masacre. I'd like to think my small interactions are making some tiny wave for the future. Progress is slow. I personally can't live in the city anymore.

Grew up in a small town and its just made me realize the koolaid everyone is chugging on a daily basis.
"city folk" aren't trying to turn you gay and cut off your dick or gun, and most "country folk" really just want to live a simple life with some light work and independence, not kill all races/sexualities (the hardest workers I know couldn't give more of a shit what other people do)
But hey divide and conquer works I guess, cause were all poor as fuck in the end
Both are
- You think you're so fucking important
I’ve lived in several rural areas and I’ve never been to a rural area where there wasn’t at least one whole street dedicated to each political party. If the stereotype was true, Bernie Sanders wouldn’t be so glorified in his native Vermont (he grew up on what was a river island of farmers), the nation’s whitest and (after Alaska) most rural state.
- Americas a statistical anomoly, y'all are the Guinea pigs of the latest mass manipulations.
  Most people, without external influence really don't actually care

Just adding that this is not a US-only phenomenon. It's all over the Western world. It just seems so much prevalent in the US because of the polarized political situation and because of the two-party, winner-take-all electoral system.

I don't think so much that cities attract left-leaning individuals as much as the people who live there tend to be (or become) left leaning.

In rural communities you tend to get a lot of families who have lived in the area for a long time, and not much movement. So they tend to be more homogenous. Cities tend to attract lots of different people (and more tends to happen), so you're gonna be exposed to a lot more and it will be harder to stay isolated.

Another factor is the white flight that occured after ww2. Lots of cheap housing was put up outside cities, and lots of white families moved out to live in them (in some cases they didn't even let black people buy houses in these developments). So you get a lot of conservative, white people moving out in the suburbs, leaving a lot of minorities who tend to be more liberal.

Cities add efficiency. By pulling together and sharing resources, you can suddenly have nice soccer fields, insider pools for winter, or a national sports team. Also, companies are more efficient doe to a larger pool of labor. It is easier to have rewarding careers when there are many companies to choose from.

People in cities tend to output far more per person than rural areas. That is why states like CA have much higher gdp per person than states with mostly rural people, or even TX that is about average with a big mix of both.

And this leads to higher potential wages for more people. That person living paycheck to paycheck in a high cost of living area is usually building wealth much faster than the same person in a low cost of living area. Just don’t try to live there if you cannot make enough to afford it.

I’d say it’s really simple. Cities have more laws than rural areas. Government is more complex in a city, and conservatives are defined by their desire for simple government.

In the countryside, the conservative ideal is actually possible. In the city, you can’t just hunt for food and be self reliant; you have to be part of a complex mesh of society.

My guess would be trust levels you have in other people. You are more trusting you have more people around you that you don't know well, you tend to vote for policies that benefit people. Less trusts you want your own space to protect, want to associate with less people, don't trust policies that you can't see helping you out.

I'm gay.

Hi Gay, I'm Dad!

All the other answers here cite things like education and wealth, but spend time in politically-tidally-locked places like Rochester and Syracuse and you’ll realize all it boils down to is it being cultural. There are what many would call right-leaning cities, and they aren’t any different race-wise, ethnicity-wise, education-wise, or (most of the time) wealth-wise except that they’re right-leaning. Education/exposure does not magically change your whole philosophy, that’s like saying going to a Catholic school will guarantee your kid will be Catholic.

Large right leaning cities are very much an exception and not a rule. Of the top 30 US cities only two have Republican mayors. Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.
Education/exposure does not magically change your whole philosophy
True. But it does make certain outcomes significantly more likely. Like adopting and voting more progressive.
- I guess it depends then on how liberal you must be to truly be considered liberal. I remember a debate long ago where someone was celebrated as a liberal because they supported the LGBT but called out as a conservative immediately after because they then went on to say they also supported polygamy. Such is common for some harder issues like reparations (using an example there I can definitely relate to, I come from an ethnically mixed family and mingle well with liberals and even I think we’re “progressing” into a wall on that one).
Rochester is hardly right leaning. Republicans don't even bother running a candidate for mayor. The congressional District that encompasses it and includes many surrounding more conservative areas went 59-39 to democrats in the last election. Certainly some of the surrounding areas tilt conservative but not the city itself. The suburbs are kind of a case by case mix. There's 200,00 registered democrats in Monroe County vs 130,000 registered Republicans. I know party isn't the same as liberal or conservative, but calling Rochester right leaning is a huge stretch. Syracuse too.

Living in a conservative country area I notice racists escaping here, and they seek sympathy with local people. They join churches and bring a lot of money, so the locals tend to rally around them with the intention of encouraging them. Older people also hang around yelling at everything wrong in the world, and younger people have to move to follow opportunities. The young families that come back tend to lean pretty far right.

Then there's farmers and primary producers that need left leaning people to be ostracized, so that they can exploit whatever resources without environmental oversight. They also tend to encourage the far right atmosphere in local towns.

The remaining leftists are a minority that tend to cling to one specific town and the most populated city here. But, they even seem compromised when compared to big city leftists. Some appreciate racism, etc.

What a horribly loaded, asinine question.

How so?