The latest research on communities from Pew Research Center…
When it comes to the type of community they’d like to live in, liberals are drawn toward city life while conservatives prefer small towns and rural areas. Given the choice to live anywhere in the U.S., 41% of consistent conservatives would want to live in a rural area, and an additional 35% would choose a small town. Fewer consistent conservatives (20%) would prefer living in the suburbs and just 4% want to live in a city.
In a near mirror image, 46% of consistent liberals would choose to live in a city, and 21% would choose the suburbs; far fewer would pick a rural area (11%) or a small town (20%).
The preferences of less ideological Americans are more varied. Notably, the suburbs do not have a great deal of appeal for any ideological segment. And across age, gender and other demographic categories, there is no group that expresses a clear preference for living in the suburbs.
An analysis of the data finds that where liberals and conservatives actually live reflects their community preferences, with liberals about twice as likely as conservatives to live in urban areas, while conservatives are more concentrated in rural areas.
Later reports in this Pew Research Center series will dive more deeply into how political views are related to where people live. This is a topic covered extensively by Craig Gilbert of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in a four-part series entitled “Dividing Lines.”