[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Dan: Agreed on the SF/Bay Area as being a concentration of wealth, but wouldn’t it (geographically speaking) be more correct to point out that the Silicon Valley/Santa Clara County region is really the economic force that drives the area?
I bring that up because Silicon Valley/Sta Clara represent a very interesting mix of liberal and conservative politics, with the epicenter being Stanford University. Stanford, for years now, has wrangled back and forth with the liberal element (the academics) fighting the conservative element (the scientists and researchers) over the programs that Stanford supported which were funded by the defense industry and government.
So it isn’t completely clear cut in the case of the SF/Bay Area, especially when you consider that many of the companies (Intel, Loral/L3, Varian, etc) have been sucking the government teat for decades (going back to the 1950s and 1960s in some cases).[/quote]
You have a point. Lots of those in academia also work as researchers for the defense industry. Foreign policy conservatives living on government subsidies. Similarly, many of those in positions of economic power in NY are right-leaning with regards to regulation and defense. However, I think that as a rule, one could argue that both of these areas have high concentrations of socially liberal thought. As someone who grew up near there (and who is liberal) I find the monothink I encounter in the bay area to be, at times, maddening.
