How Liberals Live
A version of this post appeared over the weekend at Townhall.
The Democratic Party has two reliable groups of adherents: the rich and the poor.
Not all of the rich, of course. Not all of the poor, either.
But a large swath of wealthy people, especially those whose wealth was inherited rather than earned, wouldn’t dream of voting for a Republican. Ditto for a large number of poor people who have discovered how to sign up for various welfare programs and intend to remain on the dole for the rest of their lives.
What do these groups have in common? Nothing. They rarely meet. And if they did they wouldn’t like each other.
You might be inclined to think that the political union of these two groups is an accident of modern electoral politics. But there may be something else involved. Both groups have little use for the middle class — the poor envy them and the wealthy disdain them.
Last week I described liberalism as sociology. For this week’s post I decided to look in on some communities where limousine liberals are firmly in control and have no fear of being ousted in the next election by middle class voters with middle class values.
Welcome to the People’s Republic of Boulder, Colorado.
This city desert makes you feel so cold.
It’s got so many people but it’s got no soul.
And it’s taken so long to find out you were wrong,
When you thought it held everything.
When you ask the residents what they like about Boulder, they are quick to respond. “You won’t find any large billboards telling you where the nearest Target is,” I was told. And, “Where you might find a McDonald’s or a Taco Bell in some other city, in Boulder you are more likely to find Starbucks or Whole Foods.”
To make sure that things stay that way, Boulder has virtually destroyed any possibility of new housing that people who shop at Target and eat at McDonald’s would find affordable. Through tight zoning restrictions, the city has virtually legislated new, middle class housing out of existence. The city has even purchased large tracts of land to make sure development doesn’t occur.
As a result, the average price of a home in Boulder is $375,000, in contrast to an average price of $220,000 in Colorado Springs.
Boulder has its own global warming policy. In fact, it is one of the few cities in the country that is about to jettison a private electric utility company for a publicly owned one. The reason: the private electric company isn’t “green” enough. This would be comical until you stop to realize that Boulder has a lot to atone for on the climate change front. Two-thirds of all the people who work in Boulder must drive to work from outside the city because they cannot afford to live there.
That’s 60,000 automobiles spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every morning and every evening of every congested business day, thanks to Boulder’s land use planning.
While Boulder forces its middle class workforce to live in neighboring communities, it is surprisingly generous to the poor. A multimillion dollar homeless shelter is so luxurious it actually attracts vagabonds from other Colorado cities. As one local writer explains:
Boulder Shelter for the Homeless is a multimillion dollar facility of recent construction. It has spacious day room, a TV room, washing machines ($1 per load) and dryers (free) available, showers, a few dozen small storage lockers, and a large kitchen/dining room…It has 160 person occupancy limit, and the nightly “overflow” is accommodated by a network of local churches and a synagogue managed by Boulder Outreach for Homeless Overflow.
There is also an active program to provide subsidized housing to low-income families. One development on prime real estate with a mountain view is estimated to have a market value of $500,000 per unit. In other words, some low-income families are living in housing units that are worth considerably more than the average home in Boulder! Poor families cannot sell their homes to the highest bidders, however. Were they able to, they would immediately become non-poor and the property would go to its highest valued use.
Maximizing the value of property, however, is not the goal of the citizens of Boulder. If you have a house built, say, before 1950, there’s a good chance the Landmark’s Board will designate it a historic preservation site and not allow you to modify it. For new houses and allowable renovations, the city virtually dictates how big the house can be. It also tells you what kind of fireplace you can have and what you can or can’t burn in it. If you want to tear down an existing structure, you can’t just bulldoze it. You have to disassemble it and recycle all the pieces.
When the owners of a trailer park decided to use the property to build condominiums instead, the trailer owners appealed to the city leaders, who rezoned the property so that it could only be used as a trailer park.
Then, of course, there is the nanny state desire to tell everyone what to do with their personal lives. Smoking in Boulder is banned in almost all indoor facilities and also outside on the sidewalk.
Oh, and one other thing. Despite the supposed fealty to cultural relativism, Boulder is a surprisingly intolerant place. Local business owners report they are reluctant to express their political views ― including some of the observations I am reporting here ― for fear of being boycotted.
What’s my own view on all this? If Ted Turner buys a Colorado ranch that is so large that no one else lives within miles of him, more power to him. But if he buys a small ranch and then tries to get the government to keep everyone else out, that is the crass and illegitimate pursuit of self-interest.
If he does the latter, he should feel guilty. Very guilty.
High property values in Boulder put it out of reach for the middle class? It’s interesting to see that dynamic at work — that pricing cities outside of the market for people that work in cities may actually harm the middle class and the environment through long commutes. Interesting.
John, you nailed it.
Great song pairing.
Mancur Olson would have pointed out that the two groups have something else in common, something that makes all the difference in a democracy: they are both relatively small.
But not for long.
Unfortunately redistribution is one of the finest examples of the fallacy of composition known to mankind.
This unwarranted government restriction on real estate is one of the largest causes of the recent bubble and bust financial crisis.
I don’t have a problem with the way Boulder chooses to govern itself, though I would never choose in a community like that.
In Texas, we have places like Austin for nanny-state do-gooders and we also have places like Houston, where people and businesses have more liberty to do what they will with their property. I live near Houston, happily, and thank God for Austin. Because if Austin didn’t exist then those kinds of idiots might live near me and vote in my precinct.
We can talk all we want and write all we want, but we won’t be able to change anything until we get active. I am forming an Asian American – Hispanic support group for supporting the true conservatives. A true conservative for me is fiscally conservative, believes in non-interference on other peoples business, strives for family values, Keeps life simple, lean, and agile. He/She believes in Law and order , and constitution. Believes in smallness and entrepreneurship. Humble and respectful towards others. These are all the values these two communities cherish. Then why did Republicans lose? Because they got sidetracked and let democrats and the Obama m/c define them. This is a war. I don’t want my descendants get washed in this mud. So time to be the real Tea Party(not meaning the current tea party) again. Two of us observed closely how the Republicans ignored our extension of support.
Romney needed just 1% more of the 6% Asian-Americans in VA. He totally ignored us. He now talks of his mistakes. He has no clue. He is not a warrior. So we will pick and chose the few real conservative warriors in Republican Party. We could do that better in the democratic party better. Except we will drown in their red ink.
Dear John,
It’s a pity that liberalism is still the name of progressism and socialism in US!
As you know Bastiat was a liberal but at the opposite of Krugman!
I suspect the progressists and other socialists in US to use the term in complete knowledge of the ambiguity. Liberty is just what they are destroying and hate the most.
Dr. Thomas Sowell has long pointed out that liberal land use and green space policies use government funds to enhance the value of upper income liberals’ homes while pricing the poor and working class out of housing in the areas. This post is right on target. I will link to this from my Old Jarhead blog. (www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com)
Robert A. Hall
USMC 1964-68
USMCR, 1977-83
Massachusetts Senate, 1973-83
Author: The Coming Collapse of the American Republic
All royalties go to help wounded veterans
For a free PDF of my 80-page book, write tartanmarine(at)gmail.com
It’s easy for the inherited wealthy to agree and vote for redistribution because they didn’t earn it. It’s like lottery winners, or Holleywood types where it’s easy come easy go. When you have to earn your wealth, build a business, or want to invest in expansion that takes a different mentality and respect for the value of a dollar. The limo libs have that guilt complex from their wealth because they generally didn’t earn it. (e.g The Kennedy’s). Besides if they get political power they can pass legislation that excludes them or provides special loopholes for themselves.
“Ditto for a large number of poor people who have discovered how to sign up for various welfare programs and intend to remain on the dole for the rest of their lives.”
- I think this is the fundamental reason why R’s are losing big elections. Why vote for someone who isn’t going to continue to give you handouts?
We should be more inclusive as a society without creating ridiculous divides which produce dissent and hatred. Not sure humans will ever change…
Surprinsing to read about Boulder’s attempt to control real estate and actually create more social divide as a result.
John,
It is a very old story — the intellectuals and artists join together with the lumpen proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Classic Marxism. They are joined by a shared contempt of “middle class values.” I don’t think it is so much inherited wealth as it is intellectual pretension. This was the formula of Lenin, Peron, Chavez, Castro and just about every totalitarian around.
Have pity, a dark cloud is descending upon Boulder. Walmart will be opening soon.
Greg,
Well said. You cannot say all intellectuals are participants in this shroud of darkness. I am a liberal , but conservative. I am intellectual, but anti-totalitarian and individualistic. I am not alone.
But the few people who behave like Chavez skew the world for us. I truly believe Chavez is the hero for O. He didn’t kill people like Chavez, but he follows Chavez step by step on the class warfare.
I didn’t know that Boulder has such a high demand/ premium on their land, or that it is such a popular destination.
I watched a Home & Garden Network show awhile back on affordable housing in Boulder. As I recall, the young lady could barely afford the cost of this little cracker-box studio condo that taxpayers were subsidizing to the tune of several hundred thousand. It was crazy. Why was she deserving of taxpayer-funded housing? She could have moved 5 miles and bought a place she could afford. But because she wanted to live in Boulder, she got $200K in taxpayer-financed housing subsidies.
Has marijuana been legal in Boulder for this long – or are these people high as a kite naturally?
Some people…
Correction, you CAN smoke on the street- as long as its marijuana, haha (yes it has been legalized in the state – sometimes libertarians and liberals cross paths : ).
The rest is accurate though, except that contractors aren’t obligated to use existing material. They normally recycle the timber into the remodel because its cheaper, and they get a tax credit for taking usable materials to a center which sells discounted construction material.
The restrictions on “historic” properties are complete bs, I agree. Most of those properties are an eye sore.
It’s true what you say about housing inflation and the squeezing of the middle class. But this has been the trend in many specific development zones all over the metro area. In fact I would argue that the lack of regulation has led to equal stratification amongst the various residential zones. We’re really only building high income suburbs these days.
But my final point is that conservatives should actually be appreciative of liberal enclaves like Boulder. You don’t have to worry about pretentious socialists voting in your local precinct or flashing their hybrids on your block. : )
Cheers,
-J
Further to the political issue:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324338604578326350052940798.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
I’ve lived in Boulder, on and off, since the mid 90′s. Some of your characterizations are spot on. The housing situation here could be a parody of liberalism run amok. Boulder recently hired an expensive consultant to figure out why there’s no moderately priced housing. He practically mocked the city council, gave them a lesson on supply and demand, and said that given the evidence he had to conclude that screwing the middle class was intentional policy.
Likewise the story behind power municipalization is a sad joke. Xcel energy was strong armed into offering subsidies for solar installations. They allocated an agreed amount to subsidies, but unanticipated demand meant those quotas were met in a fraction of the estimated time. Xcel, reasonably, then halted the program, saying they had met their obligations. The current plan to evict Xcel is, in essence, retaliation for that business decision. (You should have heard the solar companies wail about how this would destroy their businesses. A contractor friend of mine, who has been nearly put out of business by Boulder’s construction policies, commented, “I wish they’d subsidize home construction by 50%. I’d grow my business, too.”)
All that said, I have to disagree with your characterization that Boulderites’ “favorite” thing about the town is the lack of chain stores and concomitant signage. The weather, the outdoor activities, the bike paths, the vast tracts of public “Open Space” (which contribute to the aforementioned housing problem), and the tolerance for any sort of weird behavior and beliefs (as long as it’s left-leaning) are all much higher on that list.
As far as I can tell, we have as many chain stores, with as many and as large of signs, as any other town. We have a Target and a Home Depot, and both are thriving. Yes, we have a busy Whole Foods, and several independent markets that make Whole Foods look mainstream, but we also have multiple Safeways and King Soopers. We have just about every fast food joint, multiple copies of some, and if they are shunned by large swaths of the natives it is for health, not political, reasons.
Certainly there is a nutty contingent that hates chain stores on philosophical grounds (they even tried to ban chain stores in the late 90s) but beyond making noise that group doesn’t achieve much.
The biggest clue that you may not have done thorough research is your suggestion that Boulderites favor Starbucks. We take our coffee very, very seriously here, and Starbucks does not factor into that passion. On every block are local, independent coffee shops (Ozo is my favorite) that have mastered the art of coffee making. Some of them even source and roast their own beans.
Starbucks is for the college kids and tourists. Anybody who spends much time in Boulder would know that.
Come back to Boulder, drop by Ozo, and ask for Greg, Liz, or Hannah to make you a House Special. You won’t be able to drink your old coffee again.