How US cities/states/regions vary in terms of social egalitarianism?

[Docere]

I'm not talking about political liberalism vs conservatism or D vs R. But rather interested in comparing cities and regions in terms of "elitism" (social hierarchy, status distinctions, emphasis on history and traditions etc.)

It seems that the two most "elitist" regions are the Northeast and the South, in different ways; Northeastern elites are very different from Southern elites. The former is politically liberal, very strong emphasis on educational attainment and degrees, Ivy League education, the desirable suburbs are quite bucolic and NIMBY. The conservative-minded Southern elite also stresses hierarchy and tradition. More emphasis on fraternities, there's an expected deferentialism to your superiors etc. To put it simply the Northeast is liberal-elitist and the South is conservative-elitist.

The Midwest and West have less status hierarchies. The West Coast is liberal-egalitarian, while the Midwest varies politically.

Obviously this is an undeveloped, simplistic sketch.

[craigs]

This is just a word salad without definitions for all of these terms you are using.

[Docere]

Thanks for your always thoughtful input.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Docere

Thanks for your always thoughtful input.

How are we supposed to discuss something like "social hierarchy" if you don't explain what you mean by that?

[Chef]

I have no problem understanding the question the op is asking. It is fairly straightforward.

The places I've spent the most time in my life are upstate NY, the Twin Cities, Chicago, rural Indiana, Savannah and south Florida. The Twin Cities are by far the least hierarchical place I've been, it is part of what drew me to it. Upstate NY, Savannah and south Florida are all fairly elitist. Chicago and Indiana were kind of in the middle. Upstate NY is less elitist than downstate but still everyone from the top tier of society put those stupid college decals in their cars when I was growing up just to show off that their kids were in college or that they were going to an elite one. I don't know if people still do that. Minnesotans never did that, people would think that it was a crass way of showing off.

[mousquet]

I guess there are places where some establishment (a so called elite) of any kind sets standards when it comes to social interactions, politics, the economy or culture in general.
That would be the case of any widely urbanized populated area where you need some codes to be established for people to live together anyhow.

Whereas some other places are more "Libertarian", such as New Hampshire whose official motto screams "Live Free or Die".
That's a bit radical and may cause some chaos when taken to mere anarchy.

I think an establishment is not necessarily or entirely harmful to society, but it's often selfish, made up of people very worried about their personal interests, as opposed to common good.
Whether it would be Socialist, Liberal, Conservative or Nationalist, the establishment wants to remain in power anyway.

That must be about it.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Chef

I have no problem understanding the question the op is asking. It is fairly straightforward.

The places I've spent the most time in my life are upstate NY, the Twin Cities, Chicago, rural Indiana, Savannah and south Florida. The Twin Cities are by far the least hierarchical place I've been, it is part of what drew me to it. Upstate NY, Savannah and south Florida are all fairly elitist. Chicago and Indiana were kind of in the middle. Upstate NY is less elitist than downstate but still everyone from the top tier of society put those stupid college decals in their cars when I was growing up just to show off that their kids were in college or that they were going to an elite one. I don't know if people still do that. Minnesotans never did that, people would think that it was a crass way of showing off.

Minnesota has a sort of quasi-social democratic political culture, the name of the state Democratic Party - the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party (DFL) reflects that.

[llamaorama]

I agree with this. The East and South have a different history than the Midwest or West.

[llamaorama]

I would classify "elitism" and "(in)egalitarianism" as being how exclusionary/inclusive the public realm is. Upward mobility is part of it, but part of it also just whether or democratic decision making or public services or quality of life things apply to everyone or just a few.

New York City proper, meaning the 5 boroughs except maybe Staten Island, I can get behind the idea that it's actually egalitarian in that it offers upward mobility and there's a lot of public goods available to all social classes whether its the subway, the city parks, magnet schools, whatever.

But the East Coast in general? Nah. Connecticut and New Jersey have lots of poor people concentrated in the hollywood-stereotype "inner city hood" and then the rich people live in sort of pretend-rural villages (with third-rail powered commuter trains) in big houses on 10 acres and their kids go to prep school and play Lacrosse. Look at New Haven. It has Yale. That's cool. Down the street is never-ending generational poverty in bleak looking housing, etc. One of the highest-taxed states in the US with some of the richest people, but you always hear stories about towns being too broke to field enough ambulances. Fuck that shit.

But maybe that's just my stereotype I have in my head coming from Texas, which has its own flavor of toxic bullshit we can criticize in another thread.

[Docere]

Economic inequality can of course be measured by things like the Gini.

The 10 most unequal states:

NY 0.5149
CT 0.5024
LA 0.4978
MS 0.4896
CA 0.4866
FL 0.4808
MA 0.4803
IL 0.4800
GA 0.4795
NJ 0.4782

The top 10 least unequal states:

UT 0.4268
ID 0.4337
WY 0.4345
SD 0.4360
WI 0.4391
HI 0.4397
NE 0.4400
NH 0.4406
IA 0.4422
MN 0.4434

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Docere

Economic inequality can of course be measured by things like the Gini.

The 10 most unequal states:

NY 0.5149


The top 10 least unequal states:


MN 0.4434

Quite interesting between two allegedly progressive states. One doing it right and one doing it wrong.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Quite interesting between two allegedly progressive states. One doing it right and one doing it wrong.

Not really. One has huge numbers of Hasidic Jews, poor immigrants, and the like, and the other doesn't. Poorest town in the U.S., Kiryas Joel, is poor by design, actually. It couldn't exist without extensive state programs for the poor.

The U.S. county with the highest income inequality is Manhattan. That's also about as good a place you can live as a poor person in the U.S.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Not really. One has huge numbers of Hasidic Jews, poor immigrants, and the like, and the other doesn't. Poorest town in the U.S., Kiryas Joel, is poor by design, actually. It couldn't exist without extensive state programs for the poor.

The U.S. county with the highest income inequality is Manhattan. That's also about as good a place you can live as a poor person in the U.S.

Sounds like antisemitic and anti-immigrant nonsense Crawford do better.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Quite interesting between two allegedly progressive states. One doing it right and one doing it wrong.

Anything above a .4 on a post-tax and transfers income Gini shows comparatively high inequality levels.

MN's .44 is the same as South Sudan (.441) and Venezuela (.448). Not exactly shining beacons of equality.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure the quoted Gini coefficient is pre-tax/pre-transfer. All individual US state income-inequality Gini coefficients go down considerably when using post-tax/post-transfer calculations.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

But the East Coast in general? Nah. Connecticut and New Jersey have lots of poor people concentrated in the hollywood-stereotype "inner city hood" and then the rich people live in sort of pretend-rural villages (with third-rail powered commuter trains) in big houses on 10 acres and their kids go to prep school and play Lacrosse.

Yes, but segregation of the classes is just standard big city suburban America, IMO. I don't really discern a difference between that in CT or NJ and the resource hogging suburban districts in the Midwest or California that are located near impoverished school districts with predominantly minority populations.

[Chef]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yes, but segregation of the classes is just standard big city suburban America, IMO. I don't really discern a difference between that in CT or NJ and the resource hogging suburban districts in the Midwest or California that are located near impoverished school districts with predominantly minority populations.

In Minnesota this isn't a thing because the state has open enrollment for public schools, and also revenue sharing statewide. The district you live in is your default school but you can send your kids to any public school in the state that has room for them tuition free on a first come first served basis. Although you do have to arrange transportation yourself if you live outside the district. A lot of families that live in Minneapolis proper send their kids to the public schools in the west suburbs.

[SIGSEGV]

I only really have experience in academia, but of the three universities I have experience with (as a student or as a researcher), UChicago feels the most elitist, Stanford felt the least, and
MIT is somewhere in the middle. But I think that's partially because humanities-heavy schools (like UChicago) feel more elitist for some reason, partially outweighing the regional factor (i.e. Harvard/Yale/Princeton are probably much more elitist feeling than UChicago?). Maybe it's my physical-sciences bias speaking though.

Or maybe it's the architecture... strangely, St. Louis gave me the impression of feeling quite elitist, with WUSTL seeming like it's oozing a sense of superiority... but maybe it's the disney gothic architecture speaking.

[Docere]

I would expect HYP feel much more "elitist." I never really associated Chicago with old-line ruling classes, legacies etc. (especially pre-1960; obviously this has changed a lot with the shift to the Ivy-based "meritocratic elite). It was known to be very much a life of the mind or dare I say "nerdy" type of place. In reading about quotas on Jewish faculty and students, I've never looked into Chicago; was it more open?

As for MIT, Noam Chomsky felt he thrived at MIT over say Harvard because he felt it was more open, even if the faculty may have been somewhat or nominally more conservative on average than at the Ivies.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Docere

I would expect HYP feel much more "elitist." I never really associated Chicago with old-line ruling classes, legacies etc. (especially pre-1960; obviously this has changed a lot with the shift to the Ivy-based "meritocratic elite). It was known to be very much a life of the mind or dare I say "nerdy" type of place. In reading about quotas on Jewish faculty and students, I've never looked into Chicago; was it more open?

As for MIT, Noam Chomsky felt he thrived at MIT over say Harvard because he felt it was more open, even if the faculty may have been somewhat or nominally more conservative on average than at the Ivies.

UChicago didn't set quotas on Jews, but the University administration is sort of traditionalist in other ways. UChicago is a very intellectual place, but not really nerdy in the same way as MIT or even Stanford...

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

UChicago didn't set quotas on Jews, but the University administration is sort of traditionalist in other ways. UChicago is a very intellectual place, but not really nerdy in the same way as MIT or even Stanford...

There may have been "gentlemen's agreements". Many schools had informal practices limiting non-WASPs. UC likely didn't have the Jewish enrollment pressures of the Eastern schools, as WASPs in the mid-Atlantic were outnumbered pretty early.

Re. the main topic, I agree that, for whatever reason, liberal arts-leaning institutions tend to have more formal cultural hierarchy and social prestige. MIT & Caltech would likely be one extreme with HYP on the other. This matters a lot for traditional elite employment like white shoe law firms or Wall Street, but is likely close to irrelevant in tech.