Democrats prefer cities says research | The politics of Sprawl

Definition of the word cosmpolitan, from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

1 : having wide international sophistication : worldly Greater cultural diversity has led to a more cosmopolitan attitude among the town's younger generations. 2 : composed of persons, constituents, or elements from all or many parts of the world a city with a cosmopolitan population.

Will sends us a link to this Vice News article, "Walking Places Is Part of the Culture Wars Now."  From the article:

According to a recent Pew Research Center poll that studied the issue of whether people prefer to live in places where "schools, stores, and restaurants are within walking distance" versus where they are "several miles away," the biggest divide in opinion is not young versus old, urban versus rural, or education level. It is political preference. 

Just 22 percent of Conservatives want to live in walkable neighborhoods, while 77 percent prefer driving everywhere. A slightly higher percentage of Republicans or people who lean Republican as a whole, 26 percent, want walkable neighborhoods. Meanwhile, 44 percent of moderate Democrats and 57 percent of liberals want walkable neighborhoods, resulting in a 50/50 split among Democrats as a whole. 

Frazz comic strip, 11/15/2012

...But one of the most striking findings is that the gap in walkable neighborhood preference according to extreme political views is even wider than the gap between urban and rural respondents, where 50 percent of urban residents polled want walkable neighborhoods and 25 percent of rural ones do. In other words, whether or not you actually live in an urban or rural area is less of a predictor of whether you want walkable neighborhoods than the political beliefs one holds regardless of where they live.

I am not surprised, although seemingly "small town values" would include a recognition of the importance of access, proximity, and walkability.

I remember when I worked as a Main Street program manager in the Brookland neighborhood in DC, while the leader of the program promoted the tagline "Brookland, small town, in town" making the point that the community was village-like, but still in the city, another member made the point that to her, "small town" meant parochial.