How progressive is Tennessee?

[callous taoboy]

My conflicted, sort of progressive in some ways republican brother is thinking of moving his family to Chattanooga in '05. He says it is a progressive city in that, for example, they have electric buses and city vehicles run on nat'l gas. Right now he lives north of Dallas, which is all eat up with the dumb ass. I say he's conflicted because here he votes republican but he can not stand his republican neighbors, his republican town. It is wall-to-wall road rage.

[Mr Switters]

1. Chattanooga is "progressive" but...

You'll find that it's OVERWHELMINGLY republican. The moves they've made to revitalize their downtown areas hearken to "anti-sprawl" movements, and the electric/natural gas trolleys they use are a big plus for environmentalists. However, Hamilton county is overwhelmingly "conservative" in it's morality and politics. The above movements were in part because Chattanooga (along with Knoxville) has some of the dirtiest air in the country and even Republicans get fed up with "High Ozone" days and eventually want to do something about it. I also suspect that the downtown revitalization is non-partisan, and if anything was promoted by economic interest.

There are some pretty nice liberal movements in the town but they are small.

[callous taoboy]

2. Thanks!

I'll pass this along. They already live north of Dallas which has ozone days frequently and my neice has chronic asthma from it.

[tnlefty]

3. Chattanooga is a boil on the butt of progressive society, but if your

republican brother is thinking of moving to this area I'll be glad to sell him my house.}(

[callous taoboy]

5. Well, they went and visited last week

and came back complaining about the air quality. It seems that the factories in the area are able to spew more toxins in the air thanks to the person they voted for (and will vote for again) in Nov. Funny, isn't it?

[Mr Switters]

6. The air is definitely not a selling point...

For such a beautiful area, with access to some of the East's best outdoor recreation we definitely have to contend with some pretty nasty air. I can always tell a difference when I leave the area to vistit friends and family across the country and then come home and have difficulty breathing.

The air problem in East Tenn is pretty horrible. Knoxville has broken the top ten for "Worst Air Quality" and we are a city of just over 300,000 (if you take into account the "Metro Area"). I'm not sure where Chattanooga sits on the air quality list, but it can't be far behind us.

The problem isn't really locally generated pollution, although I'm sure that the intersections of I-40 and I-75 (both MAJOR domestic trucking corridors) has something to do with it. It's my understanding that we suffer from inversion problems (trapped air) due to the valley in which we live and the mountains to our east. A lot of bad air floats up the ridge and valley system from Atlanta. We also have a few pretty nasty TVA coal fired power plants to the west of us.

[69KV]

4. Chattanooga is more liberal than Dallas

but that isn't saying much..

[Phil214]

7. Chattanooga's More Liberal Than Dallas

Check out the Texas boards. Texas 32nd Democratic candidate Martin Frost has a real chance against Republican incumbent Pete Sessions. (the Texas 32nd covers the central and northwestern parts of Dallas County -- the richer part of the county)

This isn't the Texas board, so I'll conclude with this -- Dallas is like Memphis in that the CITY is fairly liberal, but the suburbs of the both cities are...well...what you'd expect of the suburbs of both cities.