ATL liberal countercultures

Alkahest

Banned
Berlin of the 1920's and San Francisco of the 1960's (and more generally the culture of the Weimar Republic and the American counterculture of the 60's and 70's) are both well-known examples of countercultural hubs where old dogmas were questioned, mores were loosened and a more permissive culture began to grow.

Are there other times and places in history and alternate history when and where equivalent liberal countercultures could develop? I mean "liberal" in the general sense of tolerant or permissive when it comes to things like sexuality, culture and drug use, not in some specific political sense.
 
Berlin of the 1920's and San Francisco of the 1960's (and more generally the culture of the Weimar Republic and the American counterculture of the 60's and 70's) are both well-known examples of countercultural hubs where old dogmas were questioned, mores were loosened and a more permissive culture began to grow.

Are there other times and places in history and alternate history when and where equivalent liberal countercultures could develop? I mean "liberal" in the general sense of tolerant or permissive when it comes to things like sexuality, culture and drug use, not in some specific political sense.

I could possibly see New Orleans becoming an ATL San Francisco of sorts; it did(and still does!) have a reputation for being a pretty easy-going place IOTL, and I don't think it's that much of a challenge to really expand on that.
 
The roaring twenties were that in far more places than just berlin.

Basically, you need a booming economy, to allow people the leisure to do more than survive.

To get the alternate culture, you may need something to discredit authority. Such as a very unpopular war.
 
In the sense of a city vastly more liberal than the rest of the country? I could see Petrograd in he 20s in a continuing Provisional government Russia do that. Prewar St Petersburg actually had a fairly vibrant gay scene. Shanghai also was getting really cool before the Second Sino-Japanese War/WWII. An unoccupied Shanghai in the 40s might be very fun.

Something that you almost never see: Istanbul/Constantinople international city, as was planned. Turks, Greeks, Bulgarians, Russian Whites, various Western expat groups. Could have been quite exciting in the 20s.

At a greater temporal distance, a Salt Lake City equivalent in a timeline without Mormon prohibition. All of the polygamy, none of the teetotaling?
 
If St. Louis doesn't go into it's massive decline, it could continue being the "Gateway to the West".

I know a lot of Rail went through Chicago, but St. Louis from my understanding used to be pretty high up there.

That brings up Chicago, perhaps Chicago becomes the Midwestern New York as a response to massive anti-corporate ideals?

Maybe even Detroit if you prevent the weakening of the American Auto-Industry.

Does that fit the challenge?
 
What about Kyoto in a prolonged Taisho-democracy era Japan? I freely admit I'm not sufficiently familiar with period Japanese culture to hazard what form it would assume.
 
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