Leestrom

(Everything subject to change)

Leestrom is a municipality in Zuidbete province that is known for having the national headquarters of the Liberal Party. It is narrowly the second largest city in Zuidbete after Voostkreek with a population of 85,314.



Demographics
Leestrom is primarily made up of Dutch immigrants with a substantial population of English immigrants. During WW1 and WW2 it experienced a wave of multiculturalism with refugees from all across Europe. Due to the Chinese, Indian, and Korean diaspora during the 1950s to 1970s there is also a large number of people with Asian descent.

Initially, a sparsely populated city with only 12,819 inhabitants in 1901, over time due to diasporas, economic booms, and increase in social housing the population drastically grew to its current number of inhabitants. Growth in population is smaller but remains steady due to its relatively cheaper housing and calm climate.

Leestrom also has a noticeably high youth population with 23% of its populace being those aged 18-25, and the rest being dominated by young adults with 37% being aged 26-35.

Religion
The largest religious group in Leestrom are Catholics at 16.8%, with protestants at 14.5%, Lutherans at 12.8% and the smallest groups being Buddhists comprising 1.4%, Muslims at 1.0%, and Jews at 0.5%. The majority of the population are irreligious with 54% total not identifying with a religious faith. Of that 53%, 29.9% identified as atheists, 12.7% identified as agnostic, and 10.4% identified as spiritual. It has been theorised that the reason for the city being extremely irreligious due to every immigrant population being mostly of irreligious or simply spiritual backgrounds.

Politics
Leestrom City Council currently consists of 27 seats with parallel voting with 18 seats being elected using single-member-constituencies by runoff and 9 seats being proportional, while the mayor is elected by direct election with runoff voting. The largest party in the city has fluctuated, however, since 2000 the Liberal Party has consistently been the largest political party in the council.

As of the 2020 Leestrom City Council and Mayoral elections, the city council is held by the Liberal Party majority and its mayor is Esther Verhagen, the first Korean-Dutch mayor and former deputy mayor during Saber Párdon's mayorship.

Provincial and municipal politics
Being one of the largest cities in a strongly left-wing province, Leestrom has historically been and largely still is a battleground between centrist liberals and left-wing to far-left political groups. Its dominant social progressivism and cultural liberalism has essentially made it impossible for ultra-conservative and far-right groups to gain any foothold in the city.

The city being populated by young university graduates and young adults whose interests tend to involve ease of business with liberal philosophy transformed the city to gradually become one of the strongholds of the Liberal Party. However, trends do tend to change as more of the young across the country and within the city turn towards left-wing ideology.

As of 2008, the Liberal Party remains the dominant force due to the former mayor Saber's popularity and revitalisation of the city's economy and tourism. The LWP and DL also shows strong performance but recently failed to retain all their seats in the 2020 Leestrom election.

National politics
Nationally the Liberal Party tends to have a stronger performance and notably in the February 2021 election the party obtained a vote share of 56%, but fell to 41% in March. The Liberal Party reached a new height of vote share in the 14 May 2021 election with 67% total being won by the Liberal Party credited to ex-mayor Saber's popularity and notoriety. Most of the constituencies were won by the Liberal Party.

Education
Leestrom has one major university which is the University of Leestrom. It is one of the top public universities in Doggerland and is one of the most notable reasons for the city's popularity for the youth.

Media
Leestrom's main daily newspaper is the The Leestrom Herald. It's main daily magazine is the Leestrom Herald Magazine, both are subsidiaries of the Leestrom Media Group. Both are the main sources of media in Leestrom, Zuidbete, and has moderate notoriety across the country.