Most centrist major cities

[Frodo]

can any one name the most centrist major cities in the United States? 

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Indianapolis maybe

[George W. Bush]

Cincinnati?? Denver?? Im not sure,

[Alcon]

The downtown, the city as a whole, or the metro area?

[Smash255]

Cincinnati?? Denver?? Im not sure,

Danver is quite liberal (socially especially) I would probably go with Indianapolis

[danwxman]

Centrist in what way? How would you know what metro area has the most centrists? Or how do you define "centrist" policy?

[Wakie]

Columbus, OH
Tampa, FL
Pittsburgh, PA

Maybe they aren't so much centrist as they are "swing".  At least they were called that in this last election.

[??????????]

Tampa is right leaning. I guess you could call it centrist. St. Pete is left leaning and Tampa is right leaning although they both have Republican mayors and councils.

[Sam Spade]

I think it really depends on what you would define as a "city".

Is a "city" just the "inner city", or is it the "entire area within the city limits", including suburbs, or does it include the whole "metropolitan" area"?

For example, most major cities in Texas (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, even El Paso) if you define it as "inner city" are liberal, if you define the "entire area within the city limits" are centrist (lots of liberals and conservatives) and if you include the whole "metropolitan area" are conservative (because of the right-of-Attila-the-Hun quality of suburbs and exurbs in Texas).

The only main exception to this in Texas I can think of is Austin, where the "metropolitan area" is centrist and the rest are liberal.

[Blue Rectangle]

Cincinnati?? Denver?? Im not sure,

Danver is quite liberal (socially especially) I would probably go with Indianapolis

Even if you take all the surounding counties (suburbs, which are comfortably Republican), the five-county area of Denver is still liberal overall.  It takes the entire rest of the state to balance Denver and give Republicans a moderate lead.

Here's some guesses for me, but I don't have much first-hand knowledge:
San Diego, CA
Sacramento, CA
Phoenix, AZ
Oklahoma City, OK
Reno, NV

[Alcon]

Cincinnati?? Denver?? Im not sure,

Danver is quite liberal (socially especially) I would probably go with Indianapolis

Even if you take all the surounding counties (suburbs, which are comfortably Republican), the five-county area of Denver is still liberal overall.  It takes the entire rest of the state to balance Denver and give Republicans a moderate lead.

Here's some guesses for me, but I don't have much first-hand knowledge:
San Diego, CA
Sacramento, CA
Phoenix, AZ
Oklahoma City, OK
Reno, NV

San Diego the city, as opposed to the military base, leans slightly left but is very moderate.

Sacramento leans slightly left, but is probably a great candidate.

Phoenix the city is left-leaning. The suburbs are rightist.

Oklahoma City is right-leaning.

Reno is pretty centrist.

I also add to the list Dallas, TX.

[nclib]

Pittsburgh, PA

Pittsburgh proper is very liberal economically (though moderate socially). It gave both Gore and Kerry over 70%.

[WMS]

Don't forget Albuquerque proper, and if you include the expanded MSA-areas, it still aggregates out as mostly moderate.

[Wakie]

Pittsburgh, PA

Pittsburgh proper is very liberal economically (though moderate socially). It gave both Gore and Kerry over 70%.

True, but its suburbs tend to be very conservative.

[JNB]

     The city of Sacramento is actually heavily Democratic, while its not San Francisco by any means, it still votes for liberals. The Sacramento county suburbs for the most part are fairly conservative, the split of Sacramento county between the GOP 3rd congressional district and the Democratic 5th congressional district shows this divsion.  The county as a whole voted for Kerry by a little more than 1000 votes out of 470K votes cast. The area as a whole, Sacramento county + heavily Democratic Yolo county along with very Republican El Dorado + Placer counties went to Bush by a  52-46 margin.

[Alcon]

I suppose that is true, JNB.

This is the exact problem - most downtowns of major cities are heavily Democratic. There are some exceptions (Provo, UT) but they are in the minority.

[True Democrat]

Columbus, OH
Tampa, FL
Pittsburgh, PA

Maybe they aren't so much centrist as they are "swing".  At least they were called that in this last election.

Pittsburgh is liberal both socially and ecnomically.  There is a very large Jewish population here.  The city voted about 75% for Kerry.

[Shira]

The conservatives might claim that it is Salt Lake City.
Newt Gingrich: “We are the center”

[Josh/Devilman88]

Hmm... Greensboro   I don't know...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The conservatives might claim that it is Salt Lake City.
Newt Gingrich: “We are the center”

SLC is actually pretty liberal.

[Alcon]

The conservatives might claim that it is Salt Lake City.
Newt Gingrich: “We are the center”

SLC is actually pretty liberal.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Unless you know something we don't, Salt Lake County has not released precinct data. But the county itself was 60-38 Bush. That hardly suggests SLC itself is liberal, but maybe moderate. Downtown SLC might have voted Kerry.

[bgwah]

The conservatives might claim that it is Salt Lake City.
Newt Gingrich: “We are the center”

SLC is actually pretty liberal.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Unless you know something we don't, Salt Lake County has not released precinct data. But the county itself was 60-38 Bush. That hardly suggests SLC itself is liberal, but maybe moderate. Downtown SLC might have voted Kerry.

SLC is liberal by Utah standards, and probably by national standards too but it doesn't compare to other cities.

HOWEVER, something to think about, the actual city makes up less than 1/5th of the total county population...if memory serves me correctly.