American cities favorability poll

The Pacific Northwest has a good reputation nationwide--the two most popular of the 21 prominent cities we asked about in our national poll last weekend are Seattle and Portland, OR.  57% of American voters see Seattle favorably and only 14% unfavorably, edging out Portland (52-12) by three points on the margin.

The most unpopular is Detroit, which only 22% see positively and 49% negatively.  Americans have net-negative impressions of only two other of these cities, and both are in California: Oakland (21-39) and Los Angeles (33-40).  In February, PPP found California to be the least popular state in the union.  It does have the 11th most popular city, though: San Francisco (48-29).

Between the pack are Boston (52-17), Atlanta (51-19), Phoenix (49-18), Dallas (48-21), New York (49-23), New Orleans (47-24), Houston (45-22), Salt Lake City (43-20), Philadelphia (42-22), Baltimore (37-24), Las Vegas (43-33), Chicago (42-33), Cleveland (32-25), Washington, D.C. (44-39), and Miami (36-33).

Perhaps because women are more likely to be Democrats than are men, and Democrats more likely to be in urban areas than are Republicans, women and Democrats are only negative on two cities (Oakland and Detroit), while men are on four (D.C., L.A., Oakland, and Detroit), and Republicans are on eight (Miami, Vegas, San Fran, D.C., Chicago, Oakland, L.A., and Detroit).

The biggest partisan gap is unsurprisingly for D.C.  Democrats like it by a net 44 points, while Republicans dislike it by 24, for a 68-point gap.  Not far behind are Chicago (Democrats by 61), L.A. (59), S.F. (51), N.Y. (41), Detroit (33), Vegas (Democrats by 32), Dallas (Republicans by 32), Houston (GOP by 29), NOLA (Dems by 28), Baltimore (27), Oakland (25), Boston (24), Salt Lake (GOP by 22), Philly (Dems by 21), Seattle (17), Miami (15), Atlanta (14), Phoenix (GOP by 14), Cleveland (Dems by 11), and Portland (10).

The largest gap between black and white voters is on L.A., which black voters like by 35 points and white voters dislike by 16, for 51 points.  That is followed distantly by D.C. (blacks by 34), Vegas and Chicago (30), Salt Lake (whites by 28), Atlanta and Detroit (blacks by 23), Miami (19), NOLA and N.Y. (18), Portland (whites by 17), S.F. (blacks by 15), Baltimore (14), and Boston (whites by 12).

Full results here

Comments

[Sid Klum]

What a joke, guess you haven't been to San Diego. Good go to Seattle it's much better than San Diego ha haaaa.

[Jay Hodge]

Your poll is flawed....you didn't even include Denver CO in your survey...I would imagine it would have been in at least the top five.

[Ed H]

I was born at UCLA in 1969. I guess I will be hiding that tidbit from people in future conversations from now on :) Bummer dude. LA was cool, once... long ago...

[jarryd]

Why wasn't San Diego included in the poll? If you're including America's "21 most prominent cities" then San Diego should've clearly been polled, as well. The city is the 8th largest in the country, 2nd largest in our nation's largest state and an international port of entry sitting on our country's Southwestern border. San Diego is a larger, more diverse and definitely more prominent than several cities mentioned on the list. What was the reasoning behind omitting it from the poll?

[Joe]

Huh, I'm honestly surprised San Francisco is so high. It's a usually cliche target of "crazy liberal hippies" (and as a person who likes San Francisco, I'm willing to admit there's some truth to it) so the generally favorable rating is a bit surprising.

[Khensu]

HAHA San Diego on the list of Favorable cities? That is absolutely the funniest thing I've ever heard. San Diego will rape you blind then ask for change. Never ever!

[eduardo]

Oh and this list missed including Minneapolis. Beautiful, friendly, diverse, great food, the best park system in the US, top 1 or 2 bike cities in the nation the last few years, open minded, high wages, low cost of living.