Daily chart: Urban ideologies | The Economist

Daily chart: Urban ideologies | The Economist

Of 67 American cities with a population of more than a quarter-million people, Tulsa and Oklahoma are two of the 13 ranked right-of-center. In order:

Mesa, AZ
Oklahoma City, OK
Virginia Beach, VA
Colorado Springs, CO
Jacksonville, FL
Arlington, TX
Anaheim, CA
Omaha, NE
Tulsa, OK
Aurora, CO
Anchorage, AK
Fort Worth, TX

The ten most liberal: San Francisco, Washington DC, Seattle, Oakland, Boston, Minneapolis, Detroit, New York, Buffalo, Baltimore.

The graphic is an extract from a March 2014 study of studies called Representation in Municipal Government by Chris Tausanovitch of UCLA and Christopher Warshaw of MIT, examining "whether city policies are actually responsive to the views of their citizens" by moving in the direction of the views of their citizens. The analysis is of cities, not metropolitan areas; thus Arlington, Texas, Mesa, Arizona, and Anaheim, California, are considered separately from DFW, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.

"However, unlike at the state and national level, we find scant evidence that differences in municipal political institutions affect representation. Neither the choice of mayor versus city council government, partisan or non-partisan elections, the availability of ballot measures, whether or not elected officials face term limits, or whether there are at-large or districted elections seem to affect the strength of the relationship between public policy preferences and city policies."