I think Provo, Utah, the home of Brigham Young University, is probably one of the most conservative cities in the US. Others have mentioned in this thread that Salt Lake City is liberal compared to the rest of Utah, but Provo is very conservative, even by Utah standards.
More often I debate myself before I post.
Not Cleveland. It’s liberal, but in a labor/union/ethnic old-school Democrat-kind of way. There’s two very lefty suburbs, Cleveland Heights and Lakewood, and during the last presidential election Kerry signs were all that one would see in Shaker Heights, one of the nation’s most affluent communities.
Same thing in Buffalo. Even in Republican exurbs, you’re looking at mainly Rockefeller Republicans, which are to the left of Democrats outside of the state.
I live in Cambridge, and can reliably state that this city leans left.
That’s probably not surprising anyone, though.
As far as small towns go, I don’t think any place is more liberal/hippie-esque than Yellow Springs, Ohio.
There are lots of small hippie towns on the West Coast:
Bellingham, WA; Olympia, WA; Cannon Beach, OR; Ashland, OR; Eugene, OR (bigger);Eureka/Arcata, CA; Santa Cruz, CA; Weaverville, CA. The list goes on.
San Diego is definitely conservative. It’s also the world’s largest stripmall.
Well, we compost it, first. That’s why.
I was going to mention the People’s Republic!
I think my hometown of Austin, Texas is fairly liberal, but it’s nowhere as liberal as lefties think it is. I’m from Southeast Austin, home of the barrio and the Bubba. Nothing spectacularly liberal about my pre-college years, but once at the University of Texas there were plenty of lefties all around. But a sizable and vocal conservative element, especially in the communities surrounding the city.
My friend lived in Madison, WI for several years and found it very liberal. He’s from conservative East Texas, so I don’t know if I can trust his assessment that much…
Maybe the most conservative large city in North America. In the last election, they voted 60.9% Conservative, 23.1% liberal, and 16.9% other. Calgary has only elected a liberal in a local riding 3 times in its history!
Edmonton is by far the most liberal city in Alberta, and yet we still elected Conservatives to all our seats in the last election.
Colorado Springs, CO is one of the most conservative places I’ve ever been. It’s home to Focus on the Family and the New Life Church, among many other megachurches and religious organizations. It’s also home to the Air Force Academy and has a quite sizeable military presence at Fort Carson. I’ve had to spend time here and there in the Springs for work, and I can tell you that there’s a reason people here in Denver call it Stepford Springs. There’s a very small pocket of liberal (or at least, not uber-conservative) thinking at Colorado College, but for the most part the Springs is right-leaning and quite religious folk.
In contrast, I lived for many years in Berkeley, CA. The UC Berkeley campus has a reputation for being a bastion of liberal thought, but the student body is pretty moderate (lots of kids come up from Orange County to go to school there 
) and not especially left-leaning. The city of Berkeley, on the other hand, is super liberal to the point of ridiculousness at times. The city council when I lived there was comprised of liberals and uber liberals who would fight with each other over liberal topics, and there were more people registered Green Party than there were Republican during one of the elections when I was there - maybe 2000? Not sure. Anyhow, that definitely tells you something.
Most of Texas is conservative, especially Houston and Dallas.
But there is a reason that we refer to our capital as The People’s Republic of Austin.
I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan for a year and encountered the idea that it was a particularly liberal city. Which struck me as funny, as Ann Arbor is easily the most conservative place I’ve lived in in the US. (I base this on the voting results of the 2004 presidential election. Washtenaw County, where Ann Arbor is, had only ~60% of the vote for Kerry, significantly lower than any of the other counties I’ve lived in.) I actually knew Republicans in Ann Arbor! And my boss told me at one point not to order Bic pens because they were French! (This was in 2003.)
Depends on your perspective, I guess.
FTR, the other counties in which I’ve lived are: San Francisco County, CA, Santa Cruz County, CA, Sonoma County, CA, and Cook County, IL.
I’m not sure I’d agree that, overall, Ohio is a strongly conservative state. Certainly the axis of Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo leans left (some more than others) but Cincinnati and the rest of the state tends toward the right. The area I’m in, southeastern Ohio has factors both ways. Athens is fairly lefty with the university there but the rest of the area is strongly conservative being composed of numerous small and teeny cities such as Marietta and Belpre and such. Yet those conservative cities consistently elected Ted Strickland, a democrat, to Congress. Then the state as a whole elected Strickland as Governor in 2006.
Ohio is, no matter how you look at it, a classically ‘in play’ state right now. Neither side has a truly dominant position. Should make for an interesting 2008 election.
At least one on the East Coast: The People Republic of Takoma Park. Scroll down to Law and Government.
Here’s a study by the Bay Area Center for Social Research, (in Word), rating 237 cities from most to least liberal. I don’t know their methodology.
http://votingresearch.org/USAliberalcities.doc
It ranks the most liberal city as Detroit, Michigan, and, not surprisingly, the least liberal as Provo, Utah.
I’ll concede that parts of San Diego are conservative. But you’ve been hanging out in the wrong neighborhoods. You don’t generate a multibillion dollar tourist industry with stripmalls.