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Most of the threads in this forum focus on which city/metro is biggest, best, or worst. The question of this thread is: which city or metro falls in the "middle of the pack" the most often? Here are the categories to consider, along with the kinds of things count for/against a city in this debate:
Population:
A. Overall size: Shouldn't be a top 5 metro, but should have at least 1 million people. City-proper shouldn't make up an unusually large or minuscule proportion of the metro population (San Antonio and Miami are examples of both extremes).
B. Growth: City and metro shouldn't be growing quickly or declining.
Demographics:
A. Overall diversity: The closer the city and metro mirror the nation as a whole, the better.
B. Cultural dominance: The city CAN be a hot-spot for a particular immigrant group, but that specific immigrant or ethnic group shouldn't completely dominate the city and metro's culture (compare the Somalian population of Minneapolis to the Cuban population of Miami).
Politics:
A. Overall political orientation: San Francisco is too liberal, Salt Lake City and Tulsa are too conservative.
B. Racial politics: This has some similarities to the cultural dominance category. A person's race or ethnicity should not be a prerequisite OR disqualifier for electability.
Economy:
A. Diversity of economy: Should have other industries to fall back on if you decimated its largest employment base.
B. Economic growth: Shouldn't be experiencing extremely fast or slow growth.
C. Unemployment rate: Should be close to the national average.
My pick is Columbus. Mid-sized metro of ~2 million. City and metro grew about 10% from 2000-2010. White majority, but respectable black and Asian populations. Politically liberal city is balanced by conservative suburbs, and it's located in the ultimate swing state. State government is the largest employer, but it's pretty big for a state capital (compared to Tallahassee, Albany, Springfield, and Harrisburg, which are smaller capitals from bigger states). Fashion, banking, education, and healthcare industries have big presences in Columbus. Unemployment rate is a little low, however.
From that list, I was going to say Columbus or Minneapolis.
Minneapolis is not middle of the pack politically.
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