Is Flagstaff Liberal or Conservative? (college, residential, stations)

[TonyCannoli]

I lived in Flag for 3 years:

Pros: Weather is sunny in the winter, cool in the summer
A pretty set of mountains to hike, bike, gaze and be proud of.
A university town which on balance makes it better than not having a university
Proximity to Sedona, Grand Canyon, Powell and Southern Utah
No real traffic except for weekends on Milton
Snowbowl in winter, Powell in Summer
Route 66 history and Native culture
Politics: All are represented in relatively equal numbers which makes it acceptable to everyone
2 hrs from Phoenix



Cons: Kind of expensive housing
Unless you are hired by NAU, Gov or Gore, the jobs are low paying
An unspoken unwillingness to grow

[azdr0710]

Originally Posted by TonyCannoli

I lived in Flag for 3 years:

Pros: Weather is sunny in the winter, cool in the summer
A pretty set of mountains to hike, bike, gaze and be proud of.
A university town which on balance makes it better than not having a university
Proximity to Sedona, Grand Canyon, Powell and Southern Utah
No real traffic except for weekends on Milton
Snowbowl in winter, Powell in Summer
Route 66 history and Native culture
Politics: All are represented in relatively equal numbers which makes it acceptable to everyone
2 hrs from Phoenix



Cons: Kind of expensive housing
Unless you are hired by NAU, Gov or Gore, the jobs are low paying
An unspoken unwillingness to grow

excellent summary....I'd add self-employed to the "unless you are...." section (lawyer, doctor, etc.)

[Canyon Cat]

To get back to the OP's question, I'd say, "It depends". I've lived in Flagstaff and, now, the rural county since '99. If you hang around downtown Flagstaff the feel is a bit left-of-center, the free spirit crowd, tattoos, coffee drinking, gramicci-wearing, nature-loving hikers, mountain bikers, and Subaru drivers. The city of Flagstaff employs lots of blue staters. The city council is left-leaning. NAU professors and students trend left-of-center, too.

Once you wander out of town you'll find more of the right-of-center crowd, newer SUV and pickup-driving, flag-waving, Republican, gun-packing, country music-listening, as well as the more rural, western cowboy types.

Out in the rural areas where I live you can have an "interesting" get-together of neighbors: tie-dyed new age hippies who smoke weed, love Obama, build elaborate drip-irrigation gardens and cold frames, are into alternative medicine, make herbal concoctions also while hanging with hard-core gun enthusiasts, right wing, evangelical Christians, who drink cheap beer also hanging with yuppie homesteaders who drink boutique beer and can talk endlessly about their libertarian politics, solar power arrays, catchment systems, and passive solar construction methods.

Whatever crowd you want to hang with, Flagstaff and its environs has a bit of everything. Politically, Flagstaff is a predominantly "blue" town in a predominately "red" state. That's my take. YMMV.

[maxm11]

Flagstaff is one of those rare communities in Arizona, that is not completely; undeniably; and undisputably republican, or Right. You see a lot of hippies, and Natural Grocery stores. People actually can put up Obama for America stickers, without fearing attack. It's still in Arizona, so yes there are a considerable amount of Republicans. That said, there are about 1 Democrat to 2-3 Republicans here, this is very rough, but you will see its true. This is (mostly) due to NAU. It being a university town, there are bound to be some young democrats. Call me what you want, but this is the truth.

[pokuku]

Originally Posted by maxm11

It's still in Arizona, so yes there are a considerable amount of Republicans. That said, there are about 1 Democrat to 2-3 Republicans here, this is very rough, but you will see its true.

So please show me the last time Flagstaff voted Republican, vs. the amount of times they've voted Democrat. What you're saying can only be true if those Republicans don't vote.

[buckeyenative01]

Well, the region's been gerrymandered enough so that I'm pretty sure my state representative district (or senate district, can't remember which) is actually represented by a Republican from Heber-Overgaard.

Rumor is that a couple of our elected officials are Republicans at heart (judges, primarily), but had to switch parties just to have a chance in hell of getting on the general election ballot.

As for whoever said there's an unspoken unwillingness to grow, I couldn't agree more. I'm all for local business, but Flagstaff seems to value them at the detriment of everything else (how many more art galleries and new age stores do we need downtown!?). Not that I'm a huge fan of Wal-Mart's business practices, but the crap they went through just to get a second store built in town was ridiculous. We have two (soon to be three) health food stores, all of which are small chains who charge an arm and a leg for food (I can't remember the last time I actually went inside New Frontiers), while chains like Trader Joe's, In-N-Out and Costco are readily available in Prescott.

[bradleyyo]

Thanks again everyone. Maybe if the job opportunities become more varied and plentiful in Flagstaff, I might think about spending some time there.

[Slater]

Most of the guys I work with (in Flagstaff) are pro-gun, strongly pro-gun, or rabidly pro-gun. So there's a decent cross-section of society up here

[Sayid Linus]

I would say Flagstaff is filled with Rednecks For Social Justice.

[pokuku]

Originally Posted by Slater

Most of the guys I work with (in Flagstaff) are pro-gun, strongly pro-gun, or rabidly pro-gun. So there's a decent cross-section of society up here

Since when does one's stance on guns make for a decent cross section of society?

Thats the only defining issue now?