LA Ranks Second Worst City in U.S.

Forty percent of American voters said they have a negative opinion of Los Angeles, an unfavorable score second only to Detroit's, in a national poll conducted by Public Policy Polling.

Twenty-one of the nation's prominent cities were asked about in the poll, and the Pacific Northwest received predominantly positive reviews, with Seattle and Portland receiving highly favorable ratings.

Seattle received a favorable rating of 57 percent among American voters, and only received a negative rating from 14 percent of those polled.

In comparison, when voters were asked whether they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Los Angeles, only 33 percent responded as having a positive opinion about the city.

The most unpopular city, however, was Detroit, which only 22 percent of voters responded as having a favorable opinion of and 49 percent said they saw in a negative way.

Aside from Los Angeles and Detroit, only Oakland had a net-negative opinion,with a 21 percent positive and 39 percent negative review.

Among the cities whose results placed them in the middle of the spectrum were Boston with a positive review of 52 percent, Atlanta with a favorable review of 51 percent, New York with a positive vote of 49 percent, and Salt Lake City with a favorable review of 43 percent.

The poll, which was conducted by automated  telephone interviews, surveyed 900 voters nationwide from April 12th-15th. Of those surveyed 57 percent were women and 43 percent were men.

Twelve percent of those polled described themselves as very liberal, 15 percent responded as being somewhat liberal, 32 percent were moderate, 24 percent identified themselves as somewhat conservative and the remaining 18 percent identified as very conservative.

The voters polled were also categorized into different age brackets, with a majority-- 40 percent-- falling between the ages of 46 and 65. The second largest age group, composing 25 percent of those polled, were between the ages of 30 and 45. Only 15 percent were 18 to 29 and 20 percent were older than 65.

With regards to race, the largest gap between black and white voters was in Los Angeles, where black voters voted positively by 35 points and white voters voted negatively by 16, creating a 51 point gap.