The CBDs of many Sun Belt cities are more GOP-voting than their other urban neighborhoods. A lot of it is explained by racial demographics, but it's also the case that suits-in-a-glass-penthouse will skew more conservative than the kombucha-drinking gentrifiers who prefer more creative neighborhoods.
Austin isn't even the best place to see this. The main downtown precincts in Houston and Nashville voted for Romney!
Also the wealthy condo-dwellers in downtown Houston mostly still today work in the oil and gas industry. Nashville as the state capital is going to have a similar effect to Austin where Republican-oriented lobbyists and other workers related to the fact that the Republican-dominated state government is based there will live downtown near the capitol building.
Which is roughly the same point I was making earlier.
Generally, in a Southern metro with no transit to speak of, wealthier than average people will only consider living downtown if they have an 80 hour a week fully in-person job in a downtown office. People who have such jobs will obviously skew right compared to their other demographic indicators.
