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There's a rule about lists like this: What's "hottest" can mean a million things, and dozens of cities would qualify for #1 depending on what the list prioritizes.
First, separate "most" from "fastest growing." Or are numbers important at all? Can a town with outstanding food beat a big city?
Then, is it about foodie places, mom & pops, street food, ethnic cuisines, or what? What type of places do they care about?
This list might be fine for what it does. But it's just one take.
One more thing: Some lists (no idea about this one) try to include every region because then it'll make the papers in every region. Magazines do this a lot.
There's a rule about lists like this: What's "hottest" can mean a million things, and dozens of cities would qualify for #1 depending on what the list prioritizes.
First, separate "most" from "fastest growing." Or are numbers important at all? Can a town with outstanding food beat a big city?
Then, is it about foodie places, mom & pops, street food, ethnic cuisines, or what? What type of places do they care about?
This list might be fine for what it does. But it's just one take.
One more thing: Some lists (no idea about this one) try to include every region because then it'll make the papers in every region. Magazines do this a lot.
They really do things like that with these rankings and lists. If you dig into details of their methodologies you will often find that they have factors that they don't publicize, for instance they will choose one city from each state or each region (defined as they wish), and that has been "most improved" or has the most buzz according to whatever factors they want to use that year.
Most of them are extremely subjective, with the goal of having them change year to year so that they don't seem to be the same old thing, and that new cities and regions will be familiar with and use the website, service, or survey in question. In general I'd say they should be looked on for what they are to the company: a marketing channel.
I didn't look into Zagat's methodology for this in particular, but I would assume it is similar based on what I've seen in this list.
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