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So, I'd say alot of young folks are on reddit. So, I wanted to rank midsized cities by the total number of redditers. I want to focus on cities/metros near 1 to 2M r (or a tad higher). I do not have time to rank the whole country so I am focusing on the east for now. Feel free to add your city and thoughts.
What's funny about these rankings is it seems to pull midsized cities into tiers....and this correlates very well with city data. The biggest surprise is Richmond. I have said many times the city feels identical to Louisville, but I think proximity to the east coast and DC and it is really gaining young people and hipster types fast. Nashville and Columbus are no surprise with massive CSAs and growth in all directions. The fact that Indy, CLE, and Cincy are basically tied also shows their popularity with young people is about equal. This goes along with everyone on CD kind of being split on these towns. Memphis really underperforms.
One thing to note is some bi-state or multimodal metros probably get a bit robbed of users here. For example, Louisville and Memphis cross state borders and Louisville in particular has very hipster, urban laden suburbs in Indiana.
How did you come up with these numbers in thousands, for each of these cities? Did you look up the number of members, on each local subreddit for discussing ____ city? Keep in mind for some subreddits if you're looking the number of redditors up for each one, that sometimes there may be a separate smaller sub for discussing _____ subsection of a metro area.
For example for Chicago, there is a main Chicago sub, but also one for the Chicago suburbs, and also one for Northwest Indiana. A few places outside Chicago have their own subs too, like Evanston and Oak Park. Certain city neighborhoods have their own sub too, i.e. Pilsen, Rogers Park, etc.
Nashville has a pop culture-oriented brand and benefits from tourism in a way that most of the other cities lack. In other words, it's a desirable city for young people to live in and visit at the same time.
I view Columbus and Indianapolis in the same tier. Both are Midwestern cities that never relied on heavy industry. Therefore, they're white collar areas and don't have to deal with "Rust Belt" reputations, while Columbus benefits from a major university to boot.
Raleigh is a booming tech city with great jobs (nearby RTP) and there are a handful of top notch universities in the area. It attracts lots of young people akin to Nashville or Austin but doesn't have the tourism. As a result, Raleigh isn't a great city to visit, but it's a fantastic city to live in. Downtown Raleigh used to be small and sleepy but it's getting better, too.
Richmond is underrated. It might not be a tech city like Raleigh or as famous as Nashville, but it has a stable economy, an arts scene, and historic neighborhoods. I can understand the Louisville comparisons, but Richmond is more akin to a smaller D.C. IMO. It has an East Coast feel that Louisville doesn't have.
Cincinnati and Cleveland are also underrated, IMO. Cincinnati in particular is actually very pretty, surrounded by hills and located along the Ohio River.
Cool idea. Albuquerque is a little smaller but it's at 37.9k, which feels about right. I'm surprised to see Grand Rapids that high. Also pleasantly surprised to see Birmingham above JAX and Buffalo but it's been getting some buzz.
How did you come up with these numbers in thousands, for each of these cities? Did you look up the number of members, on each local subreddit for discussing ____ city? Keep in mind for some subreddits if you're looking the number of redditors up for each one, that sometimes there may be a separate smaller sub for discussing _____ subsection of a metro area.
For example for Chicago, there is a main Chicago sub, but also one for the Chicago suburbs, and also one for Northwest Indiana. A few places outside Chicago have their own subs too, like Evanston and Oak Park. Certain city neighborhoods have their own sub too, i.e. Pilsen, Rogers Park, etc.
Right....that's the problem in some cases for bistate metros but Chicago way to big for this discussion. Also KC, Austin, and others are a bit too big.
But this is completely objective....based on each city's main reddit page.
To be honest this correlates very directly with each cities popularity with young people. I'd also surmise that any rapid rise in any city redditors could indicate it is getting popular
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