We get a lot of news-ish emails about ranking cities in lists. Whether it’s the best cities for strange hats or the metros that one can find the most left-handed plumbers, there’s a list for everything.
The proliferation of lists begs the question of their quality. Who is making them, are they trustworthy, and are the lists even useful at all? In this episode, Natalie and Ray look at what makes a city ranking list good and how much entertainment can we draw out of the bad ones.
Here’s a couple of the lists we discuss in the show:
- Park Score by the Trust for Public Land
- How Much Apartment Space does $1500 Get You by Rent Cafe
- Best Place in the US for Electric Vehicles by Storage Cafe
- 2023’s Best Cities for Downtown Living by Storage Cafe
- Best and Worst Cities for Basketball Fans by WalletHub
- Urbanism in North American Cities by City Nerd
As always, we love to hear from you. Tell us where you rank Seattle and the metrics you’re using, as well as any questions, comments, or ideas for future episodes. Reach out to us at podcast [at] theurbanist.org.
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Ray Dubicki is a stay-at-home dad and parent-on-call for taking care of general school and neighborhood tasks around Ballard. This lets him see how urbanism works (or doesn’t) during the hours most people are locked in their office. He is an attorney and urbanist by training, with soup-to-nuts planning experience from code enforcement to university development to writing zoning ordinances. He enjoys using PowerPoint, but only because it’s no longer a weekly obligation.