Dallas, Santa Rosa (pictured, in a stock image), Sacramento, Springfield, Mass., Portland, Maine, Columbus, Ohio, and even Eugene, Ann Arbor, and Ithaca (give it up for college towns) are among America’s cities with the highest Gay/Lesbian Index, which measures the number of same-sex couples against the national average. And something you already assumed to be true: Property values in these areas are also higher than the national average.
Anon
Did it ever occur to the authors of this study that most gays and lesbians are not coupled?
Enron
I also understand that Seattle has a strong population of LGBT citizens too.
kevwyn
love it here in portland!
Mike in Asheville, nee "in Brooklyn"
The thought of moving from NYC to the home of long-time (and fortunately now DEAD) Jesse Homophobe Helms, was quite frightening. So, I Goggled “Gay friendly North Carolina” and the happy result was “Asheville, the San Francisco of the South”.
Having lived in the Bay Area from 1973-2000, 6 years in Berkley, 6 in Piedmont/Oakland, and 11 in SF, I’d say Asheville has a solid gay community, a mostly friendly acceptance (except for all those fucking Baptists) and a very Berkeleyesque atmosphere is the modern version of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll.
Anyone needing to make a move like we did, check out Asheville; sure am glad we did.
TR
WTF did u mention Portland, Maine when PDX (the bigger portland) is higher ranked.
I’d think it was east-coast bias, but this site if from SoCal….wtf.
Jason Dancin'
Gay/lesbian couples would probably make it skew older in age. Just something to point out. That’d be different from the most gay/lesbians in an area, or the most gay-friendly places. It’s a nuance that should be pointed out.
Samwise
@Anon: It’s really hard to find out how many gay people there are – some are closeted, there’s no sexual orientation checkbox on the Census, etc. – so this is pretty much the best method they can find. And it isn’t a terrible method; where there are lots of gay couples, I think you can safely assume that there are also lots of gay singles.
Also, go Denver!!
James Davis
Yay for Columbus. We truly do have a very large and open GLBT population
john
Am I missing most of the story? thats not very many places…wwhat about San Diego? Portland or my home town of Seattle? Salt Lake has a healthy population as does Honolulu…chicago anyone? Atlanta?
This list isn’t a list, it’s a “slight mention”, a paragraph of a few cities and thats it. i even found Charlotte North Carolina to have a good amount of gay people…I’m going to check the article again, I must be missing something.
PopSnap
@James Davis
Yup. Your pride parade makes ours look silly- I think about 200,000 attended Columbus pride this year, vs. 90,000 in Cleveland. I am more of a Northeastern boy though so I can’t see myself moving down there anytime soon unless I get desperate for a change of scene and I love me some Cleveland.
I think this was focused more on the “unknown” places. I’m surprised Iowa City or Atlanta weren’t on there though, those are supposed to be lesbian heavens (or so my lesbos have told me).
A.G.
If the organizers of the Gay Games were hell bent on conducting the games in Ohio, they should have chosen Columbus over Cleveland.
Jack Scribe
How about looking into Palm Springs as a mega-friendly gay community. Of the 45,000 residents, approximately 40% are GLBT. We have a gay mayor (who’s running for Congress) and two gay city council members. Oh…I should mention the 20 or so clothing optional gay resorts. :o)
mudgeboy
@Jack Scribe: I assume you mean Palm Springs, CA; not Palm Springs, FL.