As Gay Pride hits its stride this
weekend, Vocativ has released its list of America's most gay friendly
cities.
Los Angeles topped the site's list.
Usual suspects New York (2), San Francisco (3) and Chicago (5) also
ranked in the top five. Surprise entries included Des Moines (4),
Albany (7), Rochester (8) and Madison (10).
Vocativ says it compiled its list using
what it calls the Queer Index.
“The Queer Index is a rich analysis
of dozens of quality-of-life factors for America's LGBT communities
in 100 U.S. cities, based on Vocativ's proprietary technology that
mines the deep web – the 80 percent of the Internet outside the
scope of search engines,” the site said in a press release. “The
Index sources 32 publicly available data sets to analyze 16 key
lifestyle metrics. It weighs variables that reflect and influence
how and where LGBT Americans live, work, play, party, fall in love
and raise families.”
A few interesting statistics unearthed
by Vocativ's
Queer Index include: The highest percentage of single lesbians is
found in Memphis, Tennessee; New York City is America's capital for
LGBT hookups; and Atlanta has the highest number of LGBT-friendly
businesses in the county at 685.