Suds Up: Lifestyle Rankings that ought to Worry Seattle

Inside Hook recently tallied the best beer cities in America. I consider this ranking, where Seattle doesn’t make the top 10, a good indication of which cities will be “hot” in terms of attracting tech workers and other footloose young workers. It may also be an indication that too-expensive, too-congested, politically-symied cities like Seattle have passed their moment in the Suds.

My sense of emergent mid-size hot towns who will overtake techopolises and the Sunbelt Boombelt: Boise, Nashville, Providence, Cincinnati, Tucson, Boulder.

So who wins the beer sweepstakes? In order they are: Asheville, N.C., Denver, Portland, ME, Portland, Oregon, San Diego, Austin, Chicago, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Richmond, VA.

Missing along with Seattle are the German-rich cities that brewed German beers, such as Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Missoula. 

Seattle still does well as a coffee town, another magnet for footloose workers, though there are some surprises in these rankings, such as Santa Cruz, CA, and Olympia, which outrank mainstays like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, and Denver. The urbanist Richard Florida used to rank growth cities by their appeal to young tech workers. Among the once-favored Florida barometers: thriving music scene, outdoor attractions, bookstores, cuisine, pubs, major universities, and coffee shops. 

All these indicators, random as they are, suggest that Seattle has passed its “hot” moment and needs to discover a compelling new economic strategy — tech having gone into eclipse, along with timber, Boeing, the arts, and affordable urban neighborhoods.