America's Top 20 Gayest Cities

Richard Florida - the researcher that coined the phrase the "creative class" and who has correlated the presence of LGBT populations with cities and regions with rising economies has a new piece at the Daily Beast that not only looks at the "gayest cities" in America but also gives a good recap on the thesis that tolerance and diversity - including gays - are good for business. Not surprisingly, the Norfolk area (or most of Virginia except the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.) doesn't makes the cut in Florida's analysis - something that indeed correlates with the economic backwardness of the area which would be far worse but for the huge military presence that cushions the economy in relative terms. Here are a few highlights:
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The U.S. metropolitan region with the largest concentration of gay and lesbian people is San Francisco. That’s not exactly news, but there are more than a few surprises in the Gay/Lesbian Index’s metro-area rankings. Developed by Gary Gates, a demographer at UCLA’s Williams Institute, the Gay/Lesbian Index value tells you how the proportion of same-sex couples among all households of a given metro area compares to the average for the entire U.S. An index value of 2, for example, means that the proportion of same-sex couples in that metro area is twice that of the nation.
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A gallery of the nation's top 20 gay cities can be found here. The U.S. metropolitan region with the largest concentration of gay and lesbian people is San Francisco. That’s not exactly news, but there are more than a few surprises in the Gay/Lesbian Index’s metro-area rankings. Developed by Gary Gates, a demographer at UCLA’s Williams Institute, the Gay/Lesbian Index value tells you how the proportion of same-sex couples among all households of a given metro area compares to the average for the entire U.S. An index value of 2, for example, means that the proportion of same-sex couples in that metro area is twice that of the nation.
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New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Washington, D.C., Boston, San Diego, Denver, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon, all make the list of the 20 gayest metros. But so do Dallas, Columbus, Ohio, Santa Rosa and Sacramento, Springfield, Massachusetts, Portland, Maine, and college towns like Eugene, Oregon, Ann Arbor, Michigan and Ithaca, New York.
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The idea that most gay people live in urban enclaves like the Castro in San Francisco or Chelsea in New York City is something of a myth, Gates notes. "Gay people live everywhere," says Gates, "in cities, suburbs, and even in the country—one in seven same-sex couples live in rural areas." The 2000 Census found same-sex couples living in 99 percent of U.S. counties.
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Research I conducted with Charlotta Mellander revealed that metro areas with higher proportions of gay men and lesbians also have higher housing values—a finding that landed me on The Colbert Report. A study I conducted with Gates in 2001 discerned a close association between regions with higher proportions of same-sex couples and concentrations of high-tech businesses. And there’s more:

• Ronald Inglehart’s World Values Survey has found that tolerance in general, and tolerance toward gays and lesbians in particular, is associated with the shift to a more modern, more democratic, and more affluent “post-materialist” political culture.

• Soul of the Community, a study conducted by the Gallup Organization, found that more open and tolerant attitudes toward LGBT people (as well as to other groups) was one of two key factors, along with natural beauty and environmental quality, that corresponded with higher levels of satisfaction with and emotional attachment to a community.
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[P]laces that attract gay people and lesbians tend to have the same open-minded attitudes and business styles that foster innovation. A visible LGBT community is the proverbial “canary in the coal mine,” signaling openness to new ideas, new business models, and diverse and different thinking kinds of people—precisely the characteristics of a local ecosystem that can attract cutting-edge entrepreneurs and mobilize new companies.
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Christianist nut cases like Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell and Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli really need to crawl out of their Medieval caves, smell the coffee and start making Virginia gay friendly - for the economic good of all Virginians.