The Hipster Index: Brighton Pips Portland to Global Top Spot

We pride ourselves on asking the important questions here at MoveHub. In this day and age there’s no time for frivolity. Serious times demand serious questions, and ours was, “What’s the most hipster city in the world?” Our pretentious brethren deserve attention. It’s all they really want. So we rolled up our plaid sleeves and worked out exactly where to find them.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

The study

We’ve done this before. Last year’s US-focused project is something we’re proud of, but it was clear our methods could be improved. Lessons learned and public feedback have allowed us to go back to the drawing board and refine the process.

Our new, improved, alternative Hipster Index combines five data points: the number of vegan eateries, coffee shops, tattoo studios, vintage boutiques, and record stores per 100,000 city residents. Combined and weighted they produce a Hipster Index score out of ten for each city. To prevent inflated numbers — and preserve our sanity — we excluded cities with populations below 150,000.

We looked at 446 cities across 20 countries. That’s 2,834 record stores, 7,772 vegan eats, 14,588 tattoo studios, 15,549 vintage boutiques, and 93,203 coffee shops covering a combined population of over 200,000,000 people. Serious. Bloody. Business.

Check out the full results below.

Put a gull on it

It’s absurd how close the top two were. You couldn’t make it up. In what is quite likely the greatest, most poetic showdown since the Thrilla in Manila, Brighton and Hove of the United Kingdom beat Portland, Oregon of the USA by one-thousandth of a point. Portland scored 8.1631, Brighton scored 8.1632. No really. Brighton is scientifically the most hipster city in the world. Just. Salt Lake City was third with 7.8527, while Seattle and Lisbon completed the top five with scores of 7.0290 and 6.9437 respectively.

The results will come as no great surprise to Brits. Fashionable, overpriced, and the only place in the country with a Green Party MP, Brighton and Hove has long been renowned for its hipster credentials. Think of it as Shoreditch-on-Sea. Or don’t. As you like. In fact, the top 20 suggests that most hipster strongholds are near the sea, presumably to make the swallow tattoos slightly less ridiculous.

Old World grooves

Vinyl records have been making a comeback in recent years, and Europe appears to be the beating heart of that revival. Brighton was the runaway winner in the category with 9.142 record stores per 100,000 people, followed by Bordeaux (5.747), Haarlem (5.631), Porto (5.608), and Minneapolis (5.077).

Europe also edges vintage boutiques. Portugal holds the top two spots, with Lisbon and Porto clocking in at 78.022 and 68.501 vintage/thrift stores per 100,000 people respectively. Oslo (47.401) and Helsinki (42.976) represent for the Nordic nations, while Florida made good on its oldness with three cities in the top ten — St. Petersburg, Miami, and Tampa. On balance, though, it makes sense for the Old World to be a little more vintage.

Although the USA does dominate the overall results, European cities more than hold their own. Brighton and Hove, Lisbon, Helsinki, and Bordeaux comfortably made the global top 20, with Malmö, Zurich, Tampere, Manchester, and Edinburgh all knocking on the door.

The French have their own name for hipsters: the bourgeois bohème, or bobos. Although Paris (5.4519, 49th) loses out to Bordeaux (6.3405, 17th) for the title of France’s bobo capital, Paris is the highest performing city with a population above 1 million. More on this later.

Land of the dairy-free

Unsurprisingly, the American Northwest excelled. Portland confirmed its status as the hipster king of North American. It was joined by Seattle (7.0290, 4th), Spokane (6.6950, 10th), Eugene (6.5861, 12th), and San Francisco (6.4382, 15th) at the top of the rankings, with all five cities doing particularly well on vegan eats density.

Salt Lake City (7.8527, 3rd) almost clinched the top spot in our US study last year, so it’s no surprise to see it get close again. The nation is waking up to its hipster stature. The Utah capital excels in every category, probably providing the second most ‘complete’ hipster experience after Portland.

It may surprise some people to learn that Canada is not particularly hipster. Too dignified, probably. The hipster capital of Canada proved to be Victoria (4.6409, 88th), which was competitive on vegan eats and record stores, but let down by its shoddy tattoo studio game.

The kings of coffee

Australasia did not do well overall, but it absolutely bossed coffee. Gold Coast, Geelong, and Melbourne finished 1st, 2nd, and 4th for coffee shop density with 140.262, 128.383, and 119.569 coffee shops per 100,000 people respectively. Brighton (125.381) and Portland (118.307) filled out the rest of the top five, naturally.

The coffee in Australia is world renowned. Starbucks had to close over 70% of its Australian stores back in 2008 because they simply couldn’t compete with the quality of local coffee-makers. Record stores and vintage boutiques are where the Aussies fall short, but if neither of those factors are important to you then there’s plenty on offer down under. Awaiting you is fresh coffee, vegan buns, golden sands, and aboriginal tattoos from artists who secretly hold you in contempt.

Inked

Speaking of tattoos, the US crushed tattoo studios. The top 22 cities for tattoos are all in the States. Las Vegas, the home of regret, topped the lot with 29.388 studios per 100,000 people. Tattoos are a billion-dollar industry in the States. 40% of Americans between 26 and 40 are inked. Won’t be long until the people without tattoos are the nonconformists. Eyes on the prize.

Go niche or go home

It’s more difficult for large cities to perform well in the Hipster Index. That was apparent last year and it’s been the case again here. Not a single city in the top 40 had a population above one million. Places like London, New York, and Berlin are rightly renowned for their hipster neighbourhoods, but you can only compensate for so many squares.

As mentioned above, Paris is the top million+ city, closely followed by Los Angeles (5.4331, 51st). Dallas (4.9517, 72nd), San Diego (4.8628, 76th), and Barcelona (4.7998, 80th) do respectably, but the lesson is clear — if cities want to be a true hipster paradise, they need to go niche or go home.

We’ve run out of puns

So there you have it, folks. The final word on the hipster capitals of the world, at least until we do this again. If you’re interested in the hipster specifics of a city, please do get in touch or leave a comment below. Suggestions and feedback are always welcome. If we do this again we’ll want it to be even better, so let us know how.  

Until then, we hope this proves useful, or at least interesting. There is now a scientific metric for hipsterness, and we have a point of reference for most of the western world. Avoid or congregate as you see fit.

All flaws in the Hipster Index are ironic and actually really clever