Hello-Hello, thank you for popping in for a visit.
Today we have just one topic, a discussion about the “Preppiest Cities in America”. Ahem. (Actually, this may require a double ahem.) Number 1 on the new list? San Francisco. Really. Now, I love it there, but will bet you that style arbiter and all-around-cool-human Lisa of the Privilege blog may have a thought or two about the not-so-auspicious ranking news. More from the story:
After sipping a mimosa and browsing the L.L.Bean catalog for a bit, we pored over our criteria and determined that, based on it, the preppiest big city in the nation is on the West Coast, and it’s San Francisco, CA. Anyone who’s ever taken a stroll through the Marina, driven around Nob Hill, or just gone shopping in the city can attest.
New Canaan or Greenwich? Locust Valley or Rye? Nope. Behold, the Top Ten Preppiest Cities as compiled by the Movoto Blog, offering the “Lighter Side of Real Estate”.
1. San Francisco, CA
2. Scottsdale, AZ
3. Honolulu, HI
4. Raleigh, NC
5. Seattle, WA
6. Boston, MA
7. Charlotte, NC
8. Plano, TX
9. Portland, OR
10. Washington, D.C.
Eastern Chester County (PA) or the Pointes (MI)? Nowhere in Florida? Evidently not. Now to be fair, both the Boston and Washington, DC areas can cover a whole lotta’ ground. The author of the story, Randy Nelson, notes that many were surprised by how the list turned out.
Now, you probably think you know where the preppiest cities in America are already. They’re all in the Northeast, right? New England, or if they could possibly be somewhere else, it’s probably coastal. Well, we thought so, too. Until we ran the data, that is.
By this point I’m sure you are curious about the methodology used to determine where the ‘preppiest communities’ were. A bit of background:
In order to rank cities by fun stuff like their nerdiness or, in this case, preppiness, we come up with a set of criteria that we feel can be used to measure such things. This time, we used:
- Number of preppy clothing retailers per capita
- Country clubs per capita
- Equestrian centers per capita
- Private schools per capita
- Presence of boarding/preparatory schools
- Percentage of college graduates with a bachelor’s degree or higher
- Median household income
We then looked up data for these criteria using resources including Yellowpages.com, Yelp, retailer websites, Yachtclub.com, Boardingschools.com, and the U.S. Census for the top 100 most populous cities in America.
Hmmm. On the surface this might make sense. But Movoto only looked at establishments located within a city’s limits, eliminating a slew of communities. And, while median household income can be something of a barometer, to be quite crass, the ratio of old money to new money is arguably a more revealing statistic. Oh, the horror of it all. (Heh-heh-heh.)
We do offer a tip of the tiara to Randy and the number crunchers at Movoto. After all, this is always an entertaining topic, sure to arouse discussion and debate. Perhaps the real head-shakers are seen on the lengthier list shared in the story. Aurora, Colorado? Las Vegas? Ummm…. no. But don’t take my word for it, more about the cities ranking high in specific categories, like “preppy retailers” or ‘country clubs”. Click here to read the entire story.
G’bye until next time!