Coffeeshops help Seattle pip Portland as America's hipster capital

A new study measured which major metropolitan areas had the most microbreweries, tattoo parlours and bicycle dealers per resident

Seattle and Portland topped the list thanks to their density of single-location coffee shops ((Reuters))

You might think “hip” is a purely subjective notion, more of a feeling or a vibe than a quantifiable fact. But brother, you’d be dead wrong. A new study has used raw data to identify the most “hipster” cities in the US – and Seattle beat out its regional rival, Portland, for the top spot.

The analytics firm Infogroup used a database of more than 15 million businesses to work out which major metropolitan areas had the most hipster-friendly hangouts, including microbreweries, record shops, tattoo parlours and bicycle dealers.

The study ranked areas with more than a million residents by how many hipster businesses it contained for every 10,000 people, and Seattle got a significant caffeine boost from its density of single-location coffee places.

A map shows the geographical spread of America's most hipster metropolitan areas (Infogroup)

The Emerald City was the birthplace of Starbucks, though Infogroup insisted in a press release that such “lamestream” businesses did not count towards its results. Still, some 38 per cent of Seattle’s hipster businesses are coffee-based, compared to 29 per cent of Portland’s.

This is not the first time Seattle has narrowly outranked its southern neighbour in such a survey. In 2012, readers of Travel+Leisure magazine also voted Seattle and Portland numbers one and two in a list of America’s best cities for hipsters.

What is it about the Pacific Northwest that makes it such a bastion of hipsterdom? Is it the music? Or is it that it’s the only region cool enough (temperature-wise, that is) to wear long beards and lumberjack shirts year-round?

The top 10 hipster cities in the US, broken down by hipster business type (Infogroup)

San Diego, widely considered the craft beer capital of the US, came in sixth in the study thanks to its high concentration of microbreweries, serving obscure IPAs to California cool-hunters. Sacramento made the list with its wide selection of thrift shops, though there is no indication whether said thrift shops sell mostly vintage clothes, or incomplete jigsaw puzzles and the complete paperbacks of Len Deighton.

Providence, Rhode Island and Rochester, New York appear largely on the strength of their tattoo parlours, which made up more than 20 per cent of their local hipster businesses. Again, the study did not delve deep enough to measure the quality of their sleeve tattoos.