Phoenix ranked eighth for the largest number of gay-friendly businesses
A new report ranks Phoenix eighth in the country for cities with the largest number of gay-friendly businesses.
Global media organization Vocativ released a report this week in celebration of gay pride month. The study includes different lists ranking the nation’s best cities for gay businesses, gay sports leagues and gay politicians.
“For pride month, we wanted to create a useful, fun guide to LGBT life across the country,” said Scott Cohen, CEO of Vocativ. “We started off with a simple premise: What’s life really like for the queer community.”
Atlanta, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Denver and Dallas round out the top five cities with the largest number of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender-friendly businesses per 100,000 people.
Phoenix ranks 10th with the most gay-friendly bars per capita and fourth in terms of the number of gay media outlets, according to the group.
The larger list of rankings was decided using the Queer Index, an analysis of dozens of quality-of-life factors for America’s gay communities in 100 U.S. cities.
The organization examined such factors as the size of a city’s LGBT community, number of “out” singles, gay-friendly businesses, hate-crime rates and the ease of casual hook-ups.
Vocativ’s analysts surveyed information using the U.S census, FBI crimes database, public sites and social networks, including Craigslist, Facebook and Yelp.
Researchers said the study led to surprising discoveries, such as New York City has the most hate groups in the country, and Memphis has the most single lesbians per capita.
“The Queer Index shows just how fast LGBT rights and public opinion about that community are changing — and not just in big metro areas, but also increasingly in smaller cities throughout the country,” said Mati Kochavi, founder of Vocativ.
