Orlando is the geekiest city of them all
A recent study of 300 U.S. cities has named Orlando, Fla., the “geekiest city,” AKA the best city for geek and pop culture buffs.
Orlando comes first in the country for Google searches related to Harry Potter.
The study conducted by RentCafe (an apartment and self-storage search website) analyzed 27 metrics to determine which cities offer the most advantages for geek culture. While Orlando took the crown as geekiest city, Seattle, Wash. came in second and Salt Lake City, Utah came in third, which the study attributes to strong “geek-friendly” job markets plus large comic book and gaming communities in those cities.
The ranking was based on a combined score that includes the following:
- Interest in geek and pop culture based on online searches for movies, games, and activities like comic book stores, “Dungeons and Dragons,” “Star Wars,” “Game of Thrones,” “Harry Potter,” “Batman,” and “Stranger Things.”
- Local employment with high earning potential in “geeky” fields like media, film, art & fashion, gaming, tech, science, and finance.
- The number of book stores, gaming stores, comic book stores, comic cons, costume stores, art supply stores, music stores, and movie theaters.
- Access to apartments with geek-oriented amenities like game rooms, media rooms, card rooms, art studios, on-site movie theaters, bocce ball courts, and libraries.
“Geek culture is now a part of pop culture and everyday life, and what was once thought of as an outsider culture is now mainstream,” said Rob Weiner, a popular culture librarian at Texas Tech University. “The popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, both in film and streaming [series] shows just how ingrained geek culture has become in our world. In addition, comic cons and other types of conventions are now events for everyone where people cosplay and go to learn more about pop culture. In fact, comic cons used to be only about comics, but now they are major events covering all kinds of pop culture topics from film, television, and anime to video games. So, it’s fair to say that the geeks have taken over!”
Why does Orlando Rank as the Geekiest City?
In addition to the obvious reason – namely easy access to lands and attractions themed to Harry Potter, Marvel, and Star Wars at Universal Orlando Resort and Walt Disney World – Orlando earned its top spot with high scores in the following areas:
- Careers: 3.1% of Orlando locals hold gaming-related jobs, earning incomes 90% higher than the city’s average. In addition, finance professionals earn 51% more than other local professionals, and media employees make 40% more than the average.
- Comics: Google searches reveal 7.9 of 1,000 Orlando residents searched for bookstores, with 2.4 searches for specialty comic book shops. Fans can also unite with like-minded people at the city’s 26 annual comic conventions.
- Housing: Almost 16% of apartments in Orlando feature “geek-friendly” amenities like game rooms, libraries, media rooms, and music rooms. The city also ranks 6th among the 300 largest cities in the U.S. for providing renters easy access to card rooms.
- Gaming: Gaming culture thrives in Orlando, as evidenced by the 1.6 searches per 1,000 residents for “game stores near me,” three times the national average.
Top Ten Geekiest Cities
- Orlando, Fla
- Seattle, Wash.
- Salt Lake City, Utah
- Austin, Tex.
- Denver, Colo.
- Plano, Tex.
- Allen, Tex.
- Lewisville, Tex.
- Atlanta, Geor.
- Pittsburgh, Penn.
Who’s at the bottom? Stockton, Calif., Moreno Valley, Calif., Jackson, Miss., San Bernardino, Calif., and Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Methodology
RentCafe evaluated 300 U.S. cities with populations over 200K by using a formula that considered the number of gaming stores, comic bookstores, comic cons, costume stores, local employment opportunities in geek-related fields (media, film, art & fashion, gaming, tech, science, and finance), access to apartments with geek-oriented amenities, and super geeky internet search histories among other factors.
Online searches were based on Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends. For searches using Google Keyword Planner, RentCafe evaluated the average number of times a keyword was searched between July 2022 and June 2023; for Google Trends searches, statistics were used for peak popularity of search interest for July 2022 through August 2023. Employment information came from the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2023).
Click here for the complete study and results.
