Snobbiest Small Cities in the US

Woo Hoo!  #4

http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/snobbiest-small-cities-in-america/

As in our Snobbiest Mid-Sized Cities list, California reigns supreme in the elitism department, but that’s hardly surprising. It is a pretty wonderful place, after all, and Californians know it. If you want to see where your hometown ranked, you can check the 50 snobbiest cities at the bottom of the list. So, what is that certain je ne sais quoi that makes a place considered snooty? Why, it’s simply obvious if you look at it the right way.

How We Created This Ranking

When creating this ranking, we had to refine our search a little, as well as our tastes. Still, we kept this by the numbers, as we do with all our Big Deal Lists.

We first made a list of places in the U.S. with populations between 65,000 and 45,000 people. Then, we collected data from the 2010 U.S. Census and business listings in criteria that many consider snobby (think Frasier and Niles Crane):

  • Median home price (the higher the better)
  • Median household income (the higher the better)
  • Percent of population with a college degree (the higher the better)
  • Private schools per capita (the more the better)
  • Performing arts per capita (the more the better)
  • Art galleries per capita (the more the better)
  • Fast food restaurants per capita (the fewer the better)

We omitted any places that we could not get the data for, and that left us with 309 places. Then, we ranked each place in each category from one to 309, with scores closer to one being better and more snobby. Once we had that, we averaged each place’s rankings into one Big Deal Score. The place with the number closest to one for that score became our snobbiest place.

Now, as we said earlier, “snobby” doesn’t necessarily mean bad. Most of these are wealthy communities with many opportunities for work, education, and culture. Heck, we’d probably be pleased as punch to live in any one of these. However, with all that culture, wealth, and exclusivity comes people who have simply the most rigid of standards that must always be met. These 10 places cater more to those sorts of people.

Let’s look more in depth at why each of these simply devine locales ranked where they did in our rigid standards then, shall we?