How We Ranked the Cities

We started by indentifying the 30 largest cities (not metropolitan areas) in the U.S. by population, along with 10 factors that matter to photographers (whether traveling or local), such as the average percentage of sunny days a year, the number of museums and galleries that show photography, and the cost of visiting.

To make our comparisons more accurate, we calculated the ratio of each city’s population to its amenities in five categories—parks and zoos, camera stores, photo finishers, museums and galleries, and security companies. For instance, Louisville, KY, has 2,277 people per park, while San Jose, CA, has 14,028. (For the underlying data and sources, see the previous page.)

Next, we ranked each city from 1 through 30 (1 being the most desirable) based on each of those numbers. In the case of the weather (the percentage of sunny hours and the number of days a year with measurable precipitation), we took the midpoint of the extremes as optimum, and ranked by deviation from that number. That’s why rainy cities in the Pacific Northwest ranked on par with desert cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Of course, some of our 10 categories ultimately matter more to photographers. We took into account that subjective reality by using the opinion of our resident experts (a.k.a. the Editors) to create an “importance factor” for each category. We multiplied each city’s rank in each category by that factor, then added up the scores.

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