U.S. metros ranked by retail bakeries per 10,000 people
 

http://www.swivel.com/graphs/image/9...6690578793888?

http://www.swivel.com/graphs/image/9...6690578793888?

There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to why, but when Cleveland out paces Phoenix and Atlanta by almost 3 times you have to wonder what the reasons are.

NYC seems obvoius. You might argue that the more "urban" a place is the more friendly it is towards small independent stores. That doesn't seem to exactly fit the statistics either.

Maybe it's an ethnic thing.

OMG! Bakeries!

:lmao:

Are you are making a link between fat Americans and their cities perhaps???

Finallly a meaningful ranking!

;)

yeah! NY and San Fran are known for having an astronomically high percentage of obese people!

I love the random statistics. Keep them coming.

^Well, I've got to admit I've never seen a stat like this one before--can't say I even thought about this subject before.

And just for the record, for tonight's dinner--the first since my partner returned from his trip to LA--we enjoyed, among other things, a fantastic artisan sourdough half-loaf from Grace Baking Company. Picked it up at Safeway for 3 bucks--no big deal. I highly recommend.

Is Krispy Kreme being included as a bakery? How bout Dunkin Donuts? :)

That would put Boston at number one.

This is a great statistic...however I can't for the life of me see a correlation.

This is the strangest ranking I have ever seen on this site.

I can understand why Cleveland would outpace Phoenix.

Cleveland is an old neighborhood city, where is probably a local tradition or custom of local food purveyors like bakers/pastry shops, butchers, and so forth.

So I think this might be a good ranking of citys that might have either a strong culinary interest in artisan baking, big citys of any type, and citys with a strong tradition of neighborhood bakeries (even if these might be in the suburbs now).