New Study Claims Gold Coast Is Australia’s #1 Hipster City Which… Ok, Sure

So not only has someone devised a data-driven measurement for what constitutes a “Hipster City,” the resulting methodology has spat out a wild table of Australian cities that places the Gold Coast – yes, the Gold Coast – as the reigning, defending, undisputed hipster capital of Australia.

Allow us to explain.

A study called the Hipster Index published by MoveHub, a tech company that aims to streamline the process of moving overseas, has released its findings into what and where are the coolest cities flooded by scores of young people in possession of staggering amounts of money and free time and yet a mere half a haircut between the lot of them.

The Hipster Index compiles its list of towns by assessing how many vegan eateries, tattoo studios, coffee shops, vintage boutiques, and record stores a centre has per 100,000 residents, determining those with a higher ratio to clearly be hipster-riddled centres. Also conveniently forgetting the fact that sometimes regular assholes can be keen for a tough sticker and a Starbucks coffo from time to time. But we digress.

While the pointy end of the global scale has things fairly on-brand – Brighton and Hove in the UK narrowly beat out Portland for the top spot – it’s in the Australian rankings where things start to get brow-wrinklingly weird.

While you’d assume that Melbourne and Sydney would score highly, neither of them managed to get near the top three hip Aussie centres.

Gold Coast – we repeat, Gold Coast – did indeed rank highest of any Australian city, coming in at 70 on the overall list.

Behind them? Cairns.

That’s right, Cairns. A Queensland one-two. The northern QLD centre was the only other Australian city to crack the overall top 100, coming in at 92.

Hobart and, unbelievably, Geelong both featured on the list before Melbourne was able to sneak in as the fifth overall Australian city.

Sydney could only manage an entry of 348 overall, making it the tenth highest Australian city on the list. And perhaps fittingly, the lowest-ranked Aussie town, sitting at 413 overall, was Perth.

Here’s the complete list of Australian entries with their overall rankings:

  1. Gold Coast (70 overall)
  2. Cairns (92 overall)
  3. Hobart (138 overall)
  4. Geelong (160 overall)
  5. Melbourne (173 overall)
  6. Sunshine Coast (240 overall)
  7. Adelaide (246 overall)
  8. Canberra (259 overall)
  9. Newcastle (337 overall)
  10. Sydney (348 overall)
  11. Brisbane (357 overall)
  12. Wollongong (380 overall)
  13. Townsville (382 overall)
  14. Perth (413 overall)

Make of that what you will, but if you’re sitting pretty on the Gold Coast right now you might want to consider chucking a little extra chai in that latte. Y’know, just to keep up appearances and whatnot.

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