Throughout the United States, there is certainly no shortage of tattoo shops. Like a lot of other countries however, the amount of tattoo studios to choose from changes drastically depending on the city that you find yourself in. Some cities are very ink friendly, with a large population of tattooed people and a steady supply of talented tattooists. Others, not so much. I’ve written a great deal of stuff on the Tattoo Blog about various tattooists in tattoo hot spots like Austin, Texas and pretty much the entire state of California – to name a few. But it wasn’t until today that I discovered a nice little study which lists the top ten most tattoo-friendly cities in the United States.
So exactly what sort of criteria must a city meet to make this little top ten list? Well, according to The Today Show.com:
“To figure out which U.S. cities were the most tattoo-friendly, we perused chat forums and looked up every state in several public directories, including Yellow Pages, Google listings, Tattoo Yellow Pages and AAA Tattoo Directory, to find those with the most listed tattoo and permanent makeup shops. Then we looked up which cities in those states had the most shops listed per capita with populations based on latest U.S. Census numbers. We also took into consideration the city’s demographics and whether or not it hosted tattoo conventions, remembering that not all tattoo parlors were listed in the directories.”
Though Austin had been my initial guess as to what US city is the most tattoo-friendly city out there, I wasn’t surprised to see that it was Miami Beach, Florida that took the number one spot. Boasting about 24 tattoo shops per 100,000 people, plenty of beaches and the opportunity for skin to be exposed on a regular basis, Miami Beach is the sort of place that just seems made for tattoo enthusiasts. It was also the home of the Miami Ink reality television series and the skill level of the tattooists on that show was clearly impressive. Los Angeles, and Honolulu, two other sun-soaked destinations, ranked 10th and 8th respectively, while good ol’ Austin, Texas came in at 6th. What I was genuinely surprised about however, was that New York City did not make the cut. I realize that this isn’t exactly dense scientific research here, but I would have thought that a city like New York with such a vibrant tattoo scene, would have at least cracked the top ten.
Check out the complete list of the top ten most tattoo-friendly cities in America, here.