It looks as though southwest England has become a kind of “woke hotspot”. According to a new study, Bath is now the UK’s most progressive city, followed by neighbouring Bristol.
Measuring a city’s relative progressiveness is obviously far from an exact science, but the study by Bankrate takes into account seven different factors that point to locals having a forward-looking mindset. It then gives each of the UK’s 50 biggest cities a score out of 35.
The seven factors taken into consideration are as follows: a city’s search trends, gender pay gap, recycling rates, voter turnout, number of vegan and vegetarian restaurants, number of ultra-low emission vehicles, and number of women in local government.
The search trends score reflects the number of searches for progressive terms including “LGBTQ+”, “fairtrade” and “feminism” within the city.
Bath places tops thanks to its high recycling rates, impressive number of vegan and vegetarian restaurants, and high voter turnout. In second place, Bristol scores especially well for vegan and vegetarian restaurants and ultra-low emission vehicles.
Leicester finishes third thanks to solid scores across the board and a particularly high number of women in local government.
Last year’s most progressive city, Oxford, only finishes sixth on this year’s list. The famous university city scores poorly for the number of women in local government.
Perhaps surprisingly, London also drops steeply from fourth in 2019 to just 20th this year. The capital’s fall reflects its low voter turnout, relatively few women in local government and a drop in recycling.
Moving in the other direction is Manchester, which rockets from 30th to 13 thanks to a reduction in the gender pay gap and an increase in the number of ultra-low emission vehicles on the road.
Check out the top 10 courtesy of Bankrate below.
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