Charleston, South Carolina Ranks #17 In Yelp’s Top 20 Most Inclusive U.S. Cities New Study

With June being nationally recognized as Pride Month, Yelp released the list while data mapping the rise of LGBTQ+ friendly businesses across the U.S.

They ranked the biggest metro areas in the country by the popularity of gender-neutral restrooms and “Open To All” attributes based on Yelp’s data. 

For each attribute, they looked at the share it represented of all attributes added to eligible businesses that opened since the attribute was launched. Yelp then combined those shares for each attribute into a score by adjusting to make them contribute equally to the ranking.

Then they ranked metro areas—core based statistical areas—by the combined score for the two attributes, and used the biggest city in each metro in the rankings. Yelp limited each state to no more than two cities on the list.

Here’s the full list:

Yelp’s Top 20 Most Inclusive Cities

1. San Francisco, CA
2. Los Angeles, CA
3. Portland, OR
4. Seattle, WA
5. Austin, TX
6. Washington, DC
7. Phoenix, AZ
8. Denver, CO
9. Las Vegas, NV
10. New York, NY
11. Tucson, AZ
12. Miami, FL
13. Honolulu, HI
14. Boston, MA
15. Chicago, IL
16. Salt Lake City, UT
17. Charleston, SC
18. Providence, RI
19. Baltimore, MD
20. Tampa, FL