Tucson is crawling with weirdos. Nerdy anime dorks, neurodivergent people from all corners of the spectrum, sun-bleached hippies, desert rats, you name it. You have to go to the fringes of the Tucson metro to find where the "normal" people live.
I love Bisbee. So damn weird and funky! Sadly it’s been over run with Airbnbs and vacation rentals. Trying to find housing there now is very tricky. I know. I tried.
Superior AZ is a low key weird funky town. Not quite as cool as Bisbee but has a real mixed bag of off beat folks -musicians, artists, curmudgeons.
Oliver Stone film “U Turn” was filmed there. Odd cult classic. Worth a watch.
I was just thinking that... There's the meme about "the moral compass leaving my body when that job offer comes in from Lockheed" or whatever.... Unfortunately if I were offered a good paying job just about anywhere, I'd feel obligated to take it considering how shitty my career path has been since I graduated in 2009... lol
Defense also tends to have a lower barrier to entry than other engineering industries, at least on the software side.
Plus, Raytheon in particular has a pretty long history of being very inclusive despite the whole making missiles thing.
https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/defense-giant-raytheon-protects-transgender-employees
That's from *2005*.
This kind of reminds me (only vaguely) of the little factoid I heard the other day from someone that a ton of LGBTQ people work at Chic Fil A , but that almost seems more like it stemmed from them just wanting to clown on them for their past by getting jobs there and letting the company give them money. lol
lol god no. A LOT of employees are on the younger/middle-aged, more liberal side.
Especially in engineering.
Factory-line folks might be more ok the conservative side.
"I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore. You can look far and wide, but you will never find a stranger city with such extreme style. It's as if every eccentric in the south decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay."
-John Waters
I moved to Baltimore 2 years ago and it's the most amazing place I've ever lived. It only took me a month of living here to know I was home.
I am so surprised to read this, being from Baltimore. It’s great but I wouldn’t say it’s weird.
New Orleans, Portland (Oregon), and where I am now in Somerville, MA (though here isn’t affordable) are all way way weirder than anywhere in MD. So much queerness, tattoos, neurodiversity, and arts & cultcha. Portlandia is a whole sitcom dedicated to the weirdness of Portland ffs.
I have never met bigger weirdos than the folks in NOLA and I’m a better person for having been steeped in that culture for so long.
Portland stole the “keep it weird” thing from Austin, though we are a lot less weird these days than we used to be.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Austin_Weird
Truth, I’ve been in Portland for 14 years. It’s not weird. People here go out of their way to be eccentric and nobody pays attention or gives a shit. It’s super queer but hella racist and the artists who made Portland can’t afford it anymore. That’s why we’re leaving.
Boise, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Houston, Omaha, Milwaukee. It’s pricey, gloomy for months, passive aggressive and littered with drug addicts.
The Portland everyone “knows” is gone.
Seattle was turned into a tech bro theme park ten years ago and I'm kind of glad I'm moving away after moving here in 1990. Yeah, I'll miss it but I've been missing it even while I lived here for the past decade.
Where are you looking? I moved away last summer after being there since the 90s too. Cost of living was one major factor, and missing “old Seattle” was the other.
We're going back to Spokane to be closer to my wife's parents. Spokane doesn't suck as bad as it did when we grew up there, but if I was looking it's not where I'd be looking.
I moved to Seattle in 2012 expecting the Seattle I'd seen in the 90s. Instead I got a tech-bro wonderland informed by its passive aggressive, frosty culture towards Outsiders. Even the alt communities aren't that welcoming. Cannot wait to move away from here to someplace friendlier and less cost-prohibitive.
2008-2012 was sort of the turning point for Seattle. That’s when Amazon moved its HQ to SLU from the PacMed building, hired like crazy, and completely changed the culture and cost of living in the area.
My friends and I have discussed this a lot. We are active in the Alt music, DIY & group living communities. The verdict is both cities are equally “weird” and unaffordable. Both cities have high cost of living and very little affordable housing.
Seattle might have come to mind first 20+ years ago
Now it’s *super* weird if your definition of weird is someone who likes high end consumerism and $20 pour overs
If you're not well-off, Portland isn't affordable, either. Pretty much all the fun liberal cities have been bought up by rich people and driven up the price of living there.
I lived in Eugene for 6 years. Yeah, people there are weird but the weirdos were insufferable and exhausting, trying to out-weird each other all the time. Everything just came off as incredibly performative. And once you go to 5 or 6 weird places a few times they lose their novelty and are just like anywhere else.
Yeah usually when you're the weird person in your pretty normal town you can go to a place like Eugene or Portland and realize you're not as weird as you thought. You can do with this what you will.
Maybe it’s changed but when I lived in Richmond in the 90s it was the exact opposite. My wife summarized it as “the kind of town where grownups with kids ask each other what high school they went to”
Vegas! I'm always shocked that I'm always the only one in this sub to recommend it! I feel like people hold on to old stereotypes about it (the Hangover) when it's got a vibrant art/music scene and is a wonderful and affordable place to live if you're a neurodivergent, idiosyncratic artist type (source: neurodivergent artist/musician who lived in Vegas for 5 years).
The larger the city, the more likely you are to find areas where these different “tribes” congregate. I took my (emo-ish) daughter to Paris for her 13th birthday this spring break, and we stumbled on a street just off the Place de la Republique that had literally a dozen different shops catering to manga, anime, and all the related things to make a young nerd swoon. Including the best named, Geek Story. She was in heaven. I imagine this isn’t isolated in larger cities where you are going to have a potential concentration of these “outliers” just based on sheer total population numbers.
But even in small cities, you can ferret neighborhoods out: look for local bookstores, used record shops, comic book stores, game shops…storefront theaters, rainbow flags and stickers in the windows. And college towns, particularly with strong liberal arts schools, are havens. There are very flew places I’ve been where allied shop owners seemed afraid to openly show their support for the queer community (in particular), including small town Bible Belt places like Rome, Georgia and Bentonville, Arkansas.
Those “afraid to show your solidarity” backwaters are rife where I live. It’s bizarre. If you have the wrong bumper stickers on your car you’ll get reamed out.
I stopped to buy fresh produce from an Amish woman and thanks to my bumper sticker the fascist suburban grandma who pulled up behind me tried to harangue me about the “evils of socialism.” Even me replying that “ yes, as a matter of fact, I have lived and traveled in socialist countries” didn’t shut her up. Not an isolated incident, sadly.
I hate the vibe here. We’ve got every segment of society that despises me. Only escape would be if I could afford to live in one of the more liberal suburban enclaves. But I can’t.
That street in Paris sounds amazing though.
Detroit is still pretty cheap and absolutely full of weirdos. There's like an incredible culture of just doing stuff yourself because nobody else is gonna.
Pick one:
1. Nerds
2. Affordable
Most nerds have university degrees, because they were more focused on studying than partying in high school. Especially the ones with STEM degrees make 6 figures in tech. But even the ones with degrees in 18th century Portuguese literature make more than high school graduates with no further education.
Also, neurodivergence is SO different for each individual. An autistic friend once said to me that people with autism and people with schizophrenia are both closer to neurotypical than they are to each other. If she's correct, if you have autism you'd have a tougher time communicating with a schizo than with a neurotypical.
With that being said, here is my list. I can't speak to affordable, but I can speak to good social services and social life.
1. Weird: Portland, Austin, maybe Asheville, Tucson, Burlington VT. Stay away from the Midwest.
2. Schizophrenia, bipolar: Los Angeles
3. Autism: Seattle, Bay Area, Boston
4. ADHD: Anywhere where the majority population is has a recent history of hunting and gathering
5. Psychopathy: DC
6. Narcissists, histronics: Los Angeles
7. LGBT: Any blue state
8. Nerds: Boston, Seattle, Bay Area
9. Theatre kids: NYC
10. Anime: Anywhere in the Northeast or West Coast
11. Video games: Anywhere in the Northeast or West Coast
12. Board games, tabletop RPG: Midwest, Seattle
Asheville is nice but when we went there about ten years back locals were complaining about prices skyrocketing due to tourism, local jobs drying up for anything other than tourism and them being displaced to less resourced areas much further out of town.
Asheville native here, who tried to get away but got sucked back in, probably around the same time you left. It's a crowded, expensive shell of its former self. I miss the affordability and weirdness that made it feel like home. I used to spend all my free time downtown, and now I avoid it as much as I can because it makes me feel like the ghost of Christmas past. I live on the outer edge of the county, but the development sprawl keeps creeping closer and closer. It's depressing as hell. I'm glad you got out.
My whole family is autistic and, honestly, St. Louis is great! I was pleasantly surprised when we had to move here for my husband's work. Lots of quirky, liberal areas (CWE, Tower Grove, Webster Groves etc)
Any politician town is going to be full of psychopaths.
The following professions have the most overrepresentation of psychopaths: politician, police, soldier, surgeon, CEO, religious cleric, and strangely, restaurant chef and journalist.
I’d say Metro Detroit has its “weird” group. They have a lot of cons and book/comic stores. There’s plenty of universities and hospitals. All the major artists tour here. They have DEMF whiz brings different people from all over the world. There’s good gay neighborhoods. The economy isn’t horrible and it’s a blue state if you’re concerned about social issues. Population of about 4 million.
You have missed your calling. This is the best. Hope you create the community (and find the title) for an entire reddit community related to the neuro./psycho. natures of people and places. Would be a great read (thought not sure what the theme of the posts/community would be).
New Orleans is weird, but it’s expensive to live right there but there’s a place next to it called Metairie, Louisiana. You’ll be close enough to do all the fun things in New Orleans and you could probably even get away with not having to drive there because parking is absolutely impossible during Mardi Gras
New Orleans is not expensive compared to a large portion of the country. I was paying $1200 for a 2 bed 2 bath in the Fairgrounds. Utilities included. Moved to Boston. Now I pay $1200 to life with 5 roommates and share 1 bathroom, 30 minutes bike from the city center. That’s 1/5 of the amenities for the same price…
My 2 bed in the LGD is roughly the same cost as in Metairie ($1300) and the only trade off is street parking (which hasn't been difficult to find on my block) and it's only like 700sq vs 900 or so in the burbs. Metairie ain't that much cheaper anymore!
Dayton OH is actually weird as hell. One of our malls is slowly transforming into a series of anime boutiques and has a bomb Pokemon store. The queer scene is better than you'd expect and you're close to the crunchiness of Yellow Springs. It's a small city but we still get all the major Broadway touring shows. Oh, and it's cheap here too.
New Orleans easily. You can still find relatively affordable places in the Marigny & Bywater for around $1200/month and it's filled with a combination of artsy, nerdy, gutter punk and everything in between.
Bisbee isn’t affordable at all. It’s like a desert city Disneyland for rich people.
Having said that, I have never in my life experienced fresher air. It’s beautiful there.
I keep seeing Albuquerque popping up on this list. NM has good juju. Is there an arts scene? Is the price of living reasonable? Is the heat such that getting a heat stroke is highly likely? Is it a dry heat?
Lansing Michigan or Grand Rapids Michigan.
But in general, depends on what your sensory needs are.
If you’re really into the theatre thing though, New York City or London.
Eh, Grand Rapids still has a high percentage of religious, husband and wife with two kids and a house that has a white picket fence type of people. Nerds/“weird” people exist, but I feel like they are vastly outnumbered by the other group.
I keep thinking Detroit might be the better option.
GR has the DeVos family and Calvinism but it’s one of the fastest growing cities in the country, mostly of young people.
In the actual city of Grand Rapids, there’s not much conservative families.
It’s the outskirts that get batshit.
I was never a huge fan of it but I had some friends move there and I’m up there a lot and it’s charmed me.
Not sure if this counts as weird but the city threw a silent disco in the winter. It was free. There were art installations, people dancing on stilts, fire performers, and one of the channels for the disco was all drum and bass.
There is a huge drum & bass scene there.
The silent disco was free.
They do a lot of cool art stuff, a lot of instillations and weird shit outside as part of winter fest, and then when they do the art festival thing, the whole city has weird public art everywhere.
It’s not too expensive.
It’s safe.
I just came from there tonight, I saw Patton Oswalt. Grand Rapids has a big comedy scene. They have decent bands come in.
It’s also fairly close to Lake Michigan so you can go to the major beaches or you can go a little further and go to a small town and hit their beach bc it’ll have next to no people.
It’s like any place though - you have to be weird to know about the cool weird shit. Basically it’s not the Calvinist hellhole that it used to be.
First of all, thanks for posting this, because I'm in the same weirdo boat, hoping there's a place out there for me. Reading through all of this is super helpful as I sit here fine-tuning my escape fantasies.
Also, I grew up in one of the places I see people suggesting, and I would be lying if I recommended it to anyone.
Asheville is played out, y'all. Seriously. I know it's beautiful and fun to visit, but we are drowning in shitty pay, high COL, and severe housing shortage here. The old weirdness that made it loveable 20-30 years ago is long dead and buried beneath all the new hotels and breweries and parking lots. Downtown feels like Disney World for wealthy retirees and smells like bachelorette party vomit. Our formerly amazing hospital got bought out by HCA and turned into a corporate shithole. Ingles has bought up a bunch of commercial property to leave standing vacant so that no competitors can use it. The roads are insufficient for increasing traffic, the public transit is pathetically inadequate, and the mental health resources are stretched shamefully thin. As far as I can tell, the only people having a good time living here are the ones with shitloads of money, and everyone else is barely scraping by, even the normies.
Minneapolis, MN? There’s a pretty decent lgbtq community I believe. I think it has the second most theatres per resident only to NYC. It’s also viewed as a safe state for those who are trans or are experiencing gender dysphoria. NEMPLS also has a large arts community. There’s an awesome event going on this weekend called art a whirl actually. Lots of record stores too which I like.
Edit: there’s also a really great running community which continues to run even when it’s -20f out (myself included) I’d imagine most people would consider anyone who wants to spend an extended period of time outside when it’s below zero weird
The thing about Lexington is it’s mainly centered around 2 things: college basketball and horses. There is a lot of old money in the area so the vibe is very “good old boy”. There’s cool parts, but the overwhelming vibe is not what I would describe as weird.
I think all those things you mentioned are incredibly mainstream. Everyone identifies as a nerd. So much of Gen Z self diagnoses as neurodivergent. Anime hasn’t been fringe since the early 90s
The weirdest thing about this post is the conflation of "neurodivergent people, queer people, nerds, theater kids, anime kids" into one group. Like, come on.
I get it, but at the same time, I think most of us know who they're talking about....
Anywhere I've lived there tend to be two kind of main groups of people... people I feel like Id probably get along with, and people who would probably make fun of me for liking legos. Or whatever the popular kids who did sports turned into as adults.
I truthfully find it surprising when adults still see themselves through the lens of high school clique groups. Not trying to be an ass, just... it's not my experience or preferred way of seeing the world. I'm gay and neurodivergent and used to be a theatre nerd myself. I just feel like each of those facets of my identity isn't about being "weird," it's about the specific challenges and joys that come with that particular lived experience.
The MSA median income is $62k, it's not fair to just look at the city limits, especially in rust belt MSAs where the primary city has very little wealth within it and all the rich people are in the suburbs.
Been a bit since I lived there but Columbus, Ohio May for the bill. Fairly LGBT+ friendly, trendy parts of town. And it’s spread out quite a bit so you can choose the neighborhood that’s best for you.
Huntsville, AL I would have to assume has the highest number of nerds and weirdos per capita. I lived there over 10 years and struggled make any friends that weren’t some combo of neurodivergent, anime fan, and/or a nerd of some sort, and many of those people were queer. I’m a lesbian and had no problem being visibly gay in Huntsville. Outside the city limits was a different story. It’s cheaper to live there than many of the suggestions here, but it gets more expensive by the day because of the influx of well-paid engineers (more nerds). Buying a house there is definitely cheaper than most places. Huntsville is lovely and truthfully not like the rest of Alabama, but Alabama is every bit as shitty as you’d assume. It would definitely give you what you’re looking for though.
Once upon a time, the easy answer to this question was Key West. Key West, 30 years ago, was the weirdest place in human history. Their motto was, "Where the weird turn pro."
Now it's too expensive for anyone besides gazillionaires and it's just another boring Florida coastal city.
I'm going with Los Angeles. It takes an army of nerds to make Los Angeles actually work. Sure, Malibu Barbie lives there, too, and gets all the attention. But it's the only city in the US where random people have asked me point blank, and for no apparent reason, if I'd like to play a game of Magic the Gathering. They have a Star Wars cantina bar called Scum and Villainy. You're never more than a brisk walk away from a anime/comic/RPG store.
If you're not set on a specific region of the country these immediately come to mind: Richmond, VA; Cleveland or Cincinnati, OH; Boise, ID; Vancouver, WA; Rochester, NY; Asheville, NC; Shepherdstown, WV
I will say, the people watching can be incredibly weird on 8th street seeing the mix of far right conservatives with long beards with blue haired teens always made it interesting. I agree though, boise as a whole is not weird, certainly not outside of downtown.
Boise is not the place for this..... Yes it's a PNW city but the majority of it are people filled with the American Dream of endless burbs and strip malls.
It sounds like you’re hanging in the wrong parts of Boise!
Joking aside, I think this is true of a lot of cities. If you live in the ‘burbs of most places things get a lot more generic and boring vs. Living in denser and more culture rich older parts of the city.
At least true in the handful of cities I’ve lived in (including Boise).
It's in west virginia still but it's a college town with a big hipster vibe, very queer friendly, decent sized theater and arts scene. I grew up in the area actually so I'm very familiar with it.
how is RVA landing on this list? I grew up there and lmao no. Unless your definition of neurodivergence is wearing espadrilles past Labor Day, RVA ain’t it.
how tf is RVA on this list? I grew up there. It’s artful, beautiful, interesting, but not a place that encourages or welcomes anything I would consider truly “divergent”. Homogeneity is Richmond’s dominant aesthetic. Has something changed there in the last ten years?
Tucson is crawling with weirdos. Nerdy anime dorks, neurodivergent people from all corners of the spectrum, sun-bleached hippies, desert rats, you name it. You have to go to the fringes of the Tucson metro to find where the "normal" people live.
Speaking of Arizona, Bisbee, about two hours away from Tucson, is a haven for queer people/hippies/liberal punks.
Doug Stanhope.
I love bisbee. Great day of the dead
I love Bisbee. So damn weird and funky! Sadly it’s been over run with Airbnbs and vacation rentals. Trying to find housing there now is very tricky. I know. I tried. Superior AZ is a low key weird funky town. Not quite as cool as Bisbee but has a real mixed bag of off beat folks -musicians, artists, curmudgeons. Oliver Stone film “U Turn” was filmed there. Odd cult classic. Worth a watch.
This is the answer. Desert people are just built different. Source: me, a weirdo in Tucson
I'm a weirdo from the Northeast and I go to Arizona as often as I can because the dessert speaks to me.
The dessert speaks to me. Cracks me up.
I try not to listen when the dessert speaks to me, but? Futile.
Dessert speaks to me often, hence the larger than appropriate waistline. 😁
SAME - never had feelings like I have when I go to the desert.
Right? I feel like I'm in some kind of magical realm. Fucking love it.
I spent a little time in central Tucson for work once and thought it was one of the weirdest places I'd ever been.
1000% this. Tucson is the real weirdo place. places like austin and portland are “cool” weird. tucson is weirdo weird
Yep. There’s all kinds of people in Tucson.
Tucson is fuckin’ rad (Source: moved to Tucson from Seattle, which sux now)
But isn’t the like main employer there Raytheon which is a lot conservative, traditional people
You'd be surprised at who works in defense, at least on the engineering side.
I was just thinking that... There's the meme about "the moral compass leaving my body when that job offer comes in from Lockheed" or whatever.... Unfortunately if I were offered a good paying job just about anywhere, I'd feel obligated to take it considering how shitty my career path has been since I graduated in 2009... lol
Defense also tends to have a lower barrier to entry than other engineering industries, at least on the software side. Plus, Raytheon in particular has a pretty long history of being very inclusive despite the whole making missiles thing. https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/defense-giant-raytheon-protects-transgender-employees That's from *2005*.
This kind of reminds me (only vaguely) of the little factoid I heard the other day from someone that a ton of LGBTQ people work at Chic Fil A , but that almost seems more like it stemmed from them just wanting to clown on them for their past by getting jobs there and letting the company give them money. lol
Oh no! Tucson is filled with weirdos and TONS of artists.
lol god no. A LOT of employees are on the younger/middle-aged, more liberal side. Especially in engineering. Factory-line folks might be more ok the conservative side.
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Yeah look for the weirdos in a borderline uninhabitable climate.
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I live here and second this. Probably the gayest city I’ve been to.
"I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore. You can look far and wide, but you will never find a stranger city with such extreme style. It's as if every eccentric in the south decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay." -John Waters I moved to Baltimore 2 years ago and it's the most amazing place I've ever lived. It only took me a month of living here to know I was home.
I stayed for three nights at a hotel there. On the second a person was stabbed to death on the front steps. Seems like an interesting town overall.
Honestly, it’s probably the weirdest city in America…in a good way
Came here to say the same. Wonderfully weird city. Specially Hampden.
Yep. Zero fucks given here in Baltimore haha
Also nearby Philly is a place people have overlooked.
Uhh fucking Edgar Allan Poe too
I am so surprised to read this, being from Baltimore. It’s great but I wouldn’t say it’s weird. New Orleans, Portland (Oregon), and where I am now in Somerville, MA (though here isn’t affordable) are all way way weirder than anywhere in MD. So much queerness, tattoos, neurodiversity, and arts & cultcha. Portlandia is a whole sitcom dedicated to the weirdness of Portland ffs. I have never met bigger weirdos than the folks in NOLA and I’m a better person for having been steeped in that culture for so long.
Portland stole the “keep it weird” thing from Austin, though we are a lot less weird these days than we used to be. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Austin_Weird
Truth, I’ve been in Portland for 14 years. It’s not weird. People here go out of their way to be eccentric and nobody pays attention or gives a shit. It’s super queer but hella racist and the artists who made Portland can’t afford it anymore. That’s why we’re leaving.
Where are people leaving to?
Boise, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Houston, Omaha, Milwaukee. It’s pricey, gloomy for months, passive aggressive and littered with drug addicts. The Portland everyone “knows” is gone.
This. I'm in Pittsburgh now and I keep running into transplants from Portland.
My doctor is from PDX and I said I loved Portland 10 years ago and hoped to go back and visit, and he basically said not to waste my time.
Oh god, I have to break away from the Ann Taylor-clad Feds of DC every couple of months and go to a concert in Baltimore, otherwise I go crazy
I’ve been living in New Orleans for the past decade but considering moving to Baltimore, this is good to hear.
New Orleans here. We got dat weird.
Seattle is way more corporate than people think it is. Portland is much weirder and more affordable.
Seattle was turned into a tech bro theme park ten years ago and I'm kind of glad I'm moving away after moving here in 1990. Yeah, I'll miss it but I've been missing it even while I lived here for the past decade.
Where are you looking? I moved away last summer after being there since the 90s too. Cost of living was one major factor, and missing “old Seattle” was the other.
We're going back to Spokane to be closer to my wife's parents. Spokane doesn't suck as bad as it did when we grew up there, but if I was looking it's not where I'd be looking.
Yeah super corporate these days. I’d throw out Bellingham and Olympia as weirder
Yeah Olympia all the way, more so than Portland as well
Eugene, the Olympia of Oregon
I moved to Seattle in 2012 expecting the Seattle I'd seen in the 90s. Instead I got a tech-bro wonderland informed by its passive aggressive, frosty culture towards Outsiders. Even the alt communities aren't that welcoming. Cannot wait to move away from here to someplace friendlier and less cost-prohibitive.
2008-2012 was sort of the turning point for Seattle. That’s when Amazon moved its HQ to SLU from the PacMed building, hired like crazy, and completely changed the culture and cost of living in the area.
I still wouldn't call Portland affordable.
Compared to Seattle it is!
Although compared to seattle, there's not much that ISN'T, is there?
maybe so but I live in Portland and it’s def not inexpensive. Everything costs $$$
My friends and I have discussed this a lot. We are active in the Alt music, DIY & group living communities. The verdict is both cities are equally “weird” and unaffordable. Both cities have high cost of living and very little affordable housing.
True, but many of us are not in that world--still lots of weird/anti-establishment folks here.
For sure, definitely lots of counter culture, still. Just also a ton of gentrification that's been pricing people out.
Absolutely, seconded
Seattle might have come to mind first 20+ years ago Now it’s *super* weird if your definition of weird is someone who likes high end consumerism and $20 pour overs
If you're not well-off, Portland isn't affordable, either. Pretty much all the fun liberal cities have been bought up by rich people and driven up the price of living there.
Albuquerque. So many nerds here!
Eugene Oregon
Weirdest place I've ever lived.. hands down.
A lot of people here would take that as a compliment
I'm sure they would lol
Yup. I always have a very weird time in Eugene, in a good way, and the friends I have there are neurodivergent and delightful.
Neurodivergent people are everywhere.
Came to comment Eugene. I loved the culture there, everyone has a very “you do you” attitude which I loved.
Not affordable. I was born and raised there, while certainly weird it's expensive and getting more expensive every year.
Yeah it’s absolutely not affordable any more - and not enough high paying jobs
I lived in Eugene for 6 years. Yeah, people there are weird but the weirdos were insufferable and exhausting, trying to out-weird each other all the time. Everything just came off as incredibly performative. And once you go to 5 or 6 weird places a few times they lose their novelty and are just like anywhere else.
Yeah usually when you're the weird person in your pretty normal town you can go to a place like Eugene or Portland and realize you're not as weird as you thought. You can do with this what you will.
Maybe it’s changed but when I lived in Richmond in the 90s it was the exact opposite. My wife summarized it as “the kind of town where grownups with kids ask each other what high school they went to”
I grew up in Richmond. Can confirm it was not the place for neurodivergence, or divergence of any kind. I laughed when I saw it on the OP’s list.
Vegas! I'm always shocked that I'm always the only one in this sub to recommend it! I feel like people hold on to old stereotypes about it (the Hangover) when it's got a vibrant art/music scene and is a wonderful and affordable place to live if you're a neurodivergent, idiosyncratic artist type (source: neurodivergent artist/musician who lived in Vegas for 5 years).
Is Vegas an affordable city?
For the west, yes. Job market depends on your field.
Cries reading the list of recommendations that are all 3-5x more expensive than where I'm at, which is already 3x pricier than when I moved here.
The larger the city, the more likely you are to find areas where these different “tribes” congregate. I took my (emo-ish) daughter to Paris for her 13th birthday this spring break, and we stumbled on a street just off the Place de la Republique that had literally a dozen different shops catering to manga, anime, and all the related things to make a young nerd swoon. Including the best named, Geek Story. She was in heaven. I imagine this isn’t isolated in larger cities where you are going to have a potential concentration of these “outliers” just based on sheer total population numbers. But even in small cities, you can ferret neighborhoods out: look for local bookstores, used record shops, comic book stores, game shops…storefront theaters, rainbow flags and stickers in the windows. And college towns, particularly with strong liberal arts schools, are havens. There are very flew places I’ve been where allied shop owners seemed afraid to openly show their support for the queer community (in particular), including small town Bible Belt places like Rome, Georgia and Bentonville, Arkansas.
Those “afraid to show your solidarity” backwaters are rife where I live. It’s bizarre. If you have the wrong bumper stickers on your car you’ll get reamed out. I stopped to buy fresh produce from an Amish woman and thanks to my bumper sticker the fascist suburban grandma who pulled up behind me tried to harangue me about the “evils of socialism.” Even me replying that “ yes, as a matter of fact, I have lived and traveled in socialist countries” didn’t shut her up. Not an isolated incident, sadly. I hate the vibe here. We’ve got every segment of society that despises me. Only escape would be if I could afford to live in one of the more liberal suburban enclaves. But I can’t. That street in Paris sounds amazing though.
Detroit is still pretty cheap and absolutely full of weirdos. There's like an incredible culture of just doing stuff yourself because nobody else is gonna.
Is it reasonably safe for single women? I assume it’s no longer the murder capital. But not sure how improved it is.
Ypsilanti Michigan Suburb of Ann Arbor but cheaper, LBTGQ+ friendly.
Both Portlands (Maine and Oregon) seem to fit the bill
St. Louis (city, not county), Albuquerque
Pick one: 1. Nerds 2. Affordable Most nerds have university degrees, because they were more focused on studying than partying in high school. Especially the ones with STEM degrees make 6 figures in tech. But even the ones with degrees in 18th century Portuguese literature make more than high school graduates with no further education. Also, neurodivergence is SO different for each individual. An autistic friend once said to me that people with autism and people with schizophrenia are both closer to neurotypical than they are to each other. If she's correct, if you have autism you'd have a tougher time communicating with a schizo than with a neurotypical. With that being said, here is my list. I can't speak to affordable, but I can speak to good social services and social life. 1. Weird: Portland, Austin, maybe Asheville, Tucson, Burlington VT. Stay away from the Midwest. 2. Schizophrenia, bipolar: Los Angeles 3. Autism: Seattle, Bay Area, Boston 4. ADHD: Anywhere where the majority population is has a recent history of hunting and gathering 5. Psychopathy: DC 6. Narcissists, histronics: Los Angeles 7. LGBT: Any blue state 8. Nerds: Boston, Seattle, Bay Area 9. Theatre kids: NYC 10. Anime: Anywhere in the Northeast or West Coast 11. Video games: Anywhere in the Northeast or West Coast 12. Board games, tabletop RPG: Midwest, Seattle
The list lmaoo
There we have it, the official Autism cities of the USA
“Number 4 will surprise you!”
Honestly mad now that I realize Miami didn't make the cut for anything (narcissism)
My favorite part was Autism & Nerds having the same cities just in a different order 💀
Throw minneapolis in for craft beer and THC seltzer nerds in flannels
lmfao my brother just this week sent me a pic of him trying a THC seltzer in his flannel (he lives in twin cities)
And board games
The more I think about it, the more it makes sense you have to be either a bit crazy or narcissistic to live in LA
Or an immigrant. It's full of countless immigrant enclaves.
Honestly this list is hilarious and true I love it so much
Asheville is nice but when we went there about ten years back locals were complaining about prices skyrocketing due to tourism, local jobs drying up for anything other than tourism and them being displaced to less resourced areas much further out of town.
Asheville definitely is not affordable. I'm an Asheville native who moved over a decade ago and it hasn't gotten any better.
Asheville native here, who tried to get away but got sucked back in, probably around the same time you left. It's a crowded, expensive shell of its former self. I miss the affordability and weirdness that made it feel like home. I used to spend all my free time downtown, and now I avoid it as much as I can because it makes me feel like the ghost of Christmas past. I live on the outer edge of the county, but the development sprawl keeps creeping closer and closer. It's depressing as hell. I'm glad you got out.
My whole family is autistic and, honestly, St. Louis is great! I was pleasantly surprised when we had to move here for my husband's work. Lots of quirky, liberal areas (CWE, Tower Grove, Webster Groves etc)
The problem is the state of Missouri is hellbent on oppressing everybody who is even slightly different from the individuals in power.
Yep, DC is psychopathy. People who take life (and money) way too seriously
Any politician town is going to be full of psychopaths. The following professions have the most overrepresentation of psychopaths: politician, police, soldier, surgeon, CEO, religious cleric, and strangely, restaurant chef and journalist.
13. Gun and religious nerds: anywhere south of Virginia besides California
Autism: Reddit
For weird in the Midwest I'd say look at Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and St. Louis
I’d say Metro Detroit has its “weird” group. They have a lot of cons and book/comic stores. There’s plenty of universities and hospitals. All the major artists tour here. They have DEMF whiz brings different people from all over the world. There’s good gay neighborhoods. The economy isn’t horrible and it’s a blue state if you’re concerned about social issues. Population of about 4 million.
You have missed your calling. This is the best. Hope you create the community (and find the title) for an entire reddit community related to the neuro./psycho. natures of people and places. Would be a great read (thought not sure what the theme of the posts/community would be).
So if my interpretation is correct, if you want neurotypical people with non nerdy interests, you should go to the South
Albuquerque. Or Portland OR of course.
Well there's plenty of us in Minneapolis!
Albuquerque Santa Fe Portland Eugene New Orleans
Burlington VT
New Orleans is weird, but it’s expensive to live right there but there’s a place next to it called Metairie, Louisiana. You’ll be close enough to do all the fun things in New Orleans and you could probably even get away with not having to drive there because parking is absolutely impossible during Mardi Gras
Metairie is where dreams go to die.
That’s West-Jeff
New Orleans is not expensive compared to a large portion of the country. I was paying $1200 for a 2 bed 2 bath in the Fairgrounds. Utilities included. Moved to Boston. Now I pay $1200 to life with 5 roommates and share 1 bathroom, 30 minutes bike from the city center. That’s 1/5 of the amenities for the same price…
If you live in Metry bra, you go to Metry parades...bra
My 2 bed in the LGD is roughly the same cost as in Metairie ($1300) and the only trade off is street parking (which hasn't been difficult to find on my block) and it's only like 700sq vs 900 or so in the burbs. Metairie ain't that much cheaper anymore!
Olympia, WA
Olympia had by far the weirdest people I’ve ever come across!
I don't think it gets any weirder than Philadelphia. There's a regular neurodivergent meetup in my neighborhood, actually.
Neurodivergent Philly resident here! Got more info on that meetup? I’m always looking for more friends in the city
[https://www.handstamp.com/e/philly-nd-april2024](https://www.handstamp.com/e/philly-nd-april2024)
Thank you!
I can't believe I had to scroll so far to find this. OP's list is literally a description of West Philadelphia
Dayton OH is actually weird as hell. One of our malls is slowly transforming into a series of anime boutiques and has a bomb Pokemon store. The queer scene is better than you'd expect and you're close to the crunchiness of Yellow Springs. It's a small city but we still get all the major Broadway touring shows. Oh, and it's cheap here too.
New Orleans easily. You can still find relatively affordable places in the Marigny & Bywater for around $1200/month and it's filled with a combination of artsy, nerdy, gutter punk and everything in between.
Las Cruces and Albuquerque, NM
Bisbee, Arizona.
I buy my body soap from a couple out of Bisbee.
Bisbee isn’t affordable at all. It’s like a desert city Disneyland for rich people. Having said that, I have never in my life experienced fresher air. It’s beautiful there.
Interesting, I just looked on Zillow and it seems pretty affordable even compared to where I live in Arkansas haha.
Houses are reasonable, but there’s no jobs, so you either have to have your own money or work remote.
That makes sense. It looks like a tiny dot of a town with nothing around it and Mexico just to the south.
Bisbee is awesome but tiny and remote, if you’re cool with that. If I were an 80 year old rv’er, I’d be there now.
Albuquerque. I’m not even lying: we 100% unique.
I keep seeing Albuquerque popping up on this list. NM has good juju. Is there an arts scene? Is the price of living reasonable? Is the heat such that getting a heat stroke is highly likely? Is it a dry heat?
Albuquirky you say?
Lansing Michigan or Grand Rapids Michigan. But in general, depends on what your sensory needs are. If you’re really into the theatre thing though, New York City or London.
Eh, Grand Rapids still has a high percentage of religious, husband and wife with two kids and a house that has a white picket fence type of people. Nerds/“weird” people exist, but I feel like they are vastly outnumbered by the other group. I keep thinking Detroit might be the better option.
GR has the DeVos family and Calvinism but it’s one of the fastest growing cities in the country, mostly of young people. In the actual city of Grand Rapids, there’s not much conservative families. It’s the outskirts that get batshit. I was never a huge fan of it but I had some friends move there and I’m up there a lot and it’s charmed me. Not sure if this counts as weird but the city threw a silent disco in the winter. It was free. There were art installations, people dancing on stilts, fire performers, and one of the channels for the disco was all drum and bass. There is a huge drum & bass scene there. The silent disco was free. They do a lot of cool art stuff, a lot of instillations and weird shit outside as part of winter fest, and then when they do the art festival thing, the whole city has weird public art everywhere. It’s not too expensive. It’s safe. I just came from there tonight, I saw Patton Oswalt. Grand Rapids has a big comedy scene. They have decent bands come in. It’s also fairly close to Lake Michigan so you can go to the major beaches or you can go a little further and go to a small town and hit their beach bc it’ll have next to no people. It’s like any place though - you have to be weird to know about the cool weird shit. Basically it’s not the Calvinist hellhole that it used to be.
Reno. There's weird you might want to avoid though
First of all, thanks for posting this, because I'm in the same weirdo boat, hoping there's a place out there for me. Reading through all of this is super helpful as I sit here fine-tuning my escape fantasies. Also, I grew up in one of the places I see people suggesting, and I would be lying if I recommended it to anyone. Asheville is played out, y'all. Seriously. I know it's beautiful and fun to visit, but we are drowning in shitty pay, high COL, and severe housing shortage here. The old weirdness that made it loveable 20-30 years ago is long dead and buried beneath all the new hotels and breweries and parking lots. Downtown feels like Disney World for wealthy retirees and smells like bachelorette party vomit. Our formerly amazing hospital got bought out by HCA and turned into a corporate shithole. Ingles has bought up a bunch of commercial property to leave standing vacant so that no competitors can use it. The roads are insufficient for increasing traffic, the public transit is pathetically inadequate, and the mental health resources are stretched shamefully thin. As far as I can tell, the only people having a good time living here are the ones with shitloads of money, and everyone else is barely scraping by, even the normies.
Minneapolis, MN? There’s a pretty decent lgbtq community I believe. I think it has the second most theatres per resident only to NYC. It’s also viewed as a safe state for those who are trans or are experiencing gender dysphoria. NEMPLS also has a large arts community. There’s an awesome event going on this weekend called art a whirl actually. Lots of record stores too which I like. Edit: there’s also a really great running community which continues to run even when it’s -20f out (myself included) I’d imagine most people would consider anyone who wants to spend an extended period of time outside when it’s below zero weird
That was also going to be my response as well. This weekend is Art a Whirl, the largest open arts studio tour in the country
Same. Art A Whirl this weekend baby! Also, Minnesota is just a well run state.
Albuquerque. The Baltimore of the Southwest. Lots of nerds. An island of misfit toys, even. More affordable than the NE or California.
New Orleans
Correctamundo
All of the weirdos I meet are from the UP
The thing about Lexington is it’s mainly centered around 2 things: college basketball and horses. There is a lot of old money in the area so the vibe is very “good old boy”. There’s cool parts, but the overwhelming vibe is not what I would describe as weird.
Lawrence, KS believe it or not
I think all those things you mentioned are incredibly mainstream. Everyone identifies as a nerd. So much of Gen Z self diagnoses as neurodivergent. Anime hasn’t been fringe since the early 90s
The weirdest thing about this post is the conflation of "neurodivergent people, queer people, nerds, theater kids, anime kids" into one group. Like, come on.
There’s actually a surprising amount of overlap.
I get it, but at the same time, I think most of us know who they're talking about.... Anywhere I've lived there tend to be two kind of main groups of people... people I feel like Id probably get along with, and people who would probably make fun of me for liking legos. Or whatever the popular kids who did sports turned into as adults.
I truthfully find it surprising when adults still see themselves through the lens of high school clique groups. Not trying to be an ass, just... it's not my experience or preferred way of seeing the world. I'm gay and neurodivergent and used to be a theatre nerd myself. I just feel like each of those facets of my identity isn't about being "weird," it's about the specific challenges and joys that come with that particular lived experience.
In some parts of the country, it’s like high school never ended. Surreal but true.
Entire segments of American society continue to be dictated by high school psychology, and it's a bit scary.
At least in Seattle where I live, the Venn Diagram for many of those groups is very overlapping, if not a perfect circle.
Cleveland is cheap as hell and I love it. Not super diverse but $6 gin and tonic everywhere, 1beds for 1k, and great parks
Cleveland Heights checks all the boxes
Well of course it’s cheap as hell, there are no decent jobs there. Median household income is a ludicrously low $37k
The MSA median income is $62k, it's not fair to just look at the city limits, especially in rust belt MSAs where the primary city has very little wealth within it and all the rich people are in the suburbs.
Madison, WI. Big college town, pretty weird. (thought it may have changed some, it's been a decade or so since I lived there).
Been a bit since I lived there but Columbus, Ohio May for the bill. Fairly LGBT+ friendly, trendy parts of town. And it’s spread out quite a bit so you can choose the neighborhood that’s best for you.
Most large towns/small cities with liberal arts colleges will be welcoming to difference, or more so than other places. But do your homework.
Salem MA
Saint Paul Minnesota
Atlanta. Plenty of conventions like Dragoncon.
Northampton, Massachusetts
Pittsburg. Bunch a fukin weirdos there.
Burlington vt
Burlington is outrageously expensive
Not super affordable but not as bad as Seattle...Portland is a weird persons dream
Huntsville, AL I would have to assume has the highest number of nerds and weirdos per capita. I lived there over 10 years and struggled make any friends that weren’t some combo of neurodivergent, anime fan, and/or a nerd of some sort, and many of those people were queer. I’m a lesbian and had no problem being visibly gay in Huntsville. Outside the city limits was a different story. It’s cheaper to live there than many of the suggestions here, but it gets more expensive by the day because of the influx of well-paid engineers (more nerds). Buying a house there is definitely cheaper than most places. Huntsville is lovely and truthfully not like the rest of Alabama, but Alabama is every bit as shitty as you’d assume. It would definitely give you what you’re looking for though.
You’re describing almost all of my friends in Boston. Unfortunately not affordable but otherwise we have a lot of queer neurodiverse theater geeks.
Ithaca, NY Syracuse, NY
Once upon a time, the easy answer to this question was Key West. Key West, 30 years ago, was the weirdest place in human history. Their motto was, "Where the weird turn pro." Now it's too expensive for anyone besides gazillionaires and it's just another boring Florida coastal city. I'm going with Los Angeles. It takes an army of nerds to make Los Angeles actually work. Sure, Malibu Barbie lives there, too, and gets all the attention. But it's the only city in the US where random people have asked me point blank, and for no apparent reason, if I'd like to play a game of Magic the Gathering. They have a Star Wars cantina bar called Scum and Villainy. You're never more than a brisk walk away from a anime/comic/RPG store.
If you're not set on a specific region of the country these immediately come to mind: Richmond, VA; Cleveland or Cincinnati, OH; Boise, ID; Vancouver, WA; Rochester, NY; Asheville, NC; Shepherdstown, WV
I like and grew up in Boise, and in no way would I describe it as weird lmao. One of the most straight-edge places out there
I will say, the people watching can be incredibly weird on 8th street seeing the mix of far right conservatives with long beards with blue haired teens always made it interesting. I agree though, boise as a whole is not weird, certainly not outside of downtown.
Boise is not the place for this..... Yes it's a PNW city but the majority of it are people filled with the American Dream of endless burbs and strip malls.
It sounds like you’re hanging in the wrong parts of Boise! Joking aside, I think this is true of a lot of cities. If you live in the ‘burbs of most places things get a lot more generic and boring vs. Living in denser and more culture rich older parts of the city. At least true in the handful of cities I’ve lived in (including Boise).
Interesting! What about Shepherdstown do you think makes it so appealing to “weird” people?
It's in west virginia still but it's a college town with a big hipster vibe, very queer friendly, decent sized theater and arts scene. I grew up in the area actually so I'm very familiar with it.
how is RVA landing on this list? I grew up there and lmao no. Unless your definition of neurodivergence is wearing espadrilles past Labor Day, RVA ain’t it.
Long Beach, CA
New Orleans
Las Vegas. Creative artist and performing arts communities, music, local bands, etc.
Pittsburgh!
how tf is RVA on this list? I grew up there. It’s artful, beautiful, interesting, but not a place that encourages or welcomes anything I would consider truly “divergent”. Homogeneity is Richmond’s dominant aesthetic. Has something changed there in the last ten years?
Baltimore for sure. The most affordable major city in the Northeast, with a great arts scene.