Here's a noble goal: a portrait of America written by Americans.
Some people would launch a scholarly effort and enlist the efforts of a distinguished organization. R. Luke DuBois skipped all of that and pulled data from the dating profiles on 21 websites. After a lot of analysis, he replaced cities and zip codes with the prominent word pulled from the profiles. Welcome to the world we live in.
- Seattle = Heartbreak (Ouch.)
- Tacoma = Pretty (Nice self-esteem there.)
- Everett = Beautiful (Maybe it's the view.)
- Bellevue = Cigarette (Really? For smoking, or boating?)
- Federal Way = Books (Reading is fun!)
- Redmond = Email (Kinda sad, Microsoft.)
- Renton = Burlesque (Shocked, shocked we are to hear this.)
- Tukwila = Matador (Interesting to have matador close to burlesque.)
- Kent = Stumbling (Sorry to hear that.)
- Edmonds = Haunt (How did a seaside town get spooky?)
- North Seattle = Wet (Aren't we all, in this climate?)
If you're interested in his method, watch his entertaining TED Talk (If you just want the bit about our area, skip ahead to 8:20). It was done for fun, art, insights, and is necessarily imperfect. Build the same map from the words in real estate listings and probably find Seattle = Condo and Duval = Farm. In the meantime, be aware that south of Tacoma there be Dragons and Fantasies - and a possible excuse for a road trip.