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AUSTIN, TX – Disclaimer first: the whole idea of vampires sneaking around Austin just waiting to suck your blood out after dark is a Halloween fantasy.
So don’t take it too seriously Austin that you ranked 89th on a nonscientific rating of the best spots for unscientific vampires. You thought you’d do better / worse?
Take on Lawn Love, the makers of an app that helps people find lawn care services. What do landscapers know about vampires? Not really. There’s nothing to know because vampires aren’t real.
But nationwide blood shortages are real, and that’s reason enough for ranking 200 cities where vampires may want to park their hearse. Before we get to the silliness of the season, take some time off to donate blood. According to the American Red Cross, donor activity collapsed as the coronavirus delta variant increased.
We Are Blood has 3 donor centers in the Austin area (appointments are required to donate blood and platelets):
- 4300 N. Lamar Blvd., Austin
- 3100 W. Slaughter Lane, Austin
- 2132 N. Mays, suite 900
Otherwise, take the leaderboard with a grain of the same salt that you could sprinkle around a vampire’s crypt to keep the thing dead. But enough to douse vampire fantasies with holy water.
Believe what you believe. And if the results are to be believed in the best and worst cities for vampires of 2021, the undead (blood) suckle the most in Naperville, Illinois, and the least in Tempe, Arizona. Here are the top 10 cities where these bloodthirsty creatures of folklore could feel right at home:
1. Naperville, Illinois
2. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
3. Chicago, Illinois
4. Omaha, Nebraska
5. Tacoma, Washington
6. St. Paul, Minnesota
7. Aurora, Illinois
8. Columbus, Ohio
9. Bellevue, Washington
10. Paterson, New Jersey
Austin’s ranking is based on the number of blood centers, the average annual sun exposure, the number of houses with basements and – wait, because that’s as clichéd as it gets – the number of garlic festivals. Each category was weighted and the lower the score, the better the vampire eligibility. »Read more about the methodology.
Part of the reason Naperville and Pittsburgh performed so well is because they are the country’s No. 1 and No. 2 cities for blood centers. This is an achievement worth celebrating on a city welcome sign. But putting the number 1 Houston and number 2 Chicago on a billboard and declaring them the cities with the largest shipments of coffins? Bury that slogan.
In the other categories considered in the ranking, Grand Rapids, Michigan and Overland Park, Kansas respectively topped the ranking for most basements, and Pittsburgh and Anchorage have the lowest annual sunshine, which the non-real vampires would love if they would be real – which in turn they are not.
And if they were real, they’d be far from the California cities of Pomona, Fresno, and Sacramento, and the Arizona cities of Tempe and Tucson, which are caged in a chain of five for most garlic festivals.
But they could roam Pittsburgh with some confidence; Anchorage; Seattle; Tacoma, Washington and Columbus, Ohio are cities that have few garlic festivals.
We end like we started with a disclaimer. None of this vampire business is real. But the lack of blood is.
“During the pandemic, we struggled with collecting blood for patients, from being canceled blood drives to increasing hospital demand,” said Chris Hrouda, President of the Red Cross for Biomedical Services, in a press release. “Now that blood donor participation has declined, our Red Cross blood supply has dropped to its lowest point for this time of year since 2015.”
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