These Are The 10 Best Cities For Hippies In Alabama

You might think that the whole hippie movement has faded away, but the truth is, there are plenty of hippies out there in Alabama.

While they aren’t necessarily in your face all the time with war protests and the next Woodstock isn’t being planned any time soon, we thought it would be fun to look at which cities in the Heart of Dixie where the most hippies would live.

And, after crunching the data, you know what? It was pretty spot on, we have to say.

How do you decide where the most hippies live? By the number of yoga studios, organic markets, and most importantly, where the liberals live in droves.

Using that criteria, it’s not hard to scrape the internet, run some scientific data on where hippies might live in Alabama, and then put out a list.

So, put on your tie dye shirt and your sandals as you go through this list with us.

After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, we came up with this list of the 10 best cities for hippies in Alabama:

1. Mountain Brook (Photos)
2. Tarrant
3. Sheffield (Photos)
4. Muscle Shoals (Photos)
5. Vestavia Hills (Photos)
6. Homewood (Photos)
7. Anniston (Photos)
8. Tuscumbia (Photos)
9. Midfield
10. Daphne (Photos)

Read on below to see where your town ranked, young flower child.

And if you already knew these places were hippie heavens, check out the best places to live in Alabama or the safest places to live in Alabama.

How do you determine the most beatnik city in Alabama?

In order to rank the best cities for hippies in Alabama, we had to determine what criteria defines a hippie.

We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Using the Google Places API, the Census’s 2010-2014 American Community Survey, and Voter Registration data, this is the criteria we used:

• Number of yoga studios per capita
• Number of organic markets per capita
• Number of pet adoption centers per capita
• Number of vegan restaurants per capita
• Number of thrift stores per capita
• Each city’s liberal voting population

Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a ~4.5 mile radius of a city’s center. The average city in America is about 18 square miles.

All of these results are listed in a per capita basis, meaning number of stores per person in a city. Additionally, we limited the analysis to non-CDPs that have over 5,000 people.

We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 101 in each category, where 1 was the most hippie.

Next, we averaged the rankings for each place to create a hippie index.

And finally, we crowned the city with the highest hippie index the ‘Best City for Hippies In Alabama.’ We’re lookin’ at you, Mountain Brook.

Read on below to learn more about what it’s like to live in hippie central. Or skip to the end to see the list of all the places in the state from hippiest to most square.

1. Mountain Brook

Yoga Studios Per 1,000 People: 0.73
Organic Markets Per 1,000 People: 0.2
Pet Adoption Centers Per 1,000 People: 0.2
Vegan Restaurants Per 1,000 People: 0.29
Thrift Stores Per 1,000 People: 0.63
Mountain Brook is a town in southeastern Jefferson County, Alabama, United States and an upper-middle-class suburb of Birmingham. Its estimated 2015 population is 20,691. It is one of the state’s most affluent places.

2. Tarrant

Yoga Studios Per 1,000 People: 0.0
Organic Markets Per 1,000 People: 0.16
Pet Adoption Centers Per 1,000 People: 0.63
Vegan Restaurants Per 1,000 People: 0.95
Thrift Stores Per 1,000 People: 1.9
Tarrant is a city in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States, southeast of Fultondale. At the 2010 census the population was 6,397. It is home to the ABC Coke plant owned by the Drummond Company, ‘the largest single producer of foundry coke in the U.S.’.

3. Sheffield

Yoga Studios Per 1,000 People: 0.11
Organic Markets Per 1,000 People: 0.22
Pet Adoption Centers Per 1,000 People: 0.33
Vegan Restaurants Per 1,000 People: 0.11
Thrift Stores Per 1,000 People: 1.87

4. Muscle Shoals

Yoga Studios Per 1,000 People: 0.07
Organic Markets Per 1,000 People: 0.15
Pet Adoption Centers Per 1,000 People: 0.22
Vegan Restaurants Per 1,000 People: 0.07
Thrift Stores Per 1,000 People: 1.12
Muscle Shoals is the largest city in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of Muscle Shoals was 13,146. The estimated population in 2015 was 13,706.

5. Vestavia Hills

Yoga Studios Per 1,000 People: 0.59
Organic Markets Per 1,000 People: 0.21
Pet Adoption Centers Per 1,000 People: 0.12
Vegan Restaurants Per 1,000 People: 0.18
Thrift Stores Per 1,000 People: 0.32
Vestavia Hills is a city in Jefferson and Shelby counties in the State of Alabama. It is a suburb of the city of Birmingham. As of the 2010 census, its population was 34,033, up from 24,476 in 2000. It moved up from the fifth largest city in Jefferson County in 2000 to the third largest in 2010, behind Birmingham and Hoover.

6. Homewood

Yoga Studios Per 1,000 People: 0.67
Organic Markets Per 1,000 People: 0.08
Pet Adoption Centers Per 1,000 People: 0.12
Vegan Restaurants Per 1,000 People: 0.28
Thrift Stores Per 1,000 People: 0.31
Homewood is a city in southeastern Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. It is a suburb of Birmingham, located on the other side of Red Mountain due south of the city center. Its estimated 2015 population is 25,708.

7. Anniston

Yoga Studios Per 1,000 People: 0.13
Organic Markets Per 1,000 People: 0.04
Pet Adoption Centers Per 1,000 People: 0.13
Vegan Restaurants Per 1,000 People: 0.09
Thrift Stores Per 1,000 People: 0.75
Anniston is a city in Calhoun County in the state of Alabama. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city was 23,106. According to 2013 Census estimates, the city had a population of 22,666. The city is the county seat of Calhoun County and one of two urban centers/principal cities of and included in the Anniston-Oxford Metropolitan Statistical Area.

8. Tuscumbia

Yoga Studios Per 1,000 People: 0.12
Organic Markets Per 1,000 People: 0.12
Pet Adoption Centers Per 1,000 People: 0.23
Vegan Restaurants Per 1,000 People: 0.0
Thrift Stores Per 1,000 People: 1.63
Tuscumbia is a city in and the county seat of Colbert County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 8,423. The city is part of The Shoals metropolitan area.

9. Midfield

Yoga Studios Per 1,000 People: 0.19
Organic Markets Per 1,000 People: 0.0
Pet Adoption Centers Per 1,000 People: 0.0
Vegan Restaurants Per 1,000 People: 0.38
Thrift Stores Per 1,000 People: 1.88

10. Daphne

Yoga Studios Per 1,000 People: 0.09
Organic Markets Per 1,000 People: 0.09
Pet Adoption Centers Per 1,000 People: 0.17
Vegan Restaurants Per 1,000 People: 0.22
Thrift Stores Per 1,000 People: 0.48
Daphne (/dæfni/) is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States, on the eastern shoreline of Mobile Bay. The city is located along I-10, 11 miles east of Mobile and 170 miles southwest of the state capital of Montgomery. The 2010 United States Census lists the population of the city as 21,570, making Daphne the most populous city in Baldwin County. It is a principal city of the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metropolitan area, which includes all of Baldwin County.

There You Have It — The Hippies Of Alabama

If you’re measuring the locations in Alabama where there are lots of liberals, and there are many options for vegan food, yoga and thrift stores, this is an accurate list.

If you’re curious, here are the most square places in Alabama:

1. Chelsea
2. Southside
3. Jacksonville

For more Alabama reading , check out:

• These Are The 10 Most Dangerous Cities In Alabama
• These Are The 10 Safest Places In Alabama
• These Are The 10 Most Ghetto Cities In Alabama

Detailed List Of The Hippiest Cities In Alabama