New research suggests Birmingham is one of the cat-friendliest cities in the nation. That’s according to LawnStarter. The lawn care service and research company studied the 200 largest U.S. cities and ranked them based on four different categories. The categories were:
- Access to cats, including animal shelters per 100,000 residents and number of cat cafes
- Access to pet care, including:
- Cat sitters, cat boarding operations, cat friendly vets and pet stores per 100,000 residents
- Number of animal hospitals and emergency vets
- Housing and accommodations, including average home square footage, share of cat-friendly rental properties and cat-friendly hotels per 100,000 residents
- Affordability, including average cat sitter rates per visit, average state cat insurance premium and average hotel pet fee
The Magic City ranked quite high above the rest, at 17th overall. Birmingham also landed in the top 20 in three of the four categories, including access to cats through animal shelters, access to pet care and housing and accommodations.
“Birmingham is doing pretty well overall,” said Sav Maive, a study story writer for LawnStarter. “Birmingham has a cat cafe, which is pretty unique for many cities. I know they’re gaining popularity, but, still, a lot of cities don't have cat cafes. Birmingham also has the sixth highest number of cat-friendly hotels and the 12th highest number of cat-friendly rental properties. That's great for people who are traveling with their cats or people who have a cat and need to move around. They have the third highest number of vets per 100,000 [residents], which is pretty good. I know people can have a hard time scheduling emergency appointments in their cities if there aren't enough vets.”
Another Alabama city faring well is Mobile. The Port City ranked 49th overall, even outpacing Birmingham in access to cats.
“Where Mobile shines is definitely in cat access,” Maive said. “Mobile has the fourth highest number of animal shelters per capita. It really stands out against all of the Alabama cities as well as nationally. There’s great access to animal shelters. Mobile also has the 11th highest number of vets per capita. I think those are the two of the most important things if you want to adopt a cat. Where do I get the cat, and where do I bring it when it needs help? Mobile also has plenty of cat-friendly hotels.”
While Birmingham and Mobile landed in the top 50, other Alabama cities lagged behind. Huntsville and Montgomery failed to reach the top 100. Huntsville ranked 137th, while Montgomery ranked 146th overall. Maive said this is due to several different factors.
“Huntsville and Montgomery did fall behind in several of the metrics, particularly animal shelters. Huntsville landed at number 160 out of 200 for [highest number of animal shelters per capita]. Montgomery landed at 110. That definitely brought them down a bit,” she said. “Montgomery, unfortunately, lands in the bottom half of three out of four categories. It’s only doing well in cat-friendly housing and accommodations [at 46th overall]. Montgomery also lands pretty close to the bottom in access to cat sitters and boarding facilities.”
Though Huntsville stumbles in several categories, Maive said the Rocket City does make up for it in others.
“Huntsville does have its pros. It has a cat cafe and Huntsville has the 15th highest average home square footage. For homeowners and for people who rent a house, that’s more room for the cat or multiple cats to roam around and play,” she said.
Despite their different rankings, Maive said all Alabama cities suffer from the same problem: low affordability. This includes Birmingham and Mobile, which soared above most U.S. cities in access to cats, access to pet care and cat-friendly housing and accommodations. Out of all 200 cities studied, the affordability scores of each Alabama city were:
- Birmingham: 197 out of 200
- Mobile: 189 out of 200
- Huntsville: 193 out of 200
- Montgomery: 184 out of 200
“I know it seems kind of odd at first glance,” Maive said. “You’d think that Alabama would be more affordable than places like San Francisco or Washington, where everything’s more expensive. But what it really means is things like cat sitters, cat insurance and hotel pet fees are less affordable to the typical resident of Alabama compared to people who live in more wealthy enclaves, who make higher salaries and who can splurge on their pets or save for emergencies. Cats aren’t as expensive as other animals, but it can still be hard for someone who’s financially struggling to take care of their pets.”
According to LawnStarter, the 10 best cities for cat lovers were:
- Orlando, Florida
- Knoxville, Tennessee
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- Santa Rosa, California
- St. Louis, Missouri
- Richmond, Virginia
- Scottsdale, Arizona
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Savannah, Georgia
- Fort Collins, Colorado
“The top 10 is mostly Southern and Southwestern cities,” Maive said. “These cities have great access to cats to adopt as well as cat cafes, which are great for people who don’t have a cat of their own but who love cats and want to be go spend more time with them. These cities also have great access to different pet care resources from vets to pet shops.”
The 10 worst cities for cat lovers were:
- Detroit, Michigan
- Miramar, Florida
- Springfield, Massachusetts
- Hialeah, Florida
- Paterson, New Jersey
- Warren, Michigan
- Newark, New Jersey
- Bridgeport, Connecticut
- Garden Grove, California
- Laredo, Texas
“The bottom 10 is kind of a mix of smaller cities and suburbs,” Maive said. “These cities are a bit smaller, but they all lack animal shelters per capita. Some of them don’t have good access to vets or cat-friendly rental properties, which is obviously really important if you want to adopt a cat.”
All in all, Maive said what surprised her most was just how much of a hotspot Florida is for cats and cat services.
“The Florida rankings were a little interesting,” she said. “A lot of [Florida cities] landed at the top like Orlando. Tampa was number 11. Fort Lauderdale and Miami were in the top 15. Those cities all have pretty good access to cats to adopt, vets and other cat care, but they all fall really behind in pet-friendly rentals. They also have accommodations for things like boarding your cats and cat sitters. It seems like Florida cities have more cat-friendly options for people who are vacationing than for people who actually live there.”
For cities that fell lower in the rankings, like Huntsville and Montgomery, Maive said there are several ways these places can appeal to cat lovers.
“Access to animal shelters is important. I know, in my area, shelters are very full. I think that’s a national issue, so having more shelters is good in general,” she said. “Inviting [businesses] like cat cafes or having people start those businesses is also a great idea. Those are very trendy, and many of them offer adoption services. It’s hard to say, ‘You need to have more vets in your city,’ because it’d be hard to facilitate that. But access to pet care is really important. You can order supplies online, but you can’t really order a vet to your door or conduct a pet exam virtually. If a city wants to be more pet-friendly, a big component would also be to let people have pets in their home.”
This is LawnStarter’s third iteration of its cat-friendliest cities study. Maive said the lawn service started the study as a way to drum up discussion and give reporters as well as readers a lighter topic to hear or see on the news. Readers can find the LawnStarter study here.
