Buffalo: 35th Most Manly City in America. What?

Buffalo Rising 16

According to Combos - yes, the cheese filled pretzel snack things - Buffalo ranks as the 35th most manly city in America. We're more manly (manlier?) than Boston, Miami, New York and Los Angeles, but less manly than Toledo, Dayton, Charlotte and Salt Lake City.

What exactly does this mean? Nothing, of course. The Top 50 Most Manly Cities is a marketing gimmick by Combos. This 'study,' as Combos calls it, "examines what makes a city manly and then ranks 50 major metropolitan areas using criteria such as number of professional major league sports teams, popularity of tools and hardware and frequency of monster truck rallies. Cities also lose ranking points for emasculating characteristics like the abundance of home furnishing stores, high minivan sales and subscription rates to beauty magazines."

Nashville claimed the top spot in the Combos Manly City rankings as a result of it's NASCAR enthusiasts, concentration of BBQ restaurants, and hunting and fishing popularity.

The most surprising element of the Combos press release on this Manly City Ranking was the following nugget: COMBOS® - the hearty, pretzel and cracker snack made with real cheese. That's real cheese in there?!?! Really?

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16 Comments Leave a comment

sonyactivision

March 6, 2009 11:25 PM

Simply put, Combos are disgusting.

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

STEEL

March 7, 2009 12:53 AM

So this is a list in which you want your city to be near the bottom right?

VGS

March 7, 2009 7:46 AM

sounds more like "Americas Most Red Neck Cities"

georged

March 7, 2009 2:16 PM

Actually, if it was "redneck cities" Buffalo would most likely be near the top. Think of how many points they would have been awarded for last year's cross burning in Lovejoy! Buffalo would also score highly during Bills games when they pan the crowd. That collection of camo hunting gear, mullets, moustaches, and poor dentition would clearly show how Buffalo is a redneck friendly city.

replied to VGS

Armchair MBA

March 7, 2009 5:50 PM

I have to agree. Lots of dirty reactionary Republicans in this town. How bout the mass show of support for the country singer who stole a horse from the county a few years ago. And dont get me started on the popularity of the ghetto casino. YEEEEE HAWWWWWW!
I love Buffalo but I wish it were a little less red state.

replied to georged

britannica

March 7, 2009 8:24 AM

We should remember the Combos Most Manly Cities survey the next time Forbes releases one of their ridiculous ranked lists.

Sean Brodfuehrer

March 7, 2009 8:53 AM

yeah, not a list I would want to be on the top of.

fill

March 7, 2009 12:56 PM

Ummmm....what could be more manly than a major downtown feature being a city hall shaped like a phalic symbol ?

Dan

March 7, 2009 1:18 PM

I wonder how people would be responding if Buffalo was at nor near the top of the list.

I love reading the reactions on BR every time one of these "top cities for [whatever]" or "[worst cities for [whatever]" lists are released. If Buffalo is at the top for a positive trait -- cleanest city, best housing market, best place to weather out the recession, etc -- everybody chimes in and agrees. If Buffalo is at the bottom for a positive trait, or the top for an undesirable trait -- most miserable city, fastest shrinking, fattest population, and so on -- everybody calls the list bullcrap, talks about how Forbes (or whoever else is behind it) is worthless, the methodology is flawed, and so on. Why is the methodology flawed only when Buffalo scores poorly on one of these lists, while it's sound when Buffalo's at or near the top with a positive trait?

(Hey, BR ... can you fix the paragraph spacing problems?)

March 7, 2009 8:27 PM

Dan, your suggestion that we focus on methodologies is a sensible one; but the methodology *here* is surely suspect, is it not? I have suspicions about the the Forbes "miserableness" survey as well, and so I would categorize it as one of the "ridiculous ranked lists" referenced in my earlier comment.

On the other hand, the Forbes housing market lists seem to have a more solid basis in objective data. Good or bad, I would take them more seriously than the Combos Most Manly Cities survey (which a better piece of satire than social science).

Bottom line: it is simply not the case that "the methodology [is] flawed only when Buffalo scores poorly on one of these lists, while it's sound when Buffalo's at or near the top with a positive trait."

replied to Dan

Lorem Ipsum

March 7, 2009 3:11 PM

Pay no attention to Combos' supposed "manliness" criteria. All it took to get on their list was one look at our blatantly phallic City Hall.

Scott Norwood

March 7, 2009 5:25 PM

I've never been jealous of City Hall until now.

replied to Lorem Ipsum

whatever

March 7, 2009 7:51 PM

Lots of Republicans? Red state? Funny!

In the city of Buffalo, Dems outnumber Reps by over 6-to-1 (105,974 Dem to 17,337 Rep).
http://www.sergiorrodriguez.com/buffalonewsarticle

In the whole of Erie Co, including evil wealth-stealing burbs, there's around twice as many Democrats as Republicans. In fact, there's nearly twice as many Dems residing in Erie Co. outside city limits (195,000) than there are Dems in the city (106,000). And the 195,000 Dems in Erie Co outside of city limits outnumber the total number of Republicans in the whole county (160,000).

Current numbers from http://www.erieboe.com
51% Dem (301,000), 27% Rep (160,000), 4% Independence (23,000), 2% Conservative (12,000), 0.4% WFP (2,600), 16% unaffiliated (98,000).

March 7, 2009 8:20 PM

I didnt say the populist fools outnumbered us, I just said there were too many of them.

replied to whatever

March 7, 2009 8:39 PM

Well, red state means majority R. Maybe you meant you'd like for the county to be even deeper blue than it is. Just have patience, it's been getting more and more blue every decade for the past few.

replied to Armchair MBA

ecogeo

March 8, 2009 12:43 PM

Combos and their silly marketing are ridiculous and outdated. Ask your local retailer to replace Combos with CornNuts. Help bring Buffalo into the 21st century.

Buffalo: 35th Most Manly City in America. What?

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