Spokane - near nature, near normal, according to the Washington Post

Cheer up, Spokane. You’re not so weird. In fact you are one of the most normal places in America.

Or so the Washington Post says in an article that lists the nation’s weirdest and most normal cities based on 20 demographic factors calculated by economist Lyman Stone.

The Spokane-Spokane Valley metropolitan area scored low on weirdness, which makes it high on the normal rating, along with Bellingham, Washington, Jacksonville, Florida, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. The most “normal” city in the study was Oklahoma City.

Stone’s “weirdest” city was the Silicon Valley hub of San Jose, California, followed closely by the New York metropolitan area, Jacksonville, North Carolina, and McAllen, Texas.

Among the data considered from the Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey were the amount of foreign-born residents, the share of the population that are married, and the percent of the workforce that is in the military, civilian government, self-employed or in white collar jobs. All of those figures were compared with data for the nation as a whole.