Before the current recession we Seattlites preferred to keep a low profile since our real estate prices were high.

Now that Travel +  Leisure just released their rankings of the “Favorite 30 Cities,” I wonder if our low profile strategy was too successful; Seattle did not fare as well as one would hope.

Noteworthy discrepancies between how visitors and residents rated the city:

• Visitors rated Seattle as #16 for friendliness, whereas Seattle residents rated ourselves #23 for friendliness
• Visitors rated Seattle #17 for live music; we rated ourselves #14
• Vistors rated Seattle‘s Farmer’s Market #1; whereas we rated our Public Market #2

The upside to not being #1 is it keeps us humble, and always trying to improve – which is not true for many of  Travel + Leisure’s “America’s Favorite Cities.”

Perhaps Travel + Leisure should poll Seattlites re: their favorite publications; it would be interesting to see whether they made the top 30 themselves, and if so, where we ranked them overall…