In order to gather his data, Florida wanted to see which U.S. city and metropolitan area has the "most extensive artistic communities?" They focused on "artists and related workers," which covers both employed and self-employed visual artists in the United States. There are about 237,000 such artists across the U.S., of which roughly 210,000 are located in cities and metro areas said Florida.
"To examine which metros have the largest concentration of artists relative to their population, we use a measure called a "location quotient," or LQ, which is basically a ratio that compares a region's share of artists to the national share of artists."
