What makes a city cool?: The Unclassy Valley

"Coolness" is a highly variable property, so can't be judged with the small sample size given there. Here are counter-examples:

I lived in Santa FE, NM. It's a very cool city, with lots of restaurants, etc. Yet with a population of 70,000 it's smack dab in the middle of that so-called "uncanny valley", so isn't predicted to have the things it has.

Santa Cruz, California (population 60,000) is another cool place.

My sister lived in Vermillion, SD (population 11,000) and found it to be extremely boring.

The question then comes down to how one might quantify the valley, in order to establish if the effect is real, much less meaningful.

Personally, I doubt it. In Santa Fe, for example, there are neighborhoods. Many neighborhoods do have their own character and sense of cohesiveness, which the author otherwise suggests is missing from cities of that size.