I had to grab some of J. Cortright’s commentary for The Oregonian this past Sunday.

With more than 18,000 bumper stickers sold, claiming we should keep Portland weird, there has to be something in it. It’s definitely funny and controversial, and according to the weirdness index, Portland is up there, compared with other U.S. metropolitan areas.

We developed a weirdness index for the national organization CEOs for Cities that measures the differences in behavior based on 60 different indicators of what people do, watch, read and consume.

We used this data to rank the 50 largest metro areas, based on how closely their patterns tracked the overall national average. Portland ranks 11th of the 50.

The most normal places in the country are in the Midwest. Consumption patterns, attitudes and behaviors in St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Columbus almost exactly match national norms.

Trying to summarize weirdness in a single index is, of course, a contradiction in terms. Every weird city is weird in its own unique way. San Francisco and Salt Lake City rank among the weirdest — most different from the U.S. average in attitudes, activities and behaviors –but are nothing alike. So it makes sense to drill down to find out what makes each place distinctive.

In what ways is Portland weird? As you might expect, recreation, environmentalism, and great food and drink figure prominently. Compared with the U.S. average, Portlanders are twice as likely to go camping, 60 percent more likely to go hiking or backpacking and 40 percent more likely to golf or hunt. Portland has the highest per-capita ownership of hybrid vehicles of any city, and more people belong to environmental groups. We also rank above average in consumption of alcohol, coffee and tea.

Another way to track local weirdness is to look at what terms people are searching for on the Internet. According to Google over the past year, Portland ranks first among U.S. metro areas for the search terms “sustainability,” “vegan,” “farmers market,” “cyclocross,” “microbrew” and “dragonboat,” and second — after Seattle — for “espresso.”

To read more about practical examples of how distinctive local behaviors translate into economic activity right in our own backyard, go to http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/02/keep_portland_weird_makes_sens.html