Forbes.com listed Baltimore as one of the coolest cities in the nation.

The website ranked cities using measurements such as restaurants per capita (excluding chains), the likelihood of meeting someone of a different ethnicity (using Sperling’s Diversity Index) and a city’s median age.

Using that data for Baltimore-Towson metro area, where there 4,451 local places to eat, a median age of 38 and a diversity index of 57, the city was ranked 14 out 20.

But the list, which named Houston the nation’s coolest city, isn’t without its critics.

In an article for Salon, writer Will Doig argues the list using these criteria for judging a city’s coolness is absurd.

"But filing places under 'cool' or 'not cool' misses a lot of the nuance that makes cities work. Providence recently decided not to create a cool new waterfront esplanade because it would have taken valuable space away from a vital shipping port. The tangle of uncool freeways that run through Indianapolis  serve its lucrative trucking industry," Doig writes.

Why do you think Baltimore is or isn't cool? Tell us in comments.