The “America’s Most Literate Cities,” continue to work their way through the local press around the country. Cities like Memphis, Cincinati, Columbus and Rochester, all did well, The Mad City and Minneapolis are happy.
and at least Tucson is better than Phoenix, but El Paso Ranked Last. El Pasoans explain their rank in the reading study with some good reasons. The language, economic and social barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. Many cities with large populations of immigrants and non-native English speakers ranked in the bottom quarter of America’s Most Literate Cities study. Eighteen of the bottom 20 cities were in California, Arizona, Florida and Texas.
“If you look at the top 20 cities, there’s no real pattern,” Miller said, but he said that the bottom 20 cities are clearly more minority — and that education levels, native languages and economic conditions in those cities probably play bigger roles.
The Study also ranked Public Libraries, putting Akron at #1, followed by Kansas City, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and my old home, Columbus.
Figures are fishy
The last time I checked, the population of New York City was closer to 8 million than 4 million, which is what this study uses to rank us (34th). Here’s info from the Big Apple itself: NYC .
Why does this study ignore the suburbs?
For St. Louis, the two bigest suburban library system serve way more people than the St. Louis Public library – probably close to 1.5 million vs. 250,000. Same goes for Seattle, who have a very nice library but the suburbs have their own huge library system.
As any good American knows, if you live in the ‘suburbs’ you tell people from out of town you live in the city. Why didn’t they study metropolitan areas instead of ‘cities’?