View Full Version : Most Literate Cities
Iceblink
03 Aug 2004, 10:57 AM
Article (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=680&ncid=762&e=13&u=/usatoday/20040803/en_usatoday/minneapolisrankshighestoftheliteratesstudyfinds)
Minneapolis is #1.
El Paso, TX is on the bottom.
Obviously non-English-speaking immigrants have a lot to do with this.
Here's (http://www.uww.edu/npa/cities/) the link to the website where you can check to see if your city's on it. The graphics weren't loading properly when I went there. In fact, not much seems to be working at the moment, but I'm sure it'll be up later.
Dr. Wankler
03 Aug 2004, 01:16 PM
Article (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=680&ncid=762&e=13&u=/usatoday/20040803/en_usatoday/minneapolisrankshighestoftheliteratesstudyfinds)
Minneapolis is #1.
El Paso, TX is on the bottom.
Obviously non-English-speaking immigrants have a lot to do with this.
Here's (http://www.uww.edu/npa/cities/) the link to the website where you can check to see if your city's on it. The graphics weren't loading properly when I went there. In fact, not much seems to be working at the moment, but I'm sure it'll be up later.
Woo hoo! We're number three... though Pittsburgh being ahead of, say, San Francisco and Boston might cast an aspersion or two toward the survey. But hey, we'll take it.
Jacen McCullough
03 Aug 2004, 01:44 PM
Woo hoo! We're number three... though Pittsburgh being ahead of, say, San Francisco and Boston might cast an aspersion or two toward the survey. But hey, we'll take it.
Pittsburgh cannot be considered a literate city until the residents finally accept the fact that "pop" is a sound effect, not a beverage. :)
Dr. Wankler
03 Aug 2004, 02:08 PM
Pittsburgh cannot be considered a literate city until the residents finally accept the fact that "pop" is a sound effect, not a beverage. :)
Whenever I ask for a "sack" instead of a "bag" in a grocery store (okay, a liquor store), they look at me like I'm speaking latin, or as if I'm asking "oh, where do you keep the snuff films."
But hey, they probably just want to get back to that copy of Proust's A la Recerche du Temps Perdu they're hiding under the counter.
Jacen McCullough
03 Aug 2004, 02:12 PM
That must be it. :D
A couple of surprises on there. LA, NY and Dallas were all mighty low on the rankings. LA and Dallas I can see (due to the large number of celebs and immigrants respectively) but I would have expected NY to place higher.
afgrijselijkheid
03 Aug 2004, 02:19 PM
i would have guessed seattle #1 because of the rain and the people - no surprise they were #2
Dr. Wankler
03 Aug 2004, 02:20 PM
I think Pittsburgh's libraries obviously help, but the immigrant issue raises some questions about the data-collecting. I mean, in Chicago, it was pretty common to see Latinos reading La Raza on the El, or eastern Europeans reading thick novels (or engineering tracts, I can't really tell once you go into the cyrillic alphabet), etc. I wonder if they bothered to measure immigrant literacy in their birth languages, or if they just stuck to English
LATL
03 Aug 2004, 04:52 PM
That must be it. :D
LA and Dallas I can see (due to the large number of celebs and immigrants respectively)
:D
nicodemus
07 Aug 2004, 02:23 AM
Birmingham, AL - #18
Biggity bam. I hope all the elitist stereotype pushers out there enjoy that little stat.
simplysoccerBR
07 Aug 2004, 03:05 AM
Probably Paris, France.
X X I
07 Aug 2004, 03:15 AM
Outside of the US? Maybe Habana, Cuba.
YITBOS
10 Aug 2004, 12:06 PM
I wonder if they bothered to measure immigrant literacy in their birth languages, or if they just stuck to English
The study did not measure literacy as it relates to the ability to read. It measured literacy as the act of being a well-informed, educated person. Therefore, the Russian scientist reading his cyrillic engineering reports on the El would score very heavily for Chicago... unless he is an illegal immigrant, or otherwise was able to skirt the last census.
biggyv
17 Aug 2004, 11:24 PM
Birmingham, AL - #18
Biggity bam. I hope all the elitist stereotype pushers out there enjoy that little stat.
Why do you care? You abandoned Birmingham for Disneyworld.
nicodemus
17 Aug 2004, 11:26 PM
Why do you care? You abandoned Birmingham for Disneyworld.
Forget that noise.
CrewDust
18 Aug 2004, 02:58 AM
Wow, Texas is dumb.
Dr. Wankler
18 Aug 2004, 09:07 AM
Wow, Texas is dumb.
I'll save GringoTex the trouble: "What! Why, hell, we're so smart, even our retards can get elected president!" [/bad Texas accent]
CrewDust
20 Aug 2004, 01:14 AM
I'll save GringoTex the trouble: "What! Why, hell, we're so smart, even our retards can get elected president!" [/bad Texas accent]
GringoTex: Bush is not from Texas.
bright
28 Aug 2004, 06:25 AM
i would have guessed seattle #1 because of the rain and the people - no surprise they were #2
It's true, people do make a city literate. :)
- Paul