Friday, December 28, 2007

Minneapolis Ousts Seattle as Most Literate City

Like a top-heavy tower of books, Seattle tumbled from its ranking as "America's Most Literate City" this year.

The new winner: Minneapolis, ending Seattle's two-year reign on top.

The Emerald City only slipped to second place, but some of the local literati took it hard.

"I don't believe it," said Tracy Taylor, general manager for Elliott Bay Book Co. in Pioneer Square, which was bursting with post-Christmas customers Thursday. "And we're not even having a sale," Taylor noted.

But the statistics don't lie — even though they also don't capture all the nuances of what makes one city more literate than another, said Mark McLaughlin, spokesman for Central Connecticut State University, which compiles the annual list.

"We can only provide a kind of macro look."

The rankings, originated and authored by CCSU's president John W. Miller, compare the country's 69 biggest cities in terms of libraries, bookstores, educational levels, newspaper readership, locally published magazines and Internet resources....

4 comments:

swissmiss said...

I've lived in both places and agree that Seattle is second, but St. Paul is really first :)

Cathy_of_Alex said...

I agree with swissmiss. I can even forgive her "crack" about Frank and Bing for it! LOL!

Vincenzo said...

LOL!

swissmiss said...

Cathy:
I do LOVE Frank and Bing! It's just that my heart belongs to Dino.

That's Amore, as he says.