America’s smartest people
Find out which U.S. city has the most intelligent people — and the least


By Adrien Glover

updated 8:27 a.m. CT, Wed., Nov . 25, 2009

What U.S. city has the most intelligent citizens? According to Travel + Leisure’s 2009 America’s Favorite Cities Survey, the answer is simple: Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Now in its fifth year, the survey—which was open to the online voting public this past summer—covers 30 U.S. cities and was expanded this year to include even more urban areas, such as Cleveland, Providence, and St. Louis.

Its “People” category consistently ranks as the most talked about, with voters weighing in on such topics as what U.S. city has the most attractive people (Miami) or the least (Philadelphia). Not surprisingly, the question of which city is home to the country’s smartest people has also sparked discussion.

Some may credit the weather—for keeping people indoors with their noses in books—for the high IQs of Twin Cities residents, but the heady city is full of clues: top-ranked Macalester and seven other colleges; the Utne Reader and beloved independent Common Good Books; Minnesota Public Radio and the smart radio stylings of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion; the revered Guthrie Theater; and a local culture that prides itself on being in the know—and knowing it all.

“The enormity of artistic and cultural opportunity paired with outdoor activity make the Minnie-apple a standout city,” says Annie W. Mathisen, a 35-year-old attorney who was born in Minneapolis-St. Paul and then returned as an adult because of the area’s high quality of life. “We can boast having inventive minds, from Lucent to Prince. I think Minneapolis fosters an environment where intelligence is valued and constantly fed—no matter what your mind is hungry for,” she says.

But there are other intellectual hotbeds, too. The freethinking bastion of San Francisco—home to countless high-tech companies and Internet entrepreneurs—ranks among the survey’s top 10 smartest cities. Washingtonians are no dummies, either. With a diverse population and an army of cunning politicians, our nation’s capital gets high marks for smarts.

Other cities, however, are the class clowns to the straight A students above. Orlando, for example, may be home to the most magical place on earth, but survey-takers voted their residents’ intelligence a bit less mesmerizing. Dallas, too, ended up toward the bottom of the intelligence list.

Sure, smart people live all over the United States, but maybe some cities really do have more collective brainpower than others.

Woo hoo! Go Minneapolis!!! Now if we could only learn how to merge onto a highway!!

I thought I also read a few weeks ago - it's one of the safest in the US as well (?) to raise children

America's Safest Cities
Zack O'Malley Greenburg, 10.26.09, 04:30 PM EDT
These metros have the lowest rates of violent crime, workplace deaths, fatal crashes and natural disasters.



After living five years in New York City and waiting tables while working part time as actors, Pamela Russell and her husband Todd were looking for a safer, cheaper place to put down roots--without giving up all the city perks that they so enjoyed in the Big Apple. Luckily for them, they chanced upon the Twin Cities.

"We drove into Minneapolis and fell in love almost instantly," says Russell, now 38, who settled in Minneapolis with her husband and started a theater company--as well as a family of five kids--10 years ago. "Among the buzz and hum of Minneapolis, the biggest bonus of it all is that the crime rates are shockingly low. Sure, we lock our home at night, but we feel very safe living here."

Minneapolis tops our list of America's safest cities, and not just for its crime rate. In ranking the cities on our list, we looked at workplace fatalities, traffic-related deaths and natural disaster risk; the City of Lakes ranked in the top 10 of all four categories. It's also one of America's best places to live cheaply and offers easy access to some of the most scenic drives in the country.

The Milwaukee metro area, buoyed by the lowest natural disaster risk of the cities we considered, ranks second. The Portland, Ore.,metro, which boasts the lowest crime rate, places third. Boston and Seattle are tied for fourth. Both benefit from low traffic fatality rates--Boston's is the lowest on our list, and Seattle's is the eighth-lowest. This is largely because they boast two of the most user-friendly mass transit systems in the country. In addition to being environmentally friendly, these networks provide an alternative to driving while intoxicated.

"Some cities have transit systems that penetrate more of the area," says Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. "The biggest factors in fatal crashes are alcohol impairment and speeding. So to the extent that communities do a good job of reducing alcohol impairment and speeding, that should show up in fatal crash rates."

Behind the Numbers
To determine our list of America's safest cities, we looked at the country's 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas across four categories of danger. We considered 2008 workplace death rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; 2008 traffic death rates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; and natural disaster risk, using rankings from green living site SustainLane.com. It devised its rankings by collecting historical data on hurricanes, major flooding, catastrophic hail, tornado super-outbreaks, and earthquakes from government agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Geological Survey, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and private outfit Risk Management Solutions. We also looked at violent crime rates from the FBI's 2008 uniform crime report. The violent crime category is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In cases where the FBI report included incomplete data on a given metro area, we used estimates from Sperling's BestPlaces.

While the strength of a metro's mass transit in some cases influenced its traffic fatality rank, the types of industry located there largely affected each city's workplace death rate. These tended to be lowest in areas like Seattle and San Jose that contain a profusion of technology and service jobs--or Detroit, where nearly one quarter of the workforce is unemployed. Dangerous jobs are more prevalent in industrial centers like Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, whose workplace death rates were five times higher than the safest, Minneapolis.

"Obviously there are some jobs that have a higher fatality rate than others," says Matt Gunter, a researcher at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "If there's a concentration of that sort of job in a certain city, there's probably going to be a higher fatality rate."

Mother nature can knock down trees, flood houses and even destroy entire neighborhoods. To gauge which cities most feel her wrath, Sustain Lane collected data from observation posts at different areas within cities. It notes that the natural disasters observed generally affect the entire metro area and greater region in which they occur. SustainLane measured the likelihood of disaster as well as the extent of damage. Miami was rated as having the highest natural disaster risk.

"There is an issue of frequency vs. severity to take into consideration," says Ken Ott, director of city rankings at SustainLane. "San Francisco and Oakland are due for a 100-year quake, but these only happen every 100 or so years, while Miami is in a frequent hurricane path."

Miami's natural disaster risk was part of another perfect storm--one composed entirely of statistics. America's southernmost metropolis ranked among the six worst in all four categories we measured, earning it the lowest overall safety ranking on our list.

Among the buzz and hum of Minneapolis, the biggest bonus of it all is that the crime rates are shockingly low. Sure, we lock our home at night, but we feel very safe living here

Where they hidin' these geniuses?

squirrelgrease said:

You count. You can spell, you see!

I grew up in Minneapolis and moved to SF 12 years ago. You couldn't pay me to move back there.

JudasLChrist said:

But... we have the Mall Of America. And 47 stadiums.

squirrelgrease said:

Sarah Palin book signing @ Mall of America on the 6th of December, I think. All those fucking MPLS geniuses can make themselves known at that.
http://www.youtube.com/wa...KKKgua7wQk
[Edited 11/26/09 0:21am]

connorhawke said:

Thakncs! Thacncks! Thenks! Gracias!

squirrelgrease said: