From a Central Connecticut State University study:

 

This is the overall ranking for each city. A total score was tallied for each city across six different literacy categories: Booksellers; Educational attainment; Internet Resources; Library Resources; Newspaper Circulation; and Periodical publications. All categories were compared against the city's total population. See "Rank by Category" for more detailed results.

 

http://www.ccsu.edu/amlc06/Overall_Rankings/Top10.htm

 

1. Seattle, WA

2. Minneapolis, MN

3. Atlanta, GA

3. Washington, DC

5. St. Paul, MN

6. Pittsburgh, PA

7. Cincinnati, OH

8. Denver, CO

9. San Francisco, CA

10. Portland, OR

 

11. Boston, MA

12. St. Louis, MO

13. Raleigh, NC

14. Cleveland, OH

15. Columbus, OH

16. Austin, TX

17. Kansas City, MO

18. Nashville-Davidson, TN

19. Charlotte, NC

19. Tulsa, OK

21. Tampa, FL

22. Honolulu CDP, HI

23. Miami, FL

24. Baltimore, MD

25. Milwaukee, WI

26. San Diego, CA

27. Virginia Beach, VA

28. Sacramento, CA

29. Indianapolis, IN

30. Lexington-Fayette, KY

 

31. Omaha, NE

32. Toledo, OH

33. Colorado Springs, CO

33. Philadelphia, PA

35. Oakland, CA

36. Tucson, AZ

37. Louisville-Jefferson Co.,KY

38. Albuquerque, NM

39. Chicago, IL

40. Las Vegas, NV

41. New Orleans, LA

42. New York City, NY

43. Oklahoma City, OK

44. Buffalo, NY

45. Fort Worth, TX

45. Jacksonville, FL

47. Anchorage, AK

48. Wichita, KS

49. Dallas, TX

50. San Jose, CA

 

51. Newark, NJ

52. Detroit, MI

53. Plano, TX

54. Memphis, TN

55. Houston, TX

56. Riverside, CA

57. Los Angeles, CA

58. Mesa, AZ

59. Phoenix, AZ

60. Fresno, CA

61. Santa Ana, CA

62. San Antonio, TX

63. Long Beach, CA

64. Anaheim, CA

64. Arlington, TX

66. Bakersfield, CA

67. Aurora, CO

68. Corpus Christi, TX

69. El Paso, TX

70. Stockton, CA

 

I bet that the library category really bumped up the Ohio scores.

Well that's a rather pleasant surprise!  I like hearing good news about our cities!  :clap:

Best of all, the author of the study, Dr. John W. Miller, is a dead ringer for John "Sgt. Schultz" Banner.

 

 

Hmm. My hometown of Detroit is all the way down the list at #52. Surprising.

I'm shocked and very pleased Cincinnati made a top ten list of...well anything.

Atlanta seems like a suprise, I normally don't equate southern and literate.

Ohio's literate?

 

Something's wrong when Cincinnati/Cleveland/Columbus/Toledo beat out Chicago and NYC...

Illiterate = high immigration. Something Ohio needs for economic growth.

The cities near the bottom have a lot of Mexicans.

But don't Seattle and San Francisco have hugh immigrant Asian populations?  Aren't there tons of Hmong immigrants in the Twin Cities?  Somalis in Columbus, Minneapolis, DC?   Shouldn't that drag down their literacy scores just as much as having lots of Mexican immigrants drags down Texas cities?  I call shenanigans on the whole study - it's a racist/classist/Anglo-centric attempt to look at English literacy anyway.

Bah to literacy, anyway!

 

Once you learn to read, there's nothing ahead but bitterness and frustration. You end up wanting stuff you never knew about or wishing you lived someplace nicer that you never knew about. Your world gets knocked off its axis by ideas about religion and politics that are different from what your parents told you, and your life loses all it's certainty and predictability. If it weren't for literacy, our society wouldn't be plagued by all those liberals.

:whip:

Remember what the criteria was for this:

 

Booksellers

Educational Attainment

Internet Resources

Library Resources

Newspaper Circulation

Periodical Publications

 

Only 1 of the categories deals with the kinds of people of the city.  Sure the others are indirectly affected by the people of the city, but for the most part it is what the city itself actually offers its citizens on a per capita scenario.  So I don't think the derogatory comment (whether true or untrue) is even relevant is this situation.

If there's little demand for Booksellers, Internet Resources, Library Resources, Newspaper Circulation; and Periodical publications then it can easily be related to immigration. I'm sure poverty is a factor as well. Unless it involves public funding (regarding libraries), what a city offers is going to correspond to what kind of people are there. Barnes and Noble isn't trying to open a store on every corner in Detroit. Seattle is known for being the most highly educated city so whatever immigrants go there, they're not comparable to ones in certain other places. A highly educated city is going to demand those resources a lot more.

Other factors to think about are 1) the presence of colleges/universities and 2) the sampling methodology.

 

These rankings are based on Booksellers, Internet Resources, Library Resources, Newspaper Circulation and Periodical Publications PER 10,000 residents. This will skew densly populated areas like NYC toward the bottom, and less-densely populated areas like Lexington, KY toward the top. For example, Lexington might serve 40,000 students utilizing 5 bookstores, whereas a 3 bookstores in NYC may serve 40,000. By these terms, Lexingtonians are 20% more literate than New Yorkers.

 

Or some shit.

^yes.  a lot of asian people that come here are well off in their home country while that is not the same for mexicans as they have easier access to our country via the shared border and all.

Why is Boston ranked 10th AND 11th??

^Typo, exacerbated by the fact that several cities tied. Sorry.

 

EDIT: Fixed!

If there's little demand for Booksellers, Internet Resources, Library Resources, Newspaper Circulation; and Periodical publications then it can easily be related to immigration. I'm sure poverty is a factor as well. Unless it involves public funding (regarding libraries), what a city offers is going to correspond to what kind of people are there. Barnes and Noble isn't trying to open a store on every corner in Detroit. Seattle is known for being the most highly educated city so whatever immigrants go there, they're not comparable to ones in certain other places. A highly educated city is going to demand those resources a lot more.

 

While hispanic immigrants are known for having a lesser education (coming from a developing nation most of the time), I don't know I have ever seen the evidence that they do not demand things such as libraries, bookstores, and what not.  I would be interested in seeing that study that proves such a bold statement.

Well, I'm happy LA at least beat Fresno... that's all that really matters.

^with those groups, doesn't the state department just pick an area and then weighted migration takes over? 

Dawg -

 

From the state of Minnesota website:

 

Somali Populations in the United States

Minnesota is home to the nation's largest population of Somali immigrants-a number variously estimated between 25,000 (Minnesota State Demographic Center) and 60,000 (local Somali organizations). Somali immigrants to Minnesota are refugees from a homeland plagued by civil war, drought, famine and their attendant atrocities. The height of Somalia's humanitarian crisis came in 1992 when more than 800,000 people took refuge in neighboring African countries and an additional 2 million were displaced internally. Starting in 1994, Minnesota's Somali population began to increase rapidly due to primary and secondary migration of refugees seeking a safe and secure place to rebuild their lives and raise their families.

 

Columbus, Ohio has the second largest Somali population in the United States. Significant Somali populations (outside of Minnesota) exist in the following cities/states:

 

San Diego, CA

Atlanta, GA

Boston, MA

Lansing and Grand Rapids, MI

Rochester, and Buffalo, NY

Arlington and Fairfax, VI

Seattle, WA

 

New York might have a large population of the literate elite... but perhaps Toledo beats NYC in "per capita literacy".

^And that's just sad.

CDawg have you been to Columbus? There are Somalians and Mexicans all over the place. Significant number of people from Cambodia and Laos too, atleast at my old highschool. It's not new york city but for being a medium sized midwestern city there's a lot of immigrants.

Columbus, Ohio has the second largest Somali population in the United States.

 

I'm certainly not trying to downplay the Somali population in Columbus, but overall, Columbus is not an immigrant magnet by American standards (it's an immigrant magnet by Ohio standards). Columbus is under 7% foreign-born. That's nothing compared to the 14% foreign-born population of the Twin Cities or say, the 25% foreign-born percentage of a city like Boston.

 

I bet that the library category really bumped up the Ohio scores.

 

certainly, though it probably didn't help Toledo since the Toledo-Lucas County Library system is pretty much average for cities its size. The downtown branch kicks ass, but the rest of the system is nothing to write home about...

 

Cleveland and its suburbs have a good number of top-ranked library systems for their respective city sizes.

Columbus and Cincinnati as well.

Why are we assuming that immigrants are dragging the numbers down? What ever happened to the notion of the good old-fashioned red-blooded two-fisted native-born American dumb-ass? There are plenty of folks in middle America (and elsewhere) with more DVDs on their shelves than books. Maybe even a few among us here.

 

But again, let's look at the basis for these numbers: availability of resources. This assumption fails on two fronts: 1) the idea that literacy is purely market-driven, and 2) that utilization is constant across all populations.

 

Based on this, I tend to cry "boo" on these numbers.

...and these assinine studies are the reason why some professors are available to students 6 hours a week; in an effort to get published.

^Well, no study is perfect by any means...not even the Census (commonly looked at as the ultimate fact).  Its good to have some of these studies even if they have their flaws.  We can point out those flaws and read in to the studies what we wish.  Just as it has been done on this discussion.

Toledo's always been the hub of Ohio's Mexican culture

 

No, it has not.  Ohio has never had a hub of Mexican culture, as it sporadically has Mexican groups throughout the state.  It isn't a large concentration (or visible concentration) like the Puerto Ricans in Cleveland/Lorain or the Somalis in Columbus.

What factors led to Toledo becoming the Mexican cultural and economic hub of Ohio?

wrong again, of course. It's called the Old South End. Toledo has Ohio's largest Mexican barrio, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in Ohio or Michigan (hmm, might affect those "literacy" numbers), etc. How is that "not visible?"

 

You're right...it would affect those literacy numbers in this study (in a positive fashion).  It would increase newspaper circulation, thats a plus in this study.

^I doubt they count foreign-language newspapers...

 

If they don't, then this study is at best flawed, and at worst--well I don't want to say it. Okay:

 

RACEST!

 

Again: why all the immigrant-bashing? From what I've seen from having lived in an immigrant enclave (Hamtramck), immigrants tend to read a lot. Why? Save for satellite dishes--of which you'll see many in modern immigrant neighborhoods--magazines and newspapers are the only* way a person can get their news from back home and around the diaspora. The corner markets are lousy with magazines and newspapers in Bosnian, Bangladeshi and Arabic and Polish. In fact, the only bookstore in Hamtramck is called "Ksiegarnia Eden." You illiterates might like to know that means "Eden Bookstore" in Polish.

 

*True, the internet is a viable way to keep tabs on goings-on back home, and to wit, the internet-enabled computers at The Hamtramck Public Library are in constant and heavy use, but again: this should satisfy one of the study's criterion.

 

i dont think immigration has anything to do with ohio city rankings on this, as someone else said and i agree i think its more about ohio's top ranked public library system.

 

 

the only bookstore in Hamtramck is called "Ksiegarnia Eden." You illiterates might like to know that means "Eden Bookstore" in Polish.

 

 

you sure? cause i ran that thru babelfish and it translated as, "why the hell did we leave beautiful gdansk for detroit?" in polish shorthand.  :wink:

 

You guys don't think immigration (I guess mostly from Mexico) might be attributed to English literacy? Sure they might like to read a lot but they don't have much control over what language newspapers and books are published in since they have little entrepreneurial presence in the media. I don't know, I thought it made sense..didn't think it would come across as so "derogatory" or offensive. I think a more practical study would be level of education, which has also been done.

OSU also has a pretty massive number of graduate students (most of any college in Ohio??). On top of that, I know many college grads from other cities in Ohio (especially Cleveland for some reason) that have moved to Columbus recently...

 

As can be seen by Cbus' rapid population growth  :wink:  Even Cbus is behind Indy in the midwest for growth...and Indy is at best modest in terms of the national scene.

 

But back to the other discussion...

Does anyone else think it's odd that Toledo, Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati all ranked higher than NYC and Chicago?

 

Maybe it was a bad name for the ranking, but the criteria does not come across odd as ranking midwestern cities near the top, and even higher than NYC and Chicago.  Midwestern cities saw great growth during the heyday of building libraries and circulation of newspapers and what not.  These same cities then lost much of their population, but much of the knowledge infrastructure (in you will) was left in place.  Thus creating a high per capita ratio for this type of study.

 

Whereas places like NYC and Chicago saw continued growth, while at the same time the governing bodies around the nation started to lay off of the knowledge infrastructure investment.  Thus creating a lower per capita ratio for this study.

 

If you did a study (like David said) on educational attainment I would expect to see NYC and Chicago and the likes higher than most midwestern cities.  But that was not what this study was looking at...plain and simple.

i dont think immigration has anything to do with ohio city rankings on this, as someone else said and i agree i think its more about ohio's top ranked public library system.

 

 

the only bookstore in Hamtramck is called "Ksiegarnia Eden." You illiterates might like to know that means "Eden Bookstore" in Polish.

 

 

you sure? cause i ran that thru babelfish and it translated as, "why the hell did we leave beautiful gdansk for detroit?" in polish shorthand.  :wink:

 

 

Actually, it's closer to "I visited to Detroit and all I got was this lousy infection."

 

Compared to a lot of America, nothing in Ohio is growing. :|

Well think about it; we have more cities now than we ever did. If the pie is getting bigger it's still being divided into more pieces. Besides, at the current moment, technology makes living in Ohio cities (or any city) irrelevant in a lot of cases. That could easily change in the future, but I think it's silly to expect Ohio cities to have massive growth. I just hope the quality of life improves. I think its interesting how everyone is so fascinated with moving to California. MTV culture might have something to do with it. Palm trees work as a great airbrush I guess.

On a side note...California is not actually seeing very much domestic migration there.  It is actually a domestic migration out of California.  The population growth that has been occurring most recently has been related to very high amounts of immigration.  There have been studies done about the "californication" of states like Utah, Colorado, Montana, Arizona and the likes...pretty interesting.

My guess would be that those people are older though; younger people still seem to be obsessed with Cali.

 

Montana!? *vomits*

Never saw it. Not because i'm homophobic but because the preview looked incredibly boring.

Dead wrong. Most the Mexican culture is in Northwest Ohio, and not by chance either...(I'll give you a hint, it has something to do with agribusiness and food manufacturing)

 

Have you ever actually studied this?!! Most the counties in the southern half of Ohio are a paltry 1-2% Hispanic. Northwest Ohio has counties that are actually close to the American average...

 

That has nothing to do with being the "Mexican Center" of Ohio.  I highly doubt any Mexican in Columbus considers Toledo as the "Mexican Center" of Ohio.

 

wrong again, of course. It's called the Old South End. Toledo has Ohio's largest Mexican barrio, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in Ohio or Michigan (hmm, might affect those "literacy" numbers), etc. How is that "not visible?"

 

Again, largest does not equate with the "center."  It La Viva or whatever might be the "center" of Mexicans in TOLEDO but definately NOT the state.  That's just silly to argue.

 

My aunt actually teaches at a South End school where near 80% of the kids speak Spanish as their first language. It's quite visible...

 

Again, it's not visible on a STATEWIDE level.  No one in Columbus thinks Toledo has any sort of Mexican population (Hell, I didn't even know Toledo had Mexicans until days before I received your tour).

For those not literate enough to actually read the damn article, Cincy rated:

 

3 - booksellers

29.5 - educational attainment

15 - internet

5 - libraries

8 - periodicals published

12.5 - newpaper circulation

 

So it looks like we read alot, but don't learn anything!

 

Actually, there's some problems with their methodology: i.e. Plano, Texas doesn't have any newspapers, so they're ranked last in that category, even though many of them might read the Dallas papers.

And because this thread is about more than Cincinnati, here are the numbers for our other major cities:

 

Cleveland:

 

15- booksellers

50- educational attainment

47- internet

1- libraries

10- newspaper circulation

4.5- periodical publishers

 

Columbus:

 

27.5- booksellers

11- educational attainment

17- internet

16.5- libraries

39- newspapers

22- periodical publishers

 

Toledo:

 

56- booksellers

38.5- educational attainment

24- internet resources

3- libraries

27- newspapers

49- periodical publishers

Amazing...yet another thread turns into a Toledo-as-diversity-Mecca lecture...mad props...the skilz of some of our fellow forumers at moving all conversations back onto themselves are truly impressive!

 

Never saw it. Not because i'm homophobic but because the preview looked incredibly boring.

 

I saw it, and I must admit I was a little taken aback by all the fisting.

 

No, wait. That was a different film.

Never saw it. Not because i'm homophobic but because the preview looked incredibly boring.

 

I saw it, and I must admit I was a little taken aback by all the fisting.

 

It's a romance film- what did you expect?

^lmao.  I saw it too and I thought it was a great movie.  But I dont even know what this has to do with the topic at hand so I will quickly stop.

Well, when people spout completely blind statements like "Toledo doesn't have a visible Mexican culture" (not compared to most of America, but compared to Ohio, hell yes) or "Columbus has Mexicans everywhere" (more than average for such an undiverse state, but just absurd), or "Ohio has Mexican populations sporadically throughout the state" (no, it mostly has them in Northwest Ohio- nothing sporadic about it), what do you expect? Hell, some people not only need to get out of Ohio more, but need to get around their own state more...

 

Again, you didn't read what I said.  I said that Toledo doesn't have one visible towards Ohioans.  Meaning, it ISN'T a Mexican Mecca in Ohio because other cities ALSO have Mexicans that have their OWN THING.  Toledo may be the Mexican Mecca for NORTHWEST Ohio but it is foolish and downright moronic to think the rest of the Mexican populations in the cities look to Toledo as a mecca for them.

 

so you've never actually "toured" the barrio....hmm....

 

Not missing much, from what I've "seen."

 

Well, rural/small town Northwest Ohio is the actual center, but Toledo is the urban center. La Prensa is not there by chance...

 

No.  Northwest Ohio is NOT a center.  It just has the most Mexicans in the state.  That doesn't make it the "center" of Mexican culture in the state.  You are aware that Memphis is the blackest metropolitan area in the country, yet it is laughable to think that Memphis is the center of black culture in the country, isn't it?  Moving on...

 

Which says how familiar you are with Toledo...

 

No, that shows that most people in Ohio aren't familiar with Toledo, and perhaps there's a reason for that...

You are aware that Memphis is the blackest metropolitan area in the country, yet it is laughable to think that Memphis is the center of black culture in the country, isn't it?  Moving on...

 

Weird..I thought it would be Atlanta.

Nope.

You are aware that Memphis is the blackest metropolitan area in the country, yet it is laughable to think that Memphis is the center of black culture in the country, isn't it?  Moving on...

 

Weird..I thought it would be Atlanta.

 

No, ..... Its the Chocolate City babeeeeee.