NBC reports Miami is in the top 10 for dumbest city -- ranked 47th in the Daily Beast's smartest city survey of 55 major cities. Here is how they ranked the cities:
#47, Miami, Fla.
Daily Beast IQ Score: 61.65
2009 rank: 39
Metropolitan area population: 5,547,051
Bachelor’s degrees: 18%
Graduate degrees: 10%
Year-to-date adult nonfiction booksales: 2,642,000
Dumber than Miami: Such cities as Las Vegas (rated the dumbest), Memphis, Orlando, Tampa.
#55, Las Vegas, Nev. (Dumbest)
Daily Beast IQ Score: 3.33
2009 rank: 54
Metropolitan area population: 1,902,834
Bachelor’s degrees: 14%
Graduate degrees: 7%
Year-to-date adult nonfiction booksales: 1,069,000
#1, Boston, Mass. (Smartest)
Daily Beast IQ Score: 176.68
2009 rank: 3
Metropolitan area population: 4,588,680
Bachelor’s degrees: 24%
Graduate degrees: 18%
Year-to-date adult nonfiction booksales: 7,031,000
Daily Beast Said:
This year’s methodology is similar to last year’s inaugural list, with a couple weighting refinements, and one major change: as our civic engagement quotient—a proxy of a city’s willingness, and ability, to invest in intellectual culture—we dropped voter turnout in favor of libraries per capita. Overall, we divided the criteria into two parts: Half for education, and half for intellectual environment. The education half encompassed the percentage of residents over age 25 that had bachelor’s degrees (25 percent weighting) and graduate degrees (25 percent), compared to the overall population over age 25. The intellectual environmental half had three subparts. First, we looked at year-to-date nonfiction book sales (16.7 percent), as tracked by Nielsen BookScan, the nation’s leading provider of accurate point-of-sale data, which tracks roughly 300,000 titles each week. We also measured the ratio of institutions of higher education (16.7 percent), as defined by the federal government—different than just measuring college degrees, this acknowledges that universities as driver of intellectual vigor of cities and rewards cities with college populations. Finally, libraries per capita (16.7 percent) measures how willing and able a city is to educate the general public, as well as the no-cost opportunities for the public to educate itself.
Once we had all these comparable, per-capita figures, we ranked the cities in each category, assigning 10 points to those near the very top, and 0 to the bottom, with scores in between dropped into a broad bell curve. We then added the totals and multiplied by two, which made for a perfect score of 200, a wash-out score of 0, and an average score right at 100—close to the exact parameters of a classic IQ test.
12 comments:
Dumb by design.
What do you expect, Did anyone really think we are not one of the dumbest cities in the Nation. Here in Miami we have some type of Latin, American type of government that clearly has not worked in the past and is not working now. The Latin's continue to only vote for Latins and as a result we find ourselfs in deep trouble. Lets not forget our dumb citizens might not understand the political games that are played everyday at City Hall, maybe they are to busy abuseing Medicare, food stamps and section 8 houseing programs and collecting cash each and every month. In real America that a crime and all individuals should be arrested and convicted. We all complain about our elected officals involved in possible criminal activity. However a portion of the registered voters in the City of Miami are stealing tax payers money each month and we never hear a word about it. The reason is simple its ok for certain Latins to steel Medicare funds because its the government's money, Yea right, its our money stupid. Some individuals are getting about a thousand dollars per month from these Medicare crooks. Medicare fraud is costing all of us hundreds of million of tax payers money each year. and noting is said or done about it. In American if you cover up a crime your just as guilty as the individuals getting the cash kick backs each and every month. I dont hear a word from any elected offical in the City or County about the number of individuals involved or just a warning to the citizens who steal from us each month. If you sign up with a fake provider to receive a kick back you are a criminal who should be arrested and convicted. Latins seem to adhear to certain laws and totally disregard others, Whats that!! oh its just the Latin way and us non latins just have to keep out of their way, as they go about destroying the City and County.
Well it is apparent that the reader above has taken every Hispanic and generalized them into one big heap of trouble...we could do the same to every ethnic group -- like we are doing to Muslims now.
Lets rise above that.
Yes, I agree we have a certain amount of what I like to call the abuela vote that puts the Rubio-Sanchez-Suarez-Hernandez type (lookers) in office...but that is a first generation phenomena with all groups new to this country, not only Hispanics.
I say our 'dumbness' is a product of the environment. People came to South Florida for the sun and sand. The bars, hotels, service industry, etc. grew out of that.
People don't come to Miami on vacation to visit the museums and historical sites. It's inevitable that many of the people who end up staying here lack education.
there are more plastic surgeons than bookstores. I coulda told them that Miami was a dumb city.
geez - how much education does it take to know that a vibrant, chaotic melting pot full of warm,sunny skies and a beautiful ocean is a better place to live than 75% of the rest of the country? yeah, we give up some stuff, but most days I'll take this troubled paradise over just about anywhere else in the U.S.
Miaexile - Good Attitude
First ANON, after you fix your racist heart, you might want to get some education yourself and learn to spell.
It looks like a lot of this survey bases its determination on education. Mark Twain said, "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education"
The Executive, Judicial and Legislative branch of our federal government are populated people from the "top" schools and look where we are at $13 Trillion in debt.
In my opinion, education breeds arrogance!
Education is a low priority here. K-12 sets the tone, the colleges and universities follow, and so does employment requirements for public and private sectors. This attitude about education first came to my attention years ago when Paul Bell with only a Masters degree was hired as supertindent over a host of applicants with earned PhDs. Even today decades later, we have a superintendent without a doctorate. Why? Because we don't value education. It is viewed simply as a thing you get and put on the wall rather than an intrinsic intellectual journey that transforms one's view of the world, how information is processed, and how problem-solving can be addressed in the field. For decades we had supertindents who could not even read the literature in the field. So, yes we are one of the dumbest areas of the country.
Paul Bell?
How 'bout Johnny Jones and
The Gold Plumbing Caper?
See my thumb...
I think we should pride in being 9th. This could be a good message for the Beacon Council: there are 8 cities dumber than us. Come on folks. Vote for Marco!
Despite the fact that I am a Cuban-American, I agree just a tab with the first comment posted; although not entirely. Hispanics, like every other major group in our community, have worked hard, come from good families, love our neighbors, and have contributed to the growth and cultural richness we enjoy in South Florida. True, some of our politicians embarass us, but this is true of politics in general throughout the country. As for the people, we are not all alike.
We are dumb because materialism has become more important than values; our morals have been shot to death; we no longer distinguish what constitutionality is made up of; we have abandoned the true American principles that made this country great and we stopped teaching these in schools.
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