BookOpinion

According to results from a recent study, Minneapolis and Seattle are the most well-read cities in the U.S.

The survey targeted 69 U.S. cities with populations of 250,000 or above and chose six key indicators to rank literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources.

Overall, the top 10 most literate (and wired) cities included:

1—Minneapolis, Minn.
2—Seattle, Wash.
3—St. Paul, Minn.
4—Denver, Colo.
5—Washington, D.C.
6—St. Louis, Mo.
7—San Francisco, Calif.
8—Atlanta, Ga.
9—Pittsburgh, Pa.
10—Boston, Mass.

Minneapolis, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Denver and Washington, D.C., have made the top 10 since the survey was launched in 2003.

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Some cities that didn’t make it to the overall top 10, however, did strut their stuff in one of the six key literacy indicators. For instance, while Newark, N.J., was the 49th most literate city overall, it shared the top spot for newspaper circulation with Washington, D.C.

Plano, Texas, ranking 51st on the overall most-literate-city list, came in second for educational attainment. The education ranking included two factors: the percentage of the city’s adult population with a high school diploma or higher and those with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Cleveland, Ohio, scored the highest for library resources, with St. Louis coming in second. The library category was a measure of five variables, such as the number of library professional staff and total branch libraries relative to library patrons.

Atlanta and Boston took the lead spots in the Internet resources category.

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