The annual America’s Most Literate Cities ranking, published today in “USA Today,” measures the cultural resources for reading in America’s largest cities. It names Minneapolis, Seattle, St. Paul, Denver, Washington, DC, St. Louis, San Francisco, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Boston as the most literate US cities, in that order.
The survey ranks cities (population of 250,000 and above) based on 6 key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and internet resources.
This is the fifth year the study has been conducted, and its author, Central Connecticut State University President Dr. Jack Miller, reports that his research also substantiates recent studies (such as the National Endowment for the Arts’ To Read or Not to Read) indicating that Americans are reading less and reading less well.
In an overview statement, Dr. Miller notes the growing concern for the decline in Americans’ reading habits and abilities. His review of five years of data shows that as Americans have become more educated, they are reading less: newspapers are disappearing and the numbers for bookstores per capita are decreasing. Yet there are bright spots in this disturbing trend: magazines have proliferated broadly, online reading has increased substantially, and libraries are holding their own.
Dr. Miller’s sources include U.S. Census data, audited newspaper circulation rates, and information on magazine publishing, educational attainment levels, library resources, and booksellers. The information is compared against population rates in each city to develop a per capita profile of the city’s long-term literacy practices and resources.
The survey is available here.
