Baltimore City Paper home page.

LOG IN | Not a user? Create Account

Quick and Dirty

More Literate than Akron

Email this Story Print-ready version leave a comment

By Erin Sullivan | Posted 8/18/2004

It’s not unusual for Baltimoreans to mock one of the city’s well-known slogans, “The City That Reads.” (The City That Breeds, The City That Bleeds, The City That Reads . . . at a Third Grade Level, etc.) But a recent study of 79 U.S. cities released by the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater rates Baltimore as the 25th most literate city examined by researchers. The study places Baltimore below Minneapolis and Seattle (the top two most literate cities in the nation), and Cleveland. But Baltimore, surprisingly, is rated as being more literate than New York City (No. 49), New Orleans (No. 43), and Los Angeles (No. 68).

The study ranked the cities based on their scores in a series of categories, including education, publications, newspapers, libraries, and booksellers. Despite the fact that Baltimore rated dismally in its education ranking (No. 72), the city fared surprisingly well in the bookstore category (No. 20), which ranks cities based on the number of new and used booksellers its population supports; the publications category (No. 15), which measures the number of magazines and journals distributed in the city; and newspaper circulation (No. 22). Baltimore was solidly in the middle of the pack in the libraries category (No. 37).

So does that mean Baltimore really does deserve the title of The City That Reads? The publishers of the study are noncommittal: “Whether these quality of life analyses are ‘accurate’ is not so much a point of fact as it is interpretation and operational definition,” reads a disclaimer in the overview of the study. “These five ranked factors combine 22 different variables that form the operational definition of literacy.”

The Literate Cities 2004 study can be viewed HERE.

Related stories

Quick and Dirty archives

More Stories

Runaway Trainman (2/3/2010)
Would-be Cockeysville railroader wins appeals and keeps on dreaming 

Collapse: 2200 Bryant Ave. (1/25/2010)
Collapsed building in Baltimore

Mum's the Word on New Remington Development (1/8/2010)

More from Erin Sullivan

Single-Payer-Minded (2/3/2010)
Local health-care practitioners explain why they're willing to go to jail in the name of health-care reform

Health Care Reform Doctors Arrested Outside Obama Speech (2/3/2010)

Department of Legislative Audits Reviews Rosewood Closure (1/8/2010)

Leave a comment

Comment on this article

If you are a Citypaper.com member, please enter your username and password.
If you don't want to join our site right now, click the GUESTS tab.

User:

Password:

 

Don't have an account? Sign up now.
Already have an account? Log in now.

Choose a display name

Your email address:

 

Events

Restaurants

Bars+Clubs

Local Music

RADIO ADVERTISING POSITION: WZBA The Bay

PHARMACY TECHNICIAN: All-State Career

BALTIMORE SCHOOL OF MASSAGE: Put your hands on a better future!

EDDIE'S OF ROLAND PARK: Where taste meets tradition.

View all TOP JOB ads

FELLS POINT: APT. 4 RENT

CHARLES VILLAGE-21218 : The Baltimorean Apartments

View all TOP RENTAL ads

> PLACE CLASSIFIED AD

 

 

Privacy Statement