‘Bookish’ behavior measured in America’s 79 largest cities

August 3, 2004

A national survey released today that ranks the reading culture and resources of America’s 79 largest cities identifies Minneapolis, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Madison and Cincinnati as leaders in bookish behavior.

Those five cities came out on top of America’s Most Literate Cities 2004, which develops a statistical profile of 79 cities of populations of 200,000 or more. This is the second year of the study compiled by Jack Miller, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and adds 15 cities and nine new variables to the mix.

For a full report on the rankings, link to: http://www.uww.edu/npa/cities.

Six public data sources are used to measure literate behavior, including U.S. Census data, audited newspaper circulation rates, 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 reading.

“We measure reading in this country almost exclusively by school test scores, rather than looking at the real goal of whether we’re encouraging lifelong reading habits in people,” said Miller. “This study looks at a city’s overall investment in that goal. And many things, like library resources, are factors they can control. ”

In expanding the study this year, Miller said the end rankings were not significantly different from last year’s results, which included only populations of 250,000 or higher. There was no inherent advantage to being a smaller city, he said, noting that Madison was the only new city to crack the Top 10 and that other newcomers were spread evenly across the survey.

Rounding out the Top 10, in order, were Washington D.C., Denver, Boston, Portland and San Francisco. Among the new cities for 2004, Scottsdale ranked 19th, Rochester 23rd, Akron 26th, Baton Rouge 30th, Montgomery 38th, Lincoln 42nd, Fort Wayne 45th, Shreveport 50th, Greensboro 53rd, Plano 59th, Glendale 61st, Fremont 66th, Garland 70th, and Hialeah 78th.

Miller said the cities that ranked highest tended to do well consistently across all five categories of educational attainment, number of bookstores, periodicals published, newspaper circulation and library resources. Some cities that are major cultural centers, such as New York City (49th) and Los Angeles (68th), fared less well when resources are factored into the overall population.

There were no geographic trends at the top of the list, where the South, Northeast, Midwest and West Coast all had representative cities. There was a strong trend at the bottom, however, with 18 of the bottom 20 coming from Arizona, California, Florida and Texas. Those areas all have lots of recent migration, lower per-capita education levels and tended to have lower library investments as well, Miller said.

While urban quality of life rankings are everywhere, measuring everything from air quality to recreation, Miller said few strike him as more important than having a vibrant reading culture. Miller’s academic career prior to chancellor included being a professor of educational administration who studied literacy in teacher education.

“I hope the study prompts civic leaders to take interest and change practices where possible,” Miller said. “Cities can invest in libraries, promote city-wide book readings or sponsor book giveaways in schools.”

The five categories in the survey, in more detail, are:

• Educational attainment. This category collects 2000 Census data on
  the total percentage of the population with eighth grade achievement or less and with a high school diploma; and the total population with bachelor’s degree or higher.
  
• Booksellers. This category collects three sets of figures provided by the American Booksellers Association (ABA), including number of retail booksellers, number of rare and used booksellers, and number of ABA members per 10,000 population.
  
• Daily newspaper readership. This category looks at the audited, paid circulation rates of the major daily newspapers for both weekdays and Sundays, looking at city zone, designated market and total circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).
  
• Public Libraries. Six variables are compared for each city, including total circulation; total volumes held; number of library branches; number of
  school media personnel per 1,000 students; number of library professionals per 10,000 people; and number of library Internet connections per 10,000 people.
  
• Periodicals. This category looks at total number and per capita rates of
  magazine publishers with a circulation of 2,500 or more and journal publishers with a circulation of 500 or more.