Portland Declared 6th "Most Literate City" In America

After finishing 10th place last year, Portland has jumped up to 6th in the annual “Most Literate City” study conducted by Dr. John Miller out of Central Connecticut University.  A strong ranking in the “Booksellers” (we love our indie bookstores) and “Education” (yay we are smart) categories, was offset by a poor showing in the “Publications” (what we lack in quantity we make up for with quality) and “Newspapers” (damn bloggers…) categories.  An average showing in the “Internet” (we get dinged for actually buying books from bookstores) and “Libraries” (our library system is anything but average) categories rounded out the selection process.

Seattle came in first, with Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta rounding out the top five.  It’s nice to see that Reading Local has set up shop in three of the top six most literate cities, and a bit surprising that Chicago (the remaining Reading Local city) came in at 30 on this list.  You can see Dr. Miller’s methodology for determining these rankings here.

Maybe over time Reading Local will need to leverage our knowledge of the cities we cover to develop our own most literate city study…