Brains, brawn and everything in-between: Pittsburgh ranked smartest city
Feb 12, 2013; Bradenton, FL, USA; A view of a Pittsburgh Pirates ball bag during a workout session for spring training at Pirate City. Mandatory Credit: Douglas Jones-USA TODAY Sports
As the football season approaches (although not quickly enough, for my taste), you may be following every move the Steelers make with the expected preseason scrutiny. With new additions to the team that seem promising, such as Jarvis Jones and Le’Veon Bell, you may be feeling that the Steelers team is looking pretty smart. But is it really smart?
Allow me to introduce you to Movoto Real Estate, a company that proudly keeps a blog to “create unique, and most importantly, fun real estate related stories.” Determined to put their research skills to entertaining use, the company creates various city-ranking lists that range from nerdiest city to smartest city.
Which brings me to my point: according to Movoto’s most recent list, Pittsburgh is ranked as the smartest city in the United States. Yes, you read that right. We are No. 1. It’s got a familiar feeling, doesn’t it?
The data Movoto used to determine its rankings included universities and colleges per person, libraries per person, education level, media per person (newspapers, TV, radio, magazines), museums per personand public school rank. So after seeing these criteria, it should come as no surprise why Pittsburgh topped the list.
But how did Pittsburgh do in each of the respective categories? In the universities category, Pittsburgh took the top spot. Top-ranking schools such as Carnegie Mellon and Pitt contribute not just higher education to its students, but foster intellectual discussion and feeling within the community at large (here I must insert an obligatory shout out to Slippery Rock University, my dad’s alma mater).
To solidify its greatness, Pittsburgh also came in the top 20 cities for media outlets (17), libraries per person (14), museums per person (12), and public school rankings (14).
Interested in how some of our other, less desirable cities faired? Let’s just say that Baltimore was 38th, and Cleveland ended up as 45th.
What do you think about this recent ranking, City of Champions? Do you agree or disagree with the findings? Let me know in the comments below!