The metro areas most (and least) like America

That's OK. Fox News makes millions on that disconnect.

 

That is exactly what I thought of when I saw this list, especially noticing two cities in South Carolina on the list.

 

That was HILARIOUS, oop. Seriously, you're brilliant! You slay me. Southern people really must be stupid.

You people who generalize the way oop does need to realize something: There are stupid people everywhere, smart people everywhere, racist, sexist, etc., people everywhere. Good God, have you ever even been to Greenville or Charleston? Or Winston-Salem, or Jacksonville? Those places are many things, some good and some bad, but you can't accuse any of them of being "uneducated."

I'm willing to bet everything I have, oop, that the intellectual utopia in which you apparently live has at least one bona fide, clear-cut moron living there. (hint: it might be you).

 

Jacksonville?
We're all mulleted, jorts-wearing rednecks?

 

Levels of education don't have that much to do with smart or stupid. I've been to all but Winston-Salem on that list, and they are so different from each other they make a mockery of the list's premise. If they don't resemble each other, how can they all resemble something else?

 

I like the Yes version over the Simon and Garfunkel original. It's nice and progged-out.

 

The ignorance in that little rant of yours is truly stunning. You clearly didn't understand where I was coming from. You just went into defensive, knee-jerk reaction mode without even trying to comprehend the point.

Let's start with the fact that I posted specifically about South Carolina, not the entire South. You just made up that generalization on your own. I also never said the people there were uneducated.

Read the first line of Michael_Gee's post. Intelligence is far from the only factor in a person's education. I wasn't questioning the intelligence of people in South Carolina, or the South in general. I was pointing to the relatively weak public schools in South Carolina, which consistently ranks among the lower half nationally.

I have also spent a great deal of time in Charleston. I love the city. My brother has lived in the suburbs of Charleston for over 20 years. His two older children went through public schools there and his youngest is in high school. They are all very intelligent kids. The oldest of my nephews is a hell of a lot smarter than I am. He has a degree in engineering and he had an amazing job lined up before he even graduated. But yeah, according to you, I think all people in the South are stupid.

My sister-in-law is a teacher in a nearby public school and she says far worse things about education in South Carolina than I ever would.

I also spent seven years in the south, though not in South Carolina, so this idea of yours that I'm speaking from ignorance is wrong.

Now let's see if you have it in you to apologize for your ignorance. I'm betting you do not.

 

My buddy just went there said it was great and wished more places were like Charleston. He said that tourism has jumped a ton since it's been named the friendliest city in the US, think it was by Conde Nast. Also said that being from NYC area it's a way slower pace there and especially slower since there's been more visitors.

 

Going from the New York City area to Charleston could be a heck of a culture shock, but a good one. Your friend is right about the pace. Very dramatic difference from New York. The slow pace can be frustrating to some, but I've always enjoyed it during my visits.

 

The comment regarding the relative quality of S.C. schools vis-a-vis this list misses the point entirely. For the purposes of this list cities are ranked in terms of their statistical proximity to some over-arching national center point. As regards education in this ranking, cities are scored based on educational attainment (i.e., proportion of the populace with at least a high school diploma, etc., etc.). The same is true for other dimensions (socio, economic, etc.) ...

For the more statistically inclined in the audience, the joke is the way these rankings were computed. Ignore how cities were scored. Further ignore problems in defining MSAs -- seriously, Greenville and Spartanburg are separate MSAs, but Dallas, Fort Worth and Arlington are the same? But note that, in being ranked, cities are first ranked (on the individual dimensions) as regards their proximity to some over-arching central tendency. Then cities' average rank (across the dimensions) is computed. But what if there is a lot more variation (about the central tendency) on one dimension than another? As disparity in variability (across the dimensions) increases, any average of rankings across these dimensions decreases in its information content.

The proper approach would be to rank each city with regard to its Malhalanobis distance*, which your humble correspondent learned to calculate and use during an education taken entirely in S.C. public schools.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahalanobis_distance

 

Nah, the Nice did it best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWnvIeMyB7M