Raleigh-Durham America's smartest city

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Raleigh-Durham

Tags:

local/state

The Daily Beast website has ranked Raleigh-Durham number one in its inaugural ranking of America's smartest cities.

The publication wrote:

"Raleigh-Durham has just about every intangible useful in attracting and developing a smart populace; It's a university hub, including two of the nation's elite schools (Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and those school led to one of the nation's great technology incubators (Research Triangle Park). On top of that, Raleigh, as the state's capital, attracts engaged political minds as well."

The Daily Beast compared 55 American metropolitan areas with a population of more than 1 million.

Criteria included education and intellectual environment.

The education half measured how many residents had bachelor's degrees and graduate degrees. No credit was given for attending either undergraduate or graduate school.

The environmental half had three parts, including non-fiction books sales, the ratio of institutions of high education that impart intellectual vigor to a community and the percentage of eligible voters who cast ballots in the last presidential election.

The remaining top ten smart cities are:

2 -- San Francisco- Oakland-San Jose;
3 -- Boston;
4 -- Minneapolis-St. Paul;
5 -- Denver;
6 -- Hartford-New Haven;
7 -- Seattle-Tacoma (tie);
7 -- Washington, D.C. (tie);
9 -- Portland, Ore.; and,
10 -- Baltimore.

Charlotte is ranked 16th and Greensboro 37th.