I've been lucky enough to live in #1 Boulder and #3 Ann Arbor and would agree with Forbes here. Maybe that's why I think people in lot of other American cities are a bit "intellectually challenged", should we say, by comparison. Boulder is also the most beautiful city in the US I believe.
What do HP'ers think? And what are "America's Stupidest Cities"? Phoenix is up there in my book... I think I got dumber just by living there, need to hit the books more to catch back up...
America's Smartest Cities
Boulder, Colo. may seem like a surprising winner, but it’s no ordinary university town. The University of Colorado’s students and staff account for about 38,000 of the city population of 282,200. Boulder, though, is also sticky enough to keep many of its own graduates around--and attract others.
Other urban areas on our list also benefit from a high quotient of university faculty. Third-place Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan, while Durham, N.C., which ranks sixth, is home to Duke University. The Fort Collins-Loveland metropolitan area, home to Colorado State University, came in seventh.
84 comments:
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And I thought all the smart people were in Washington D.C..Oh thats right there are no smart people there just Deciders.
Memphis, TN has to be among the worst. We're full of ghettos & gangsters, as well as every redneck from AR, MS, TN. Fortunately, Memphis hasn't seen the ridiculous run up in housing prices like other places.
yer sity it the sturpedist. sturpid!!!
Coincidence that our last two presidents came from the two dumbest states? I don't think so!
After reading this I am not sure there is a "smart" city in America.
*******************
Bestiality and America's Future
http://tinyurl.com/q2de4
Wilmington Delawhere is the rottenest city in America. The people are rude, crude & petty. The city is segregated along socio-economic, racial & ethnic lines. The old money snobs live in the northwestern quadrant of the city, which is the only habitable portion. Housing prices there have skyrocketed. The remaining 3/4 of the city is just a giant seedy bombed out hellhole of ghetto. You cannot walk the streets w/o fear of being attacked or panhandled. People conciously look away or ignore you when you ask for the time or directions out of fear. The police are completely ineffective with drug transactions occuring in broad daylight right next tot he police HQ in the sprawling public housing complexes. The city was recently voted 5th most angry "city" in America, I only dispute calling the place a city. Stay Away!!
REIC Alert:
http://www.thesaundersblog.com/
It's amazing how somehow those cities filled with "idiotic" leftists often happen to be the nicest places to live. What's up with that?
As far as "America's smartest city" on paper, it would have to be Los Alamos, NM. There isn't really anything there but the lab. The schools are excellent b/c of the bored and overeducated wives of all the scientists who have nothing else to do but work in the school. On the other hand it would drive many people insane to live there.
Well the comparisons are not exactly apples to apples. Boulder has a population of only 280,000 people. It is easier to have a higher percentage of college graduates, since most of the population is derived from its university.
Compare it to Bethesda,MD, who I believe deserves the top spot, with a population of over 1 million people and more PH. D's per capita.
Also Washington, D.C. combined with Alexandria, Arlington, Northern Virginia, is too large of a group to make a fair comparison. We are talking about 4 million people. If you separate Northern Virginia, I would not be surprised that it also steals the top spot.
Statistics can prove just about anything.
not when it comes to buying a house.
I live 10 miles west of Boulder and I like it. It reminds me of my college town, Bath, England - the usual eclectic mixture of rich wet liberal residents, a university, some govt. research establishments, bio chem research and heavy, very heavy in disk drive / mass storage businesses. The other college, Naropa for eastern philosophy is interesting - it just puts the usual availability of new age thinking in such towns on a more respectable level. Up in the lower Front Range behind Boulder are various religious retreats of all flavors. Once upon a time this was all gold mines and I often say that the new development is not at all in character with the original one of drinking, whoring and swearing and should never have been allowed.
-K
I've been to all ten of these cities and I think all ten of them are fantastic towns. I'm not sure what city is the dumbest because there's a lot of dumbness to go around. I would say the dumbest area would have to be the rust belt. When the industry left, the innovative people left and the not so bright stayed behind.
Don't know much about Boulder but know enough of Colorado...a bastion of right-wing Republican evangelical fundametalist Republican hypocritical scum.
Dumbest?
Phoenix metro area by a wide margin.
Destination and home to myriads of poorly educated trash with high opinions of themselves but actually a sorry collection of genetic hybrid losers that couldn't make it anywhere else.
What a pathetic bunch of transient grinders condemend to a life of mediocrity in pursuit of the phony "American Dream": a hideous McMansion, a leased luxomobile,& credit to consume cheap Chinese crap.
Now how much more stupid can anyone
get...
Anon said :" Now how much more stupid can anyone get..."
A Bush supporter?
Boulder is only smart because Mork lives there. We should get more illegals like him.
Sparks, Nebraska, pop. 2.
A little crowded for me. She's okay, he's a bit clueless, being a teacher.
This time will be different," Ed Leamer, who heads the forecasting center
at the University of California at Los Angeles's Anderson School of Management,
predicts in a report.
Keith, In one blog entry, you suggest that University Professors are smart and, in another, you suggest otherwise.
BTW: am I correct that you once posted the dead wrong comments that professors made before the depression?
And, by the way, both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (who you want to be president) were college drop outs so your justification of "college degree equals smartness" is about as correct as "house price equals investment quality."
How can any city be said to be a "great city" when middle income residents can't afford a home there. I live in Portland OR and have grown very tired of rich liberals and all their new-age goofiness.
professors aren't the smartest bulbs in the box
but my experience is that far and away the people of boulder colorado were more intelligent and aware than the people of any other town I've ever lived in, far and away
that's my survey.
Well this rating comes from Forbes so what did you expect. They like the "flat tax" and "flat heads"
Boulder? It's definitely the Birkenstock capital of the world. As for smart, that's debatable. The city of Boulder actually paid tens of thousands of dollars to relocate a prairie dog community. They moved it from a lot on one side of a road to a new lot on the other side. But the prairie dogs (like all filthy vermin) didn't appreciate or respect their new state-funded welfare digs, and after they soiled the new area they just moved back across the road.
This should have been a lesson for all the do-gooder types in Boulder, but it failed to register. Based on that example alone, I'd have to take away their "Smartest City" title.
My nomination for the replacement? Has to be Cisco, UT. Here is a city with a population of four, but they have their own zip code and show up on The Weather Channel forcast maps!
Has anyone ever heard of or been to York, PA?
They actually think they're the first capital of the U.S.
LOL
Keith,
Well, isn't this enlightening. The same blogger who gives us his hero, multicultural lightweight Obama, then tells us the smartest city in universe has no black people. Come on, Keith. LOL. Your full of crap, buddy.
Oh and as for being so smart, Mr. Liberal Wonk, I guess having a brain doesn't include catching the killer of Joan Benet or being concerned about flying a girlie man child molester in 1st Class from the Phillipines at taxpayer expense to find out he just needed a ride. LOLOLOLOL...
Yup, Boulder is littered with brainiacs. Good choice...:)
Hey Keith, is that crappy English food turning your brain to mush? I'm a bubble sitter and I'm beginning to think your hips are bigger than your shoulders...
More about York: they think that they're a tourist destination. You can actually come here and take a factory tour. Just think! You can spend your next vacation in York, PA watching potato chips being made.
And then you can go downtown and visit the replica of the original Colonial Courthouse that they tore down and then built a fake one to replace it.
And then after that, you can see the $80,000 murals that you can't see because they painted them on sides of buildings on one-way streets facing the wrong way!
Isnt York where G. Washington and the revolutionary Army was camped out for a Winter???? If you want to pick the winner before the battle, then you could call it the '1st' capital.
Smart is tiny bird in tree which smells bad. Smart is someone who kisses a$$ rather than go hungry. Smart is having the power to oppress your fellow man. Smart is putting seat down on toilet before hiking a crap. Smart is stupid. Truth is weakness. You have a lot of growing up to do, Keith.
I once heard a Phoenix resident in the same conversation say that he was smarter than every person in Madison, Wisconsin, then go on to say that George W Bush is a "quiet genius". That leads me to believe that Madison, Wisconsin must have some pretty smart people.
No, the Continental Congress fled the British from Philadelphia (the real first capital) and holed up in York for a while. They think that makes them the first capital.
George Washington spent the winter in Valley Forge.
" Well, Boulder may have a high per capita number of degrees, but they are a bunch of idiotic leftists who don't have a clue. Boulder is 27 square miles surrounded by reality. It also has the highest per capita concentration of trust fund babies in the world. That speaks volumes."
I'd rather live with them than the idiots that voted for bush twice.
I live in Boulder and do meet a lot of entrepreneurs, retired corporate execs., pharma. scientists, rocket scientists, etc. If they were really smart, they would live somewhere else and save their money. The average home price here is around $525,000 for a 1600 sq. ft. 1970's style piece of crap. And a good bicycle starts at $5,000. We rent and live in the outskirts where it's considerably cheaper. And, yes, they do care WAY too much about prairie dogs and Ward Churchill. But you can't beat the hiking trails, open spaces and perfect weather!
There was once a planet of aliens who were so smart they figured out how to blow up the planet they lived on. Now that's smart!
There was once a species that was so smart they overpopulated themselves into oblivion. Now that's smart!
Well York thinks they are the 1st Capitial.
Delawhere thinks its the first state. Wilmington things they are the "Corporate" Capital of America.
Neither place is all that great, but at least York has some semblance of a civilized 1st world country small town america. It has some run down areas and is not rich, but everything is pretty affordable. People are normal & friendly.
Wilmington is just an overpriced petty pretentious bombed out hellhole of snobby old money that lords over acres of impoverished slums and all the natives are highly xenophobic of and hostile toward anyone not from there rotten little world.
I'd vote for York anyday over Wilmington Delash*thole.
The biological unit known as Keith is very smart. The biological unit has overcome his environment and now dominates the universe. He no longer needs food to eat, clean water to drink, or air to breathe, he is eternally smart.
Phoenix is the capital of idiots. FAT ugly stupid class less jackasses. Who think they are rich. ENjoy the smoking flaming hot craphole of a toilet called Phoenix. I'll bet their butts are still hurting from the screwing Californians gave them.
If being smart means that I must learn to adapt to a new world defined by a$$holes I'd rather be extinct.
The whole state of california is the capitol of stupid.
hit in the head to many times in nyc,dumb as hell, but warm in winter in phx, what was once a low ante, low keep, place, have roots in england, aq place where they tax television, no wonder, i look for and probaly need low ante, low keep
Delaware IS the first state and a lot of corporations incorporate in Delaware so...
I don't get it.
The University of Austin and Austin with several really good universities and colleges, like St Edwards (25th). Keeps a lot of their brain power here, is liberal but not extreme, growing, reasonably affordable compared to other towns/cities in the top ten to live.
Now this guy is smart!
This guy was really smart. From the mortgage fraud blog:
Charles Elliott Fitzgerald, 46, real estate developer, formerly of Los Angeles, California, was returned to the United States to face charges in connection with allegations that he ran a $50 million mortgage fraud scheme. Fitzgerald was arrested and deported by authorities in the Independent State of Samoa, a Pacific island nation where he fled to in June 2003 after he was sued by a mortgage lender he allegedly defrauded...
Yeah, I'll go to Samoa. They'll never find me there.
Delawhere is the "Worst State" not the "First State"
They were right once, and have not gotten over it since.
I look at the skyline of the bombed out hellhole that is Wilmington Delawhere and I see only a handful of corporations.
Legal incorporation is a fiction.
Physical Location of a corporation is what really matters.
NYC is the true "Corporate" Capital of America, having well over a thousand Corporate HQs physically located in the NYC metro area. Delash*thole can have the annual corporate registration fee and occasional shareholder meeting & law suit. I'll take the jobs, the hard working intellegent people and life that it brings over a dying parasitic husk anyday.
NOW DO YOU GET IT? OR ARE YOU TOO DELADUMB TO COMPREHEND?
When companies incorporate in Delaware, it doesn't mean that they have to be physically located in Delaware.
I think the anon poster that dislikes Delaware is aware of the fact the corporations do not have to be located in Delaware. That's the underlying premise of his statements to debunk its corporate status.
We're all dumb. Me, you and everyone you know.
Well my views on Boulder are well known on HP. Having lived in New York, Boston, and several other cities, I was very glad to move back.
Another benefit of the brain factor in Boulder (and neighbors) is the innovation. Virtually everyone I know is involved with a young company/start up or at most, one step removed. It points to more success stories like Crocs, Izze, Seagate, Array and many others.
Boulder isn't a perfect utopia though. We have problems, as attested by some of the comments. Lack of diversity is one of them, though it's far improved from when I first moved to Boulder. The high real estate prices are another issue, but you can still find reasonably priced housing in many surrounding areas (Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield, etc).
This is really all unimportant. Just Keith trying to get people bitch and complain once more. Lighten up. The best place to live is where you're at. You make it good or bad, smart or stupid, and if you can't laugh about the town or city you live in or near to, if you can only bitch and complain and whine about your lot in life and how bad everything and everyone is (if people don't respond positively to you, then you should look in the mirror), then just put a gun to your head now and get it over with.
CROCs is a fad IMO. It stays in the IMO category until I short it and win but shorting this sort of hot crap needs to be done very very carefully if at all; witness how long Krispy Kreme, Taser, Boston Market, not to mention the whole assorted set of dot coms stayed in nose-bleed territory.
And Seagate and the other disk drive manufacturers - Whilst I silently thank them every time I drive by ( I take guests down Disk Drive and Tape Drive outside StorageTek and tell them to take their hats off for the HD capacity revolutions ) - Disk Drives manufacturers go through these massive boom bust cycles.
A bit like the entire Front Range. For all its pretensions, Boulder is STILL just a satellite of Denver. And Denver, for all its veneer of east coast class and American style blue blood is a classic frontier cow town. From the S&L scandals (I've read a Bushie had something to do with that ) to land speculation ( Mayor Pena and the Denver International Airport scandal ), the continual oil boom busts; then there's that nuclear waste contaminated, illegally declared safe site just South of Boulder. All those poor schmucks who have bought into the subdivisions East of that site - guess which way the winds blow most often.
And in ancient times, the gold mines and the violence, speculation, rags-to-riches-to-rags stories - The CO senators, congressmen, mayors in those days were a pretty rough and ready and corrupt bunch wouldn't you say ?
And not much has changed either. The underbelly of the Front Range does not get a fair shake IMO. I think it adds to the place actually. I like living here, but its with eyes wide open.
-K
Crocs may indeed be a fad. They desperately need to diversify their product line, which is why they introduced a flood of new models this week. In any case, they're only one example of recent startup companies from Boulder. There are many more in the pipeline. Established firms are also moving to the area such as CP+B, Honda, etc.
In any case, thanks for the hat tip Keith. At the bottom of my post, you'll find a list of the awards Boulder has won in the last few years.
Greg Swann is definitely lowering the IQ in Phoenix. Not only did he use the "masturbating to Armageddon" quote (sounds like a Megadeth song!), but now Russell Shaw (also on the Bloodhound Blog) unbelievably used the term "Dirty Sanchez" in response to a blogger questioning the logic of Russell Shaw associating with Greg Swann.
The comments coming out of these guys' mouths is shocking, and the lack of professionalism is stunning. But maybe I shouldn't be surprised....because they do live in Phoenix.
Boulder is in Colorado and Colarado was in Rolling Stone recently -- the issue about 10 most corrupt Congressmen. I think 2 of the 10 were Colarado folks - - some single issue anti-gay woman -- cant remember what the other shitbag's claim to fame was.
Colrado = fly over.
Also, isn't that where our meth & massage Republican minister hails from?
- Mr PoPlicki
Colarado, colorado, colrado.....
Mr. Poplicki from anon above. I bet you'd fit right in with the meth crowd around here! Ass
Cambridge Mass is number one, Boulder is further down the list but probably in the top 10. I lived in Boulder for many years.
The Naropa institute is crap, what an embarrassment to a great city.
All the really smart people left Boulder in the early 90's. Where did they go?
Durango,Salida,Moab,NorCal,Seattle,Portland,etc.etc.
Now Boulder is full of Ex Miami Ex New Yorkers. Not that that's a bad thing.
I left in the late 80's for SanDiego and returned a few years later. I made bundle on RE and now live in a Ski town where I am making another killing in RE. Thanks to all you Californians and Chicagoans for the first bundle! Thanks, now, to the Missourians and Atlantans! Cha ching! Cha ching!
NZ is next. Seems RE is peaking up here in the mountains...
If in fact, Boulder Colorado is the SMARTEST city, then there is a simple test...will the "mythical" housing bubble affect Boulder? If it is so smart, the real estate in Boulder will go "up, up, up!" as they would be too smart to buy into a housing explosion and will be going up only with the rate of inflation. If there is a bubble burst in Boulder then I would say they AIN'T THAT SMART!
Excuse me...for those of you living in Boulder, those last three word's should read "A-N'T DAT SMAR!"
Utah is a very smart place on paper and very stupid in other ways BY CHOICE because of the rigidity of the thinking encourged by forced homogenization.
Keith i was retired by the time you got out of college, but i guess you are still smarter. lol
You guys just don't get it, it's not all about who is smarter. It's about the quality of a person! Most of the educated people i have met are nothing but morons,low life greedy people. Guys like you will never get it.
Oh ya, Ward Churchill ... the white guy who thinks he is a native american. Hillarious!
PHOENIX IS #5 ON LIST!
YES!
Hippies Smell!
crocs maybe a fad, but for this old man w/ bad/flat feet they are a godsend. They beat the best "custom" orthodic inserts or shoes I've every had. FYI remember custom is a talisman to rip you off. So w/ the choice of 380 USD for custom shoes or 40 USD for a funky pair of shoes I'll take the funky shoes any day!! I just wish they would make something I could wear to/at work!!
Delaware IS the first state and a lot of corporations incorporate in Delaware so...
I don't get it.
------------------
Delaware is the only state where the identity of a corporations owners and founders is kept confidential. Every where else your name as a company owner is public record.
sorry anon, had not read your Delaware Corp comment when I posted the same.
opps.
ya, well one can be a genius and be an emotional cripple.
Emotional Health is most important, but one must not get emo with finance.
Los Alamos is pretty smart, and the
townsite voted for Kerry. Also, it
glows in the dark, keeping all the
dilwads out. Only complaint, is its
too lilly white. Will be interesting
to see how housing does here. Prices
strongly correlated to lab hiring.
Wilmington Delawhere is an unlivable city, a mix of old money snobs & northeast ghetto. Most of the educated people only work there & commute back to Philly, NJ & MD each day.
The fact that a bunch of corporations incorporate there and employ a few 100 people to handle the paperwork does nothing to compensate. So they can lay claim to incorporation all they want, its an empty & hollow selling point.
PA jettisoned the lower three counties that later became Delawhere . They sent some guy on a horse 200+ years ago to make a day's journey to cast the 1st vote for the new contitution. Making them technically the first state. So what? That does nothing to change the fact Wilmington's a terrible place to live.
The whole point of this blog is to point out other livable cities and also unlivable ones. What does "first state" and Corporate capital have to do with livability.
La Jolla, CA is America's most beautiful and smartest city
Bethesda does not have anywhere near a million people. It is highly skewed because of its proximity to NW DC (lawyers, senior civil servants, lobbyists) and NIH (doctors and medical researchers).
Boulder sucks.
Boulder could use some diversity. Also more home breakins, rapes, car thefts, drug dealing, violence in schools, welfare dependency...
10 Places that suck to live:
Gary, IN
Southeast DC
Camden NJ
Wilmington DE
Newark NJ
East Cleveland OH
East St Louis Il
Houston TX
New Orleans LA
Youngstown OH/Wheeling WV
10 great places to live:
Seattle WA
Pittsburgh PA
Atlanta GA
Alexandria VA
Austin TX
San Antonio TX
El Paso TX
Boulder CO
Chicago Il
NYC NY
Places that suck: Add Phoenix, AZ. to the top of the list.
Places that are great: Take out the shitholes of San Antonio and El Paso
and add to them the suck list and add San Diego and Santa Barbara in the great list.
Sold!! I'm moving tomorrow. I don't give a fuck if I have to pay $3,000 for a 1 bedroom shithole, to live among white people for a change it would be worth it.
"Boulder is the most lily white city I have ever seen firsthand. Even the guys working in the restaurant kitchens and working security were white. As a New Yorker, I found this quite disturbing!"
IF by smart, you mean "full of people so terrified of the real world that they stay in school for a MS or PhD while burning through the trust fund/parent's money/available credit", then yes, Boulder is a very smart place.
Come on, we all know people with a lot of degrees that, while paying a lot for education, are still some of the dullest morons. Boulder is full of otherwise unemployable dimwits, like Ward Churchill and Michael Tracey, that can't do anything but talk a lot about nothing while drawing totally undeserved salaries from schools that really out to be hiring real educators.
Any ranking that includes college towns like Boulder, Cambridge or Ann Arbor is stupid.
This is a better and more accurate ranking I think that only includes cities with more than 250,000 population from money.cnn.com
City State % with BA
Seattle WA 52.7
San Francisco CA 50.1
Raleigh NC 50.1
Washington DC 45.3
Austin TX 44.1
Minneapolis MN 43.2
Atlanta GA 42.4
Boston MA 40.9
San Diego CA 40.4
Lexington KY 39.5
Denver CO 39.0
Charlotte NC 38.8
Portland OR 38.8
St. Paul MN 36.5
San Jose CA 36.1
Colorado SpringsCO 34.9
Honolulu HI 34.7
Oakland CA 33.8
Pittsburgh PA 32.3
New York NY 32.2
Albuquerque NM 32.2
Anchorage AK 32.2
Omaha NE 31.9
Nashville TN 31.7
Columbus OH 31.4
New Orleans LA 31.4
Smart /= pleasant. It's a great place to live, if you are white, have money, and like the outdoors. A 4 mile bike commute to work on excellent bike-paths in glorious weather can't be beat. But it's out of the loop with regard to a lot of cultural happenings (music, film, art, etc.). And people can be aggressive snobs, despite the liberal label attached to the town.
I was born in Boulder.
I don't feel any smarter.
Raised in Richland, Glow in the dark.
It's frightening how many twisted, liberal, leftist losers frequent this blog, spewing forth their mindless anger. Why are they so upset all of the time? Can't they get laid? Upside down on their Laguna Niguel mortgage? Whatever the cause(s) they sure do foul this blog with their sewage...
Denver used to be a nice place, before the Mexis landed. Now it's on its way to becoming the new Tijuana. Do Mexis ever improve the environment where they plop themselves down or is it always the same, the standard of living drops when they arrive?
Well, having visited Boulder many times and having lived in Ann Arbor, I was underwhelmed by both. There are a lot of bright people there, I'm sure, but many are academics, and many are also self-important. I found the SFBay area and Los Angeles to be much more vibrant. The density of "smart" people may be lower, but there are almost certainly more of them in absolute numbers, and most of them moved there for the economic opportunities (interesting, challenging work) and so seemed to be more get-things-done smart types than ivory tower smart types ;^).
My wife and I refer to places like Boulder and Ann Arbor as "local maxima" - meaning the residents feel superior since they are smarter than the surrounding areas, but there's also something insular and self-satisfied about them.
Your mileage may, of course, vary.
"There are a lot of bright people there, I'm sure, but many are academics, and many are also self-important."
It's a college town mentality. On the east coast, you can see the same for places like Amherst MA (a.k.a. people's republic of), etc. So, if you're into taking courses and in the upkeep of a self-righteous intellectual, then those places are great.
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