Minneapolis named home of
America’s most avid readers
By Nick Swift

5 September 2004: It comes as no surprise to City Mayors that Minneapolis, Minnesota has come first again in the second year of a University of Wisconsin study of United States cities with the highest proportion of readers. It is, after all, where our US Editor, Josh Fecht, lives.

The author of the study ‘America’s most literate cities 2004’ is John W (Jack) Miller, Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater. The university, founded in 1868, is the fourth largest of the 26 institutions in the University of Wisconsin System.

What distinguishes the study is that it is not a survey of ability to read, but of the extent to and forms in which people actually do so, looking at the populations of the country’s 79 largest cities and ranking them according to the categories of Educational Level, Periodical Publishers, Newspaper Circulation, Library Support, Holdings and Utilization, and Bookstores. Data were initially drawn from six key databases: the US Census Bureau, the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the American Booksellers Association, Yellow Pages, Inc., the American Library Directory, and a website that searches the National Directory of Magazines and the Standard Periodical Directory. Missing or anomalous data were resolved through direct enquiries. Modifications to the 2003 survey include the addition of 15 new cities.

The top 10 cities, in terms of a comprehensive answer to the question, “How well does your city cultivate literate, ‘bookish’ behavior in its citizenry?”, are: Minneapolis; Seattle; Pittsburgh; Madison; Cincinnati; Washington, DC; Denver; Boston; Portland; and San Francisco. The largest of these is San Francisco, with a population nearly four times that of Madison, the smallest. Minneapolis’ twin city, St Paul, was placed 16th in the 2004 study.

In the Educational Level category, Education Attainment was indexed with the variables of percentage of adult population with an education of eighth grade or less, a high school diploma or more, and a bachelor’s degree or higher. By these criteria, Plano, Texas came first, and Portland came tenth. In the category for Periodical Publishers, looking at magazines and journals published both purely in terms of circulation and of circulation over a certain level per 100,000 of population, Washington, DC topped the list, and Chicago was tenth. For Newspaper Circulation, indexed as six variables, including Weekday, Sunday, City Zone and Designated Market factors, Washington was again on top, and Cleveland tenth.

Library Support, Holdings, and Utilizations, in which Akron and Seattle came first and tenth, respectively, drew upon such data as “Number of library Internet connections per 10,000 library service population”. San Francisco and Scottsdale, Arizona were respectively first and tenth in the Bookstores category, which included “Number of members of the American Booksellers Association” as a criterion.