Minneapolis America's Most Literate City

St. Paul a Rising Star at Fourth

Jan 4, 2009

The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota have been named the first and fourth most literate cities in America in 2008. Seattle also tied for first.

For the second straight year, Minneapolis, Minnesota has been named America’s Most Literate City. To be more precise, Minneapolis and Seattle tied for the title in 2008. The two cities have been sparring for bragging rights, back and forth, for the last five years.

Minneapolis & Seattle Consistently Most Literate

Minneapolis topped the list in 2007 and 2004, Seattle in 2006 and 2005. In addition, Minneapolis’ Twin Cities neighbor St. Paul has moved up the list to # 4 this year. Rounding out the top ten 2008’s most literate cities are Washington D.C. (3), San Francisco (5), Atlanta (6), Denver (7), Boston (8), St. Louis (9) and tied for 10th: Cincinnati and Portland.

Study Indexes Literacy of Major Cities

The study of America’s most literate cities is conducted by Central Connecticut State University, authored by the University’s president Dr. John W. Miller in collaboration with the school’s Center for Public Policy and Social Research. Miller says the study attempts to “capture one critical index of our nation’s social health--the literacy of its major cities.”

Major cities, in this case, are defined as those with a population of 250,000 or more. In 2008, there were 71 of them, with the additions of Glendale, Arizona and Fort Wayne, Indiana having recently surpassed the quarter million mark. The study focuses on six key indicators of literacy:

One criticism of the study has been that it does not measure reading test scores or how much residents actually read. Miller stresses that the study measures “what kind of resources are available and being used.” The fact that Minnesota consistently ranks in the top ten “most educated” states seems to verify the connection between availability, use, and literacy.

St. Paul the Rising Star of Literate Cities

While many of the higher ranked cities have done well annually, Miller calls St. Paul “the rising star of literate cities.” It has moved up the list each year, from 19, to 11, 9, 5 and now 4th in the nation. St. Paul is also the only city of all 71 which did not see a decline in Sunday newspaper circulation.

Internet and Libraries Not Mutually Exclusive

Besides the city rankings, the 2008 AMLC study took a close look at two other critical concerns. One is the conventional wisdom suggesting that, as internet use increases, so decreases the use of libraries and newspapers. While this does seem to be the case in general, Miller has noted that cities that ranked “highly in one form of literate behavior are likely to rank highly in the other forms and practices of literacy.”

So, for instance, cities that have a high per capita newspaper circulation also have a higher instance of people reading newspapers online. The same holds true for cities with more library use; they also have more booksellers and more people buying books online. Miller concludes that “ a literate society tends to practice many forms of literacy, not just one or another.”

The other critical concern studied here regards international literacy and America’s literacy on the world stage. Using newspaper circulation as a benchmark, Miller has concluded that there is perhaps reason for concern in the patterns of U.S. readership when compared with most of the world. America ranks 31st in newspaper readership worldwide, even though newspaper in many places cost 3 to 4 times more, often in much poorer economies.

The copyright of the article Minneapolis America's Most Literate City in Literary Culture is owned by Dale Van Every. Permission to republish Minneapolis America's Most Literate City in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.