The Best City If You Love to Read . . .

From the editors at Netscape:

The Best City If You Love to Read Is...

...a tie between Minneapolis, Minnesota and Seattle, Washington, which have been named the No. 1 U.S. cities for literacy, according to an annual ranking conducted this year by the Center for Public Policy and Social Research at Central Connecticut State University.

At the other end of the scale is El Paso, Texas which is the least literate U.S. city. El Paso isn't alone. Four Texas cities are in the bottom ten.

The ranking was based on local newspaper and magazine circulation, library data, online news readership, book purchases, Internet resources and educational achievement in cities with a population of 250,000 or more. The data for the 2008 analysis came from the U.S. Census Bureau, American Booksellers Association, Audit Bureau of Circulations, Yellow Pages and other sources.

Top 10 U.S. cities for literacy:

1. Minneapolis, Minnesota and Seattle, Washington (tied)
3. Washington, D.C.
4. St. Paul, Minnesota
5. San Francisco, California
6. Atlanta, Georgia
7. Denver, Colorado
8. Boston, Massachusetts
9. St. Louis, Missouri
10. Cincinnati, Ohio and Portland, Oregon (tied)

The 10 least literate U.S. cities:

62. Santa Ana, California
63. Arlington, Texas
64. San Antonio, Texas
65. Glendale, Arizona
66. Aurora, Colorado
67. Anaheim, California
68. Bakersfield, California
69. Corpus Christi, Texas
70. Stockton, California
71. El Paso, Texas

Don't think the Internet will be the end of reading. Cities in which Internet usage is high also have a high rate of readers. LiveScience.com reports that cities that rank highly for having better-used libraries also have more booksellers; cities with more booksellers also have a higher proportion of people buying books online; and cities with newspapers with high per capita circulation rates also have a high proportion of people reading newspapers online.

"A literate society tends to practice many forms of literacy, not just one or another," study author Jack Miller, told LiveScience.com.

Other ways cities ranked No. 1 for specific measurements of literacy:

Newspaper circulation: Newark, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.
Periodical publishers: Washington, D.C.
Internet resources: Washington, D.C.
Libraries: Cleveland, Ohio
Bookstores: Seattle, Washington and San Francisco, California (tied)
Education level: Plano, Texas