Jacksonville Business Journal
December 2, 2005

Jacksonville 50th 'most literate' city in U.S.

Jacksonville ranks No. 50 in a national survey measuring a key component in America's social health by ranking the culture and resources for reading in America's 69 largest cities. Jacksonville was 64th last year The survey identifies Seattle, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and San Francisco as the most literate U.S. cities.

The five top cities emerged at the top of "America's Most Literate Cities 2005," a national study that develops a statistical profile of 69 cities with populations of 250,000 or more. This is the third year of the study, which introduces a new factor -- Internet literacy -- to measure the expansion of literacy to online media.

Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Conn., conducted the survey.
"Americans are actively interested in issues affecting their quality of life and how that quality varies from place to place," said the study's author, John W. Miller, president of Central Connecticut State.

The 2005 edition of the study ranks cities based on six key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources. The data sources include U.S. Census data, audited newspaper circulation rates and information on magazine publishing, educational attainment levels, library resources and booksellers. The information is compared against population rates in each city to develop a per capita profile of the city's long-term literacy, a release said.

Other Florida cities included in the ranking were Tampa, tied for No. 24; and Miami, tied for No. 27.

Atlanta, Toledo, New York City and Newark moved up the most from last year. Rounding out the top 10, in order: Denver, Boston, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Paul.

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