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The latest "America's Most Literate Cities" survey reports that in 2005, Seattle unseated Minneapolis for the No. 1 spot among the 69 largest U.S. cities (with populations above 250,000). Minneapolis is now in second place, after topping the list for the past two years. The news was better for St. Paul, which moved up from No. 16 to No. 10. (Now, before you go bury your defiant noses in a book, St. Paulites, we all know this kind of thing can never provide a completely accurate, uh, read on the situation.) Released this week by Central Connecticut State University, the study rates cities "not on whether their citizens can read, but whether they do," taking into account a range of cultural factors including newspaper circulation, number of bookstores and libraries, education levels and publishing resources. In the newly added category of Internet resources (including online book orders and wireless-access points per capita) Seattle, Boston and Austin, Texas, were the top three; Minneapolis ranked 10th and St. Paul 12th. In the overall rankings, 14 of the 20 least literate cities were located in California or Texas. Washington, D.C, Atlanta and San Francisco rounded out the top five. To read the study online, see www.ccsu.edu/AMLC. |