“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them,” Mark Twain’s saying goes. And according to a study put out by the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, D.C.’s got plenty of people who read the good books, despite the fact that 37 percent of D.C. adults read at or below a third grade level.
The study, which examines how residents of the United States’ largest 79 cities behave in literate ways — like buying newspapers and books or checking materials out of the library — placed D.C. at No. 6 in a listing of 79 cities throughout the nation. Number one? Minneapolis, Minn. Last? El Paso, Texas. New York City came in at a surprising 49th, Chicago was 58th, and Los Angeles placed 68th. Though we’re sure if blogs counted, their rankings would skyrocket.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that the city recently launched a library initiative, or that four local libraries are being rebuilt. But most likely the ranking has to do with the fact that we were number one in the Publications and Newspaper Circulation categories. We knew that having those 32 billion local newspapers would some day pay off!
