Dave_Berry

"In a knowledge economy, we are often told the smartest cities and nations do the best. But economists typically measure smart cities by education level, calculating the cities or metros with the largest percentage of college grads or the largest shares of adults with advanced degrees. Others (like me) do it by charting the kinds of work people do and the occupations they hold, differentiating between knowledge or creative workers and others who do more routine manufacturing and service jobs.

But a new measure seeks to track the "brain performance" or cognitive capacity of metros in a different and potentially more direct way.

This metric, developed by Lumos Labs, is based on their cognitive training and tracking software, Lumosity. It covers some 20 million members (and 320 million individual game plays) who use the company's online games to assess and attempt to improve their cognitive performance. . . .

"To measure the smartest cities, Lumosity scientists tracked the cognitive performance of more than one million users in the United States on their games, mapping them across U.S. metros using IP geolocation software. Individual scores were recorded in five key cognitive areas: memory, processing speed, flexibility, attention, and problem solving.The data was normalized into a basic brain performance index controlling for age and gender. Only metros with more than 500 observations were included. The data cover 169 metros." . . .

Looking for a "smart" place to go to college? Check the list:

"Here are America's 25 brainiest metros, according to Lumosity's metrics:"

1. Charlottesville, Virginia
2. Lafayette, Indiana
3. Anchorage Alaska
4. Madison, Wisconsin
5. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose
6. Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City & Dubuque, Iowa
7. Honolulu
8. Johnstown-Altoona, Pennsylvania
9. Champaign & Springfield-Decatur, Illinois
10. Minneapolis-St. Paul
11. Boston-Manchester (Massachusetts/New Hampshire)
12. Austin
13. Rochester, New York
14. Gainesville, Florida
15. Fargo-Valley City North Dakota
16. Lansing, Michigan
17. Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo
18. Burlington-Plattsburgh (Vermont/New York)
19. Pittsburgh
20. Syracuse, New York
21. Baton Rouge, Louisiana
22. Columbia-Jefferson City, Missouri
23. La Crosse-Eau Claire, Wisconsin
24. Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York Pennsylvania
25. Springfield-Holyoke, Massachusetts

America's Brainiest Cities - Neighborhoods - The Atlantic Cities

goldenboy8784

Where Boston/Cambridge, Arlington, Raleigh-Durham, Atlanta Metro, and Ann Arbor? These list intuitively seems inaccurate.

KBronx17

Gainesville is only 3 spots under Boston? Not to insult UF but seriously?

And Syracuse is in the Top 20? They have a killer Journalism school apparently but c'mon man!

bclintonk

The results are partly reflective of how they aggregate "cities." So for example, Madison is a stand-alone metro area, but Ann Arbor gets lumped in with blue collar Detroit. Cambridge gets no special recognition; it's just part of metro Boston (which by the way does pretty well). Arlington is just part of metro Washington, and so on.

Sparkeye7

16. Lansing, Michigan

.... It should be E. Lansing, Michigan. lol

whydoicare

Johnstown and Altoona are two small cities in Pennsylvania, not all that close together, with branch campuses of Pitt and Penn State, respectively.

zobroward

these studies are always done with a big shovel and a pile of cow droppings!

absweetmarie

This is one study, mind you, but to suggest that the findings are bogus because they do not confirm received wisdom is rather hasty. The Lumosity management team, its scientific advisory board and its collaborators have impressive academic bona fides; there is every reason to believe this research is serious and that it was conducted according to established scientific methods. It's reasonable, if you have knowledge of the study's design, to take issue with it. But to make judgments based on nothing other than the fact that the study does not confirm what you believe is anti-intellectual.

rjkofnovi

The article should read, "America's brainiest MSAs."

absweetmarie

The article itself, as opposed to the headline, makes clear that the groupings are by metro area and describes roughly how the metro areas were defined (one assumes the actual study has more detail on this point).

sovereigndebt

Did I read that correctly? Measuring smart cities by gaming activity? Seriously? Geesh. What a crock of crapola. People who spend too much time on games are not the kind of people we need in government and business leading this nation out of our conundrum of social and financial mess.

annasdad

Springfield and Urbana-Champaign are not in the same SMSA, and anyone who has ever driven from one to the other or spent any time in either would intuitively know that they're very distinct from one another.

This study has about as much validity as a USNWR ranking - possibly less, though that is hard to imagine.

absweetmarie

Did you read the article correctly, sovereigndebt? Not exactly, the way I'm looking at it. Yes, Lumosity did study how people performed on "games," but these games are designed to measure and help improve "core cognitive functions," including "memory, processing speed, flexibility, attention, and problem solving." (This last quoted part is from the article online; it is consistent with how Lumosity describes the tool on its website.) I would urge anyone whose knee-jerk reaction is to pronounce the research worthless to consider taking a look at the Lumosity website and reading about the science behind the approach.

I would imagine, annasdad, with regard to the Illinois cluster you mention, that this has to do with the researchers going wider geographically in less populated areas. I didn't see any claim that these towns were all in the same SMSA. I expect the original study describes the reasoning behind the various groupings, with assorted caveats and footnotes.

I don't see why that particular point about Illinois geography makes the research invalid for what it purports to show. Mind you, it's not the researchers but news media outlets promulgating this "brainiest cities" label; I would not be surprised if the researchers themselves were a bit more measured and precise in their conclusions.

jrcsmom

Lafayette, Indiana????? #???? 2?????? LOL!!!!!!!!!!

As someone who's spent nearly my entire life in Indiana, they REALLY missed the mark on that one! Sure there's Purdue, but 5 steps off campus in ANY direction and you're in the cornfields.

I have several relatives that live in Lafayette and they are wonderful, caring, people, but even they wouldn't classify themselves as brainy. When last visiting my aunt, my son and I were channel surfing and stopped on something like Myth Busters or maybe it was Rocket City Rednecks to which she commented, "Do you always watch 'smart people' shows?"

Lafayette?????? They're kidding right????

I am one of less than 8% of the population with a graduate degree in the state that ranks 47th! for education level of the population (Bachelor's degree or higher, by percentage statistics - States compared - StateMaster)

Lafayette?????

I'm still laughing

Etuck24

Did someone ask where Raleigh/Durham is? Ha. Raleigh might be "smart", maybe, but the amount of stupid people in Durham kill whatever Raleigh brings to the table.