Bakersfield 5th least brainy urban area in the. U.S.; Ann Arbor 2nd brainiest

[darksumomo]

Huffington Post: America's 10 Least Brainy Cities: Portfolio Study

Bad news for Merced, Calif. -- according to a report released by Portfolio this week, Merced placed last in 200 cities ranked according to "brainpower."

To compile their list, Portfolio used data from the American Community Survey to correlate average adult earnings with level of educational attainment. Merced's low rates in both categories produced an aggregate score of -2.558
Bakerfield came in fifth. In addition to Merced and Bakersfield, other California towns that made the list included Visalia in third and Modesto in tenth. According to the complete survey (PDF), central California urban areas that ranked near the bottom but didn't make the ten worst included Stockton, which just missed the cut at 11th (190th brainest) and Fresno at 13th (188th brainest). I think that's a clean sweep for all the major towns in the San Joaquin Valley.

I had the following to say about this article:

I used to live in Bakersfiel­d. It's a third-rate L.A. filled with rednecks. The best descriptio­n I ever read of the place was on a T-shirt I saw at the bar of the now-defunc­t Bakersfiel­d Inn, which was the hot place to go on Saturday night if you didn't mind that a hooker, her pimp, and her john were likely to be at the next table. The shirt read "Bakersfie­ld isn't the end of the world, but you can sure see it from here."

So, color me not surprised that it's on the list. I'm only surprised that Merced and Visalia are lower. At least Bako has local rivals it can look down upon.
At the other extreme are the smartest cities in the country.

Portfolio.com: Brain Bounty or Brain Busted?

Ann Arbor, the site of the University of Michigan, is second to Boulder in the concentration of adults who attended college (77.4 percent) and the share who hold advanced degrees (25.5 percent).

The federal government, lobbying organizations, and major law firms attract thousands of educated workers to Washington, where 47.3 percent of adults hold at least a bachelor’s degree. The only two markets to outrank it in that category are Boulder (57.9 percent) and Ann Arbor (49.5 percent).

Rounding out the top five in the national brainpower rankings are the college centers of Durham, North Carolina, and Fort Collins, Colorado. The Durham market includes Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, while Fort Collins is home to Colorado State University.
Looks like I've lived in the fifth dumbest and second smartest cities in the country. How's that for an extreme biography?