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 (cities with performance rates below the national average were given negative scores.) Check out Portfolio for more on their methodology).

Below, the ten least brainy cities in America. Portfolio has the full list (PDF).

See the brainiest cities here.

Are you surprised to see these locales at the bottom of the list? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

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Merced, California

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Brainpower index: -2.558

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Brainpower index: -2.558

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Comments

[Mr Crabs]

07:29 PM on 12/20/2010

This isn't a list of least brainy cities, it's a list of cities that undervalue the education potential of their populace. Money does not equal brainy.

[thebigbike]

01:52 PM on 12/18/2010

.well, not everyone can work in a brainy city like new york and make fabulous money from wall street theft. somebodys got to grow the food.... oh we can just get it from china like eveyrthing else.

[Broke Medical Student]

05:48 PM on 12/14/2010

Does this study factor in illegal immigrants?

[TexasMike]

05:08 PM on 12/25/2010

Does ANYTHING you do NOT factor in illegal immigrants?

[novowel4me]

06:07 PM on 12/13/2010

I don't know about the rest of the states but the areas indicated in California are the heart of GOP congressional representation in the state.

[wakethedead 27]

09:42 PM on 12/12/2010

Texas and California...what a surprise...

[chamaecyparis]

01:03 AM on 12/10/2010

A common thread in this survey I've noticed is Agriculture!
It looks to me as if the surveyors did not account for this bias.
Most farmers and ranchers nowadays have a university degree.
Granted, most farmworkers do not. Using the criteria of the survey, is
it safe to say that Wyoming would be considered the least brainy State?

[chicapirata]

01:05 AM on 12/07/2010

Wow, almost all of them are in CA or TX. This is not a reliable study to begin with. And who cares if these people aren't too bright anyway? The only city I've been to on this list is Laredo, TX, and yeah most everyone is not very educated and a good portion of the population speaks English as a second language, but the locals are extremley friendly (as opposed to Nuevo Laredo just across the river in Mexico).

[Matt Jacobs]

05:40 PM on 12/06/2010

This kind of crap is annoying. If every city in the U.S. were a college town, the country would be in serious trouble. Dumping on towns for being supposedly stupid, when they simply do not rely on highly educated jobs, is unfair and elitist. Should the U.S. then start importing all of our food in order to make all of our cities full of educated people? Ridiculous.

[AVeryMediocreGangster]

02:36 AM on 12/07/2010

I think we can agree that U.S cities are not responsible for food production, that is taken care of by the rural U.S. However, I do find this to be an offensive and unhelpful study. Who took the time to synthesize this list? Perhaps one of these cities citizens.

[Janet Renee]

04:16 PM on 12/06/2010

Sad to say that I was born and raised in this town. We are a county seat and just built a brand new university and yet this town is pretty much considered CrankVille USA. Most of the population is on Welfare and Crank. There are no jobs, no industry, no diversity, no culture and I can go on and on. Lets not forget the air quality and the high rate of asthma. I feel sorry for the people of this town, if by the grace of God you can move out, Please don't hesitate-get out, get out NOW !!!!! There are so many better places to live.

[Raphi]

04:53 PM on 12/06/2010

Which illustrates perfectly the quintessential American solution.

If the occasional individual can escape whatever horror they were born to, that "proves" opportunity. Justifying ignoring those not so lucky. And justifying using using intellectual abilities not for helping others, but for self-aggrandizement. Academic fame, economic fortune.

The old myth of "self-made." As if no one successful (whatever that really means) ever read science, history, math, etc. written by others. As if they fixed their their car, cat, computer, and selves with parts they made alone. Built their own home and everything in it.

Hardly. Point is, we need each other. Including janitors, the guy at the counter, the sales clerk in that little store down the block. Except for the remote economic elite, we don't get to escape reality for long. The devastation of these American communites is spreading.

As the patriot Patrick Henry said long ago, we will hang together or surely we will hang apart. Or th odl labor slogan: what hurts one hurts all.

[Bellanova]

07:39 PM on 12/07/2010

My goodness, how come I've missed your posts so far?

No more. Fanned and faved, big time.

[dollyllama10]

05:34 AM on 12/06/2010

How is Washington D.C. not on the list?

[UncleJimbo]

06:34 AM on 12/06/2010

It was a measure of Intelligence not EV!L........

[boomer7391]

07:19 AM on 12/06/2010

That's right .... when you folks cone together through, oh you know, that thing called the vote and you send us your best to represent YOUR districts, needs and wishes, why would you not be surprised to discover so much evil here. You created it, it represents you and then you whine when you get what you asked for. Maybe the town you live in should be on that list.

[Emmy2]

07:42 AM on 12/06/2010

I had the same thought. Believe it or not, it's over on the *most* intelligent city list (#3). Go figure.

[MARTYB]

05:06 AM on 12/06/2010

Some how or another i think they should have factored in the violence levels as well because it surely is less brainy to commit random violence and mayhem on your fellow human beings "just because". Then this would be a more fair/accurate accounting as a lot of these places have low violent crime rates, i can take a little less "brainy" over mindless violence anyday.

[Zachary S Campbell]

03:08 PM on 12/10/2010

Yakima has an insane crime rate.

[gevan]

05:03 AM on 12/06/2010

Rick Perry better take another look at his education budget.

[Jessica Wieland]

04:11 AM on 12/06/2010

I think that it is cold to calculate the intelligence of a town based off of a mathmatical equation. I was raised in Visalia, CA, and I now live in Davis, CA, a city in which the population holds some of the highest concentrations of professional degrees in the U.S., and they are no more "educated" than Visalians. Visalia, and many of the other CA cities listed, are located in areas with very little opportunity and in poor communities. Basically, if you have a high level degree, it's pretty useless in Visalia, when people want more they leave. I feel that this "calculation" is inadequate, as it doesn't factor in some very imperative variables.

[viriatus]

08:17 PM on 12/07/2010

It is a study based on very crude equations. As a former resident of both Visalia and Davis I have to give it some weight based on empirical observation. But for the three years I lived in Davis the town had a population of roughly 36K people. Of these 16K plus were UCD undergraduates (myself included) 7K were UCD graduate students, and 6K were UCD staff (including faculty). So 29K out of 36K or ~80% were affiliated with UCD in some fashion, but hardly a "normal" town. I know the population of Davis is probably much higher today, but I will bet the same ratio holds. But if you took UCD out and Davis were a typical town in the area, it would be like Woodland and its demographics would look a lot like Visalia.

[JoellexRenee]

03:22 AM on 12/06/2010

Modesto, Laredo, Visalia, Yakima, Hickory, Fort Smith, McAllen-Edinburg are all predominantly white. Thats 70% of the list, so everyone can stop whimpering about the immigrant towns being targeted.

[Emmy2]

08:03 AM on 12/06/2010

I'm not among those doing the "whimpering", but it's true that the dropout rate is highest for Hispanics. Of the cities you list, according to the 2000 US Census, Laredo is #2 among US cities for percentage of Hispanics, at 94%; McAllen is #5, with 80% Hispanic. Brownsville, also on the list in the article, is #3, at 91% Hispanic. Since the article is using educational level in its calculations and Hispanics currently have the highest dropout rate, these numbers make intuitive sense.

[Dooogs]

03:45 PM on 12/06/2010

You are far off base there. Recent Census data ranks whites among the minority in Modesto and Visalia. Check your facts. White population in these cities is less than 20%, majority is hispanic, and yes hispanics have the highest drop out rates and most are uneducated farm laborers. A good portion of second generation hispanics in these areas are gang bangers that dropped out after 8th grade.

[CharleyAD]

11:52 PM on 12/06/2010

For those of us in "these" towns who chose to move back and do something about this issue, the real losers are those of you with narrow minds and stereotypes guiding your every move. I live in Merced, I am Hispanic, I am college educated, I don't do drugs. In fact I work to provide a different example for those growing up in Merced. That you can be successful, raise a good family and enjoy life despite your surroundings and in the long run change things for the better. I work with students, plenty of them examples for the rest of our country on how to be outstanding citizens. I am tired of people using 2% to 5% of the people as an example to hold up for the rest of a group. Everyone would be in trouble if I felt all white people were as narrow-minded as Rush Limbaugh. Take a step back and gauge reality by reality not a poll or data collected from someone who couldn't find Merced in a car!

[Ryan Ruiz]

01:49 AM on 12/06/2010

It's funny that "poor" or "dumb" areas tend to be Republican voting communities, when being poor and dumb goes against everything Republican conservatism stands for. I think that whole "religious right" has skewed the intelligence of the voter base. Livin' on welfar