The Idiocy of State Rankings

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/no-1-in-wine-and-porn/309445/

The Atlantic magazine, October 2013
Sommer Mathis Sep 18 2013

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The vast range of communities contained within the United States is one of our greatest assets, but it is also responsible for some of our silliest conclusions about ourselves. A scan of a given day’s headlines confirms that there’s nothing quite so irresistible as a juicy ranking, and for good reason. Who doesn’t want to know how their neighbors stack up against the rest of the country? Trouble is, comparing things like consumer habits among states that have tremendous differences in income, geographic footprint, natural resources, and—perhaps most fundamental—ratio of urban to rural populations is often a waste of time.

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This isn’t to say that all state rankings are worthless—it’s perfectly reasonable to compare states on, say, per capita education spending (as this magazine did just last year), or days of sunshine per year. But when it comes to tracking consumer behavior, it’s most logical to compare big cities with big cities, small cities with small cities, and otherwise economically and geographically similar regions with one another.

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