Access Atlanta > The Newcomer > Archives > 2008 > September > 16
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Attack of the magazine rankings!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta’s skyline doesn’t rank so high, apparently, but I’d hate to think a reader who doesn’t know better thinks it doesn’t exist. I think it’s beautiful.
Depending what you read and maybe the company you keep, Atlanta is a great city for singles because we can all get jobs and maybe ‘cause we’ve got good college educations? And North Druid Hills (yeah, I’m still looking for it, too) is particularly awesome. Except not, because we’re unromantic.
We’re affordable, but our winter holiday celebrations are bunk. (Ditto for Thanksgiving.) We have terrible traffic, but that’s OK, because we’re wired! Whatever that means!
MAKE IT STOP.
All these magazine rankings of the best-this and worst-that need to go away. At very least, give us a break from the reputation-defining data sets.
It’s an old publishing trick: if you want people to pay attention, make a list. If you want them to talk about it later, list them in some order that supposedly matters. I don’t blame a magazine for going with numbers and lists — statistics are convenient that way — but it’s not real.
This city is ranked, pigeonholed and judged in ways so far from reality, I wonder sometimes if we’re talking about the same place, good and bad. And every time one of these magazines hits news stands, I get a phone call asking/teasing: Is it true? Do you pick up your iPhone when you hit the city limits, locate the nearest semi-suburban Dunkin’ Donuts, meet Mr. Right over strawberry-filled pastry then hit the HOV lane together for a ride into the smog-induced sunset?
Yes. Absolutely. All true, down to the powdered sugar on the seats. Why do you think I live here?
It’s not that rankings aren’t fun. I’ve regularly pointed people toward these surveys and data sets in this blog. (Pretty over it right…about…now.) They’re good for a chuckle, a little argument, a vague sense of how things stack up — Best of Big A, anyone? — and really good for selling magazines.
I’m starting to worry that people really believe them. Even if they’re right, is that any way to learn?
Help me out: where do we really rank? I want to hear it from you, people who live here and know it well, or who came here to understand it. Never mind numbers — say it because you lived it.
Forget what magazines say: what’s Atlanta and the metro area really best and worst at?
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