smart and dense

Are people in big cities smarter than people in towns like Bakersfield or Ames, Iowa? If we can't demonstrate conclusively that they're smarter, are they at least better educated? That's what this graph appears to be telling us. (Click on the graph to see a larger, legible view of it.)

What jumps out are the numbers for San Francisco and New York, whose residents are miles ahead of everybody else in education, sophistication, and wine-and-cheese parties.

Or are they?

The problem with that graph -- and its authors don't tell you this -- is that San Francisco and New York City have the greatest population density of any American cities. They're number two and number one respectively, both with billions and billions of people crowded into every square mile. And among those billions there are probably just as many dull and semi-literate people as geniuses and Ph.D.'s.

However, it is true that besides being more likely to work as heart surgeons, attorneys, or board-certified psychotherapists, New Yorkers and San Franciscans also have lighter carbon footprints than any other Americans. Contrary to what we usually think, it's not rural and small-town folks who are treading most lightly on the earth, but the inhabitants of what Atrios calls "the urban hellholes."

And those are some impressive college degree numbers NY and SF have put up.

Graph schnorred from Barry Ritholtz's economics blog, "The Big Picture."