January 6, 2009

At least they didn't spell it "sirveigh"

I think the people who conceived and/or executed this survey are a little dumb.

Here's why I say that: If you're attempting to reveal the cities Americans named as our "favorite and least favorite cities to live and work" - never mind that the phrase is missing a well-placed "in which" - you might want to make sure you wind up with two distinct lists.

I'm no statistician, but I'd think a credible survey would produce 10 cities on the favorites list and - see if you can follow me here - 10 different cities on the lineup of least favorites.

Not this survey, which tells us that exactly four out of 10 - again, not a statistician, but that's gotta be right around 40 percent - four out of 10 cities that the greatest number of respondents are dying to live in are also among the 10 cities where we really don't want to live.

For the record, Chicago (which surely deserves its place on the faves list), Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York were named in both Top 10s. Or the Top 10 and the Bottom 10. Or whatever.

On the other hand, the report does include the astute revelation that "Detroit has a bit of an image problem." Ya' think?

Now that I think about it, that observation about Detroit makes the news item my favorite one of the year, as well as my least favorite.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

funny stuff. however, if people were polled & these were their responses, then that's what they published. for example, a lot of people can think l.a. is great, while a whole other bunch think it sucks.
you could be a statistician! don't sell yourself short. very good observations!
:)

Anonymous said...

P.S. after thinking more about it (clearly it's a slow day at home) i have to say: the point of a survey is to publish peoples' opinions and therefore not to alter results if the opinions come out screwy/non-sensical (did i spell those correctly?!) so, however silly the results may seem to have many of the same cities be favorites & least favorites, at least the publisher of the survey didn't f*** with the results just to make them seem less stupid. obviously you know all this, i'm just sayin'....

Your escalator operator said...

Wow. I didn't realize SFTC could be so thought-provoking. They just should have presented this differently, instead of calling them the most and least favorite cities. That was the simplest (and most simple-minded) way to summarize the intent, but it's wrong.

Anonymous said...

i'm a simple-minded person who likes things presented as they came out, so it's all good by me. most people in this lovely country of ours are simple-minded too (such a nice way to put it - not what i would have chosen) so it works for them, if i may be so bold as to speak for the simple-minded people.
:)