Table 1: Best Places to Live in the United States
Eric Schulman
Alexandria, Virginia
The District of Columbia.
1. Introduction
The choice of where to live is a fundamental one in
today's society. Previous generations had limited opportunities
for relocation when compared to the present day. As a result,
many organizations now attempt to help people determine the best place
for them to live.
For example, in 2005 the Political
Economy Research Institute ranked the best
places to work in the United States (they found Delaware best and
Louisiana worst). One problem with these sorts of studies is that
they are typically designed to be applicable to as wide a range of
people as possible and are therefore not as useful to individuals who
are different from the general population.
We addressed this problem by determining
the best places to live in the United States for science humor fans in
general and for readers of the Annals of Improbable Research in
particular. We also determined the best places to live in the United
States for science humor foes in general and for people who
particularly do not want to read the Annals of Improbable Research.
2. Methods
We determined the best place to live in the United
States by comparing the number of libraries that
carry four particular science humor books (as of August 15, 2006) to
the total population (as of July 1,
2005) for
each state and the District of
Columbia (for the purposes of this paper, we shall hereafter count the
District of Columbia as a state, which means that in addition to being
able to cast three electoral votes for President and Vice President
every four years, the District shall also have one Representative and
two Senators with full voting rights in Congress). The four books we
chose were The Ig Nobel Prizes (IN1), The Best of Annals of Improbable Research
(BAIR), A Briefer History of Time
(BHT), and The Ig Nobel Prizes 2 (IN2).
We calculated the population-to-library ratio
(P/L) by dividing the population of each state in thousands by the
number of libraries that carried one of the four books. Libraries that
carried more than one of the four books were counted multiple times,
although libraries did not receive any additional credit for carrying
more than one copy of any of the books. P/L is therefore the number of
people (in thousands) per library that carries one of the books.
Table 1: Best Places to Live in the United States
4. Discussion
The best place to live for those who value science
humor is the District of Columbia, while Mississippi is the worst place
to live for such people. On the other hand, for those who dislike
science humor, Mississippi is a better place to live than the District
of Columbia by a factor of almost 37 (2.9 million people per library
carrying
one of the four books compared to the District of Columbia's 79
thousand people per library carrying one of the four books). Although
blue states are on average about 25 percent better places to live for
science humor fans than red states, six of the top 10 science humor
states and 12 of the top 20 science humor states are red.
For science humor fans wishing to live in a blue
state, the three best places to live are the District of Columbia,
Oregon, and Illinois. For science humor fans wishing to live in a red
state, the three best places to live are Iowa, Alaska, and Idaho. For
science humor foes wishing to live in a blue state, the three best
places to live are New York, Maryland, and New Jersey. For science
humor foes wishing to live in a red state, the three best places to
live are Mississippi, Kentucky, and Alabama.
5. Conclusion
For purposes of representation in Congress, the
District constituting the seat of government of the United States
should
be treated as though it were a State.