Watch CBS News

Lansing Region Named 16th Brainiest City In U.S.; Only Michigan City Noted

LANSING -- Atlantic magazine Thursday named Lansing No. 16 on the list of America's Brainiest Cities.

The criteria for this ranking differed from previous lists of this nature, using cognitive capacity as a key metric. A software program called Lumonsity tracked performance in memory, process speed, flexibility, attention and problem solving of more than one million users to collect their data.

"Higher cognitive performance scores, not surprisingly, were also associated with higher rates of innovation, greater concentrations of high-tech industry and high per capita incomes," noted the report.

"It seems every month the Lansing region climbs back onto the national stage, leading the way in economic development for the state of Michigan. This is just another bright sign of our successful efforts," said Bob Trezise, president and CEO of the Lansing Economic Area Partnership (LEAP).

More about LEAP at www.purelansing.com.

The article in The Atlantic was written by creative class guru Richard Florida. The story is at www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/06/americas-brainiest-cities/2132/#.

The story says Florida correlated the Luminosity data on brain performance with conventional measures of educational attainment, knowledge workers and other factors. The Lumosity data were significantly associated with both the share of adults with a bachelor's degree or greater (.56) and the percent engaged in knowledge and creative work (.45). Higher cognitive performance scores, not surprisingly, were also associated with higher rates of innovation, greater concentrations of high-tech industry and higher per capita incomes.

The story also says that the results are not driven principally by college students, according to Daniel Sternberg, the Lumosity data scientist who developed the metro brain performance measure.

"Since our analysis controlled for age, the reason they score well is not simply that they have a lot of young people," said Sternberg. "Instead, our analysis seems to show that users living in university communities tend to perform better than users of the same age in other locations."

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.