“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the smartest of them all?” That was the question posed by the Daily Beast this week, and San Jose and the rest of the Bay Area came in at an impressive 2nd place!

The piece opened with the self-evident assertion that it’s not wealth or sports prowess but brain power that marks a great city in the 21st century—although the Bay Area has plenty of that. It is the world center of technological innovation, fed by some of the top schools in the country (even despite budget cuts). In fact, it has the highest percentage of people with both bachelor and graduate degrees nationwide.

But that was only half of the equation. The region ranked high for “intellectual vigor” (measured in terms of non-fiction book sales) and number of institutes of higher education per capita.

So why only second place (as any nagging mother might wonder)? Surprisingly, the region did not do so well in terms of one factor—political engagement, as measured by the number of people who voted in the recent presidential elections. One can only wonder whether we would be first if measured in terms of campus activism or involvement on a state and local level.

The surprising first place did not go to Boston, even though with Harvard and all that, it is often considered the intellectual capital of the country (Boston trailed us in third place). It went to Raleigh, North Carolina, an up-and-coming center and the hub of the Triangle of schools and high tech industries. The top ten cities were:
Raleigh-Durham
San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose
Boston
Minneapolis-St. Paul
Denver
Hartford-New Haven
Seattle-Tacoma
Washington, D.C.
Portland
Baltimore

But—we have the best weather.

Read More at the Daily Beast.