June 20, 2011
GoLocal's Rankings
So GoLocalProv is trying to find the "Best Community" in Rhode Island, huh? I suppose it is a clever way to drive website traffic (and media discussion) throughout the week by releasing your findings in pieces. Especially when you put each ranking as it's own discrete web page, thereby amplifying web clicks, page views, etc. But when you try to quantify such things, you end up relying on, well, what's quantifiable and ignoring aesthetics and the like. That's how you end up with a list that says Central Falls is "better than" Block Island. Yikes.
Central Falls safety rating: 30
Block Island Safety rating: 38
Umm what.
(I also consider it much MUCH too simplistic to rate a broad category like "safety" using only crime statistics, but nothing we can do about it now. Maybe I'm biased like that, but then again there isn't enough hallucinogens available to make me rate BI behind CF, so maybe I'm the rational one after all?)
Posted by: EMT at June 20, 2011 10:14 PMAnd here I thought all along that there is only one best, some betters, many averages, some worse, and only one worst. So I guess at number 39, Woonsocket is the best worst place to live.
It reminds me of the "scoreless' soccer games where the adults pretend they don't know the score, while the kids are keenly aware of who's beating who.
Posted by: swamper at June 20, 2011 10:14 PM