Design
Do Rankings Affect Our Opinions of Cities?
What we think about different places also depends on where we live
There's no shortage of information about cities. From population and unemployment to crime and traffic statistics, urban and regional data is swirling all around us. We're exposed to ranking after ranking, from the best places to raise families, to the metro areas with the best public transportation or local restaurant scene, all the way down to less tangible measures like say, the worst-dressed cities.
But do we really internalize all this information in a meaningful way? Are our opinions of cities actually affected by statistics and rankings? Or is popular sentiment toward a city based more on nebulous, harder-to-quantify properties? Furthermore, how consistent are our opinions of cities? Do they vary from region to region?