Durham ranks fourth in study of America's smartest cities

Step aside, Eureka—Durham was recently ranked one of the ten smartest cities in the United States. According to an article from the Huffington Post, Durham ranked fourth among 200 American cities in terms of brainpower.

The study, conducted by Portfolio using data from the American Community Survey, used a formula combining average level of higher education and the relative earning power of adults to assign each city a numerical value for overall intelligence.

First, a score was assigned to each of five different education levels based on the relative average earnings of adults with each education. For example, the median salary for an adult with just a bachelor’s degree is $46,805, 1.4 times the national median of $33,452. Thus, an adult with only a bachelor’s degree earns a score of 1.4 for his or her city. All scores were taken, and the average was computed. From this raw figure a final score for each city was computed, ranging from 3.941 for Boulder, Colorado, to -2.558 for Merced, California.

Durham, North Carolina earned a final score of 2.164, placing it just below third place Washington D.C. and above fifth place Fort Collins, Colorado. Although not every American city was included—Chapel Hill breathes a collective sigh of relief—Durham did rank ahead of nearby college towns such as Raleigh (#12) and Winston-Salem (#132).