Reply To Most Sinful Cities

Most Sinful Cities
Forbes took it upon themselves to determine America's "most sinful cities," ranking us on lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.
Oregon doesn't seem to qualify, except possibly in Lust.
What do you think?
Link: Most Sinful Cities
Annette, Thursday, 2-21-08 10:52 AM
re: Most Sinful Cities
They used strange measurements, in my opinion. I would think strip clubs per capita, or something like that, would be a better indicator of "lust". Also, I don't think greed directly correlates with income. I guess they had to use the measures that were, well, measurable.

I am surprised Salt Lake came up in the list for envy, lust, and pride, yet Las Vegas only appeared on the list for sloth. I would have imagined they would have been on the list for a number of sins. They are known as "Sin City" after all.
Alyssa, Monday, 2-25-08 9:17 PM
re: Most Sinful Cities
The metrics were pretty shakey. David and I had a long conversation about it, actually - how we'd improve the metrics for Lust, Greed, and Rage especially. I don't think we considered Strip Clubs as a measurement, but that seems pretty reasonable. Other things you could measure is rape crimes (although they're under-reported) and possibly single, never-married mothers (i.e. children born out of wedlock.)

Using the murder rate for Rage seems rational, but the abortion rate ought also be added. ;)
Envy measured by property crimes is also a problem given the tendancy towards under-reporting in high-crime areas. Property insurance rates might help clean that metric up.

Oh, and Greed - we didn't think it at all reasonable to simply measure millionaires, especially when in locales with a high cost of living you might be rated a millionaire by simple virtue of owning a home, which isn't exactly "ready cash." Not to mention that simply acheiving financially does not equal greed, necessarily. There may be a high rate of corrolation, but it's hardly absolute.
Instead you could measure the rate of charitable giving corrolated with the median income. In other words, measure the Opposite of greed and then work backwards.

Pride we pretty much decided couldn't be measured at all: using cosmetic sales or even cosmetic surgery sales measures only vanity, not pride.
Annette, Wednesday, 2-27-08 10:44 AM
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