Pittsburgh #5 City Least Prepared for Disaster?

[LIRefugee]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Just a reminder, this program is specifically about a bioterrorism event, not natural disasters.

The problem is that the article's title, "America's Most And Least Disaster-Proof Cities", doesn't exactly make that specificity clear. It makes the impression that the article is dealing with disasters in general, not a specific type of disaster. You'd have to read to the fourth paragraph to even get a hint that it's talking about biological warfare, and then ends once again with a paragraph that is rather generic. It's misleading at best, and I am sure it was designed to attract more hits. I wonder how many skip the text and look at the pretty pictures.

On a side note, the picture representing Portland, ME, is rather amusing. That could be anywhere that has boats and lovers in close proximity.

So who's ready to flee to Schenectady?

[BrianTH]

Forbes is clearly scraping the bottom of the barrel for ranking ideas.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by LIRefugee

It's misleading at best, and I am sure it was designed to attract more hits. I wonder how many skip the text and look at the pretty pictures.

Of course, as are all the Top Ten lists. The whole "Top Ten" trend had some legitimacy when it started, but in the last year or so they've all been misleading and nothing more than a way to attract eyeballs. IMO, of course.

[LIRefugee]

We need a "Top Ten Most Useless Top Ten Lists" list. I think they serve best as a way to fill up space for an article without the writer having to do much actual writing or thinking.

Top Ten cities that begin with "P":

1. Pittsburgh
2. Philadelphia
3. Punxsutawney
4. Portland, ME
5. Portland, OR
6. Pueblo, CO
7. Pewaukee, WI
8. Petoskey, MI
9. Poughkeepsie, NY
10. Perpignan, France

That was easy. And, like the Forbes article, I won't bother to provide any detail as to the criteria that determined these rankings. What makes Pittsburgh 1 better than Fresno after all?