Publication: The Chattanooga Pulse, collaboration 5 July 2006

Link: http://www.chattanoogapulse.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/07/05/44a958a7e677c?in_archive=1

Genre: Feature

Trivial Pursuit: Chattanooga Edition

The numbers on (almost) everything you want to know about the Scenic City

Come on. You know how it is when you find out some interesting fact. You run
around and tell all your friends and start great conversations and bask in popular glory. In
that spirit, The Pulse presents as many rankings, ratings and statistics about Chattanooga
as was logistically feasible to gather in a week. Our hope is not just to make you popular
(although that would be a happy side effect) but to also spark some serious conversations
about the city. So, teacher salaries. Discuss.

STUDY: Migraine Hot Spots

DESCRIPTION: Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s heaps of fried food, maybe it’s the road
construction, but something is giving this city headaches. At least, that’s what Sperling’s
BestPlaces determined in March 2006, when they used rate of migraine-related drug
prescriptions and lifestyle, environmental and food factors to compose their list of
“Migraine Hot Spots.”
#8 Chattanooga
#4 Knoxville
#6 Nashville
#7Tricities (Johnson City, Bristol, Kingsport)
#1 Cincinnati
SOURCE: Sperling’s BestPlaces 2006

STUDY: US City Sustainability Rankings

DESCRIPTION: SustainLane looked at twelve factors, such as clean air, water and
efforts to address environment toxins, in 25 cities across the country to determine which
city is the most Earth-friendly. Bet those emissions tests gave us major points.
#21 Chattanooga
#1 San Fransisco
SOURCE: SustainLane 2005

STUDY: Most Challenging Places to Live with Asthma

DESCRIPTION: SustainLane claims we’ve got pretty clean air, but the Asthma and
Allergy Foundation of America suggests otherwise. The AAFA looked at prevalence, risk
and medical factors and found that if you live in Chattanooga, you might want to keep
your inhaler handy.
RANKINGS:
#43 Chattanooga
#1 Scranton, PA
#11 Knoxville
#19 Memphis
#67 Nashville
SOURCE: Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America 2006

STUDY: Safest Drivers

DESCRIPTION: Safe Hands, Schmafe Hands. Based on average number of years drivers
went without an accident, AllState found that Chattanoogans really listened during driver
education. My question—have they ever been on the Ridgecut during rush hour? Yeah.
Didn’t think so.
RANKINGS:
#5 Chattanooga
#1Sioux Falls, SD
#6 Knoxville
SOURCE: AllState, found in the New York Times, June 2006

STUDY: Best Road Conditions

DESCRIPTION: Measuring state performance and highway and bridge conditions,
among other measures, Expansion Management and Logistics found that Chattanooga’s
roads make for smooth sailing. Please note that Atlanta beat us. They obviously didn’t
include traffic.
RANKINGS:
#48-Chattanooga
#6-Atlanta
#119-Nashville
#151-Memphis
(they didn’t have a number 1…?)
SOURCE: Expansion Management and Logistics Today 2005

STUDY: Best City for Relocating Families

DESCRIPTION: Forget how easy it is to live there. How simple is it to move? Falling
into the medium-city category, we couldn’t compete against our bigger city brothers like
Knoxville and Atlanta, but here’s how we did out of 50 cities with populations of
250,000-500,000.
RANKINGS:
#38 Chattanooga
#1 Boulder/ Longmont, CO
#8 Clarksville, TN
#7 Lexington, KY
#31 Huntsville, AL
SOURCE: Worldwide Employee Relocating Council and Primacy Location 2005

STUDY: Top 50 Best City Nicknames

DESCRIPTION: Tagline Guru took 1,200 entries, narrowed them down to 350
nominations, and sent them to 100 advertising, marketing and branding professionals
across the country, and the Scenic City made the cut. Oh wait, that should be the Dynamo
of Dixie. That’s right. When Chattanooga still reigned as industrial hub of the South, its
nickname was Dynamo of Dixie, as the neon sign above the Market Street bridge
proclaimed. When the city got rid of the factories and pollution, it swapped its nickname
for something a little less spunky.
RANKINGS:
#24 Chattanooga with Dynamo of Dixie
#1 New York City with the Big Apple
#14 Nashville with the Protestant Vatican
#35 Canon, GA with the Big Gun
#50 Knik, AK with the Dog Mushing Center of the World
SOURCE: Taglilne Guru 2005

STUDY: Best Skyline

DESCRIPTION: In a super official, scientific study, SkyScraper City determined the
best city outlines based on “total number of meters abover 90 for all buildings, including
those currently under construction.” Our favorite skyline comes in just one place below
its population ranking.
RANKINGS:
#139 Chattanooga
#1 New York City
#6 Atlanta
#33 Nashville
#52 Birmingham
#122 Knoxville
SOURCE: SkyScraper City 2005

STUDY: Boomtowns ’06: Hottest Midsize Cities

DESCRIPTION: Yes, it’s probably 93 degrees outside, but no, that’s not what Inc.
Magazine ranked. They used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to determine which
city’s job market, out of sixty, was just bursting with opportunities. Out of the 393 total
cities studied, regardless of size, Chattanooga came in 224th.
RANKINGS:
#54 Chattanooga
#1Cape Coral-Ft Meyers, FL
#23 Knoxville
#35 Montgomery, AL
#55 Augusta-Richmond County, GA
SOURCE: Inc. Magazine, May 2006

STUDY: Linux Users in Tennessee

DESCRIPTION: Does this have a purpose? Not really. But leave it to Linux to determine
how many people, at any given system are on their impossible-to-use computer operating
system. Then, divide the number of users by population and bam! You have a ranking.
Here were the numbers on June 22, 2006 at 15:47:51:
#7-Chattanooga with 13 users
#1-Maryville with 8 users
#3- Knoxville with 40 users
#6-Nashville with 47 users
#43-Soddy Daisy with 2 users
SOURCE: Linux Counter Project 2006

STUDY: Population Growth in US Cities of 100,000 or More

DESCRIPTION: 251 US cities, with at least 100,000 residents, ranked by increase or
decrease in population between April 2000 and July 2004. But isn’t Chattanooga easy to
relocate to? Isn’t it one of the hottest midsize cities? Sustainable? Best for kids? Great for
business? What’s going on?
RANKINGS:
#194 Chattanooga
#1 Gilbert, AZ
#137 Knoxville
#163 Atlanta
#178 Nashville
#246 Birmingham
SOURCE: boston.com for The Boston Globe, June 30, 2005. Based on data from the
2000 US Census.

STUDY: Tennessee’s Most Business-Friendly Cities

DESCRIPTION: Based on factors such as community allure, minimal local business tax
burden, workforce skill/value and strategic location business amenities, Tennessee’s 50
largest cities were ranked so that you will never wonder where to become an
entrepreneur. Soddy Daisy and Red Bank ranked above Chattanooga. Take from that
what you will.
RANKINGS:
#38 Chattanooga
#1 Farragut
#15 Nashville
#34 Knoxville
#50 Memphis
SOURCE: Tennessee Center for Policy Research, March 9 2006

STUDY: US City Populations

DESCRIPTION: It’s a simple question, really. How big are we? 155, 554. New York, by
contrast, has 8,008,278 people. That’s _____Chattanoogas (I need a calculator). And
keep in mind, this is within city limits only.
RANKINGS:
#129 Chattanooga
#1 New York City
#25 Nashville with 545, 524
#39 Atlanta with 416, 474
#71 Birmingham with 242, 820
#117 Knoxville with173, 890
SOURCE: US Census Bureau

STUDY: Binge Drinking

DESCRIPTION: CDC researchers analyzed 1997 and 1998 Behavioral Risk Factor
Surveillance System Data for120 cities in the 48 states and DC, and ranked them
according to percentage of people who binge drink, defined as consumption of five or
more beverages within a few hours. The national average is 14.5%, and Chattanooga
pulled in with the lowest percentage of binge drinkers at 4.1%. Woo-hoo last place!
RANKINGS:
#120—Chattanooga
#1—San Antonio
SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health May 2004- data from CDC

STUDY: Cancer Rates

DESCRIPTION: This compilation of data includes all incidences of all kinds of cancer,
for all races and genders, divided by county.
NUMBERS:
Hamilton 1601
Knox 1673
Davidson 2450
Shelby 3076
Tennessee 24, 985
National 1,334,100
SOURCE: Tennessee Cancer Registry and American Cancer Society, 2003

STUDY: Unemployment Rates

DESCRIPTION: Chattanooga’s unemployment rate is slightly below the national
average, and it’s been exactly the same the past two years. Interesting since our poverty
rate is pretty far above the national average.
NUMBERS:
Hamilton County 4.4%
Tennessee 5.2%
U.S. 4.5%
SOURCE: Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce 2006

STUDY: Per capita money income

DESCRIPTION: The Pulse’s did their very own comparitive study to find out that
Chattanoogan’s per capita income is on par with the national average.
NUMBERS:
Chattanooga $19,689
Birmingham $15, 663
Knoxville $18,171
Nashville $22, 018
STUDY: Poverty Rates
DESCRIPTION: All of these good unemployment rates and average per capita income
doesn’t mean that Chattanoogans are living the highlife. Chattanooga’s poverty rates are
5-6 percent above state and national averates. Furthermore, a ranking of 245 US Cities in
order of percentage of people under 18 living in poverty, with the last city having the
highest instance of under-18 poverty, found Chattanooga at number 184.
NUMBERS:
17.9% Chattanooga
13.5% Tennessee
12.5% National average
SOURCE: Children’s Defense Fund, based on the 2000 US Census and US Census
Bureau’s City Quickfacts

STUDY: Crime statistics

DESCRIPTION: Unlike its city brothers, almost all of Chattanooga’s crime statistics
dropped from 2004 to 2005. The only crime that threw off our perfect record was murder;
the city saw fifteen more this year. Hey, at least we don’t live in Nashville. Because,
according to these statistics, we’re also more likely to die in the Protestant Vatican.
NUMBERS: --insert excel spreadsheet here--
SOURCE: FBI Uniform Crime Reports 2005

STUDY: People Living with HIV or AIDS

DESCRIPTION: The following numbers are as of the end of March 2004. The 2005
report comes out later this year.
NUMBERS:
Hamilton County 1200
Tennessee 12, 329
U.S. 1.2 million
COMMENTS:
1200 out of 1.2 million might seem miniscule, but according to Jerry Evans,
Prevention Education Manager at Chattanooga Cares, 34% of the nation’s existing cases,
and 41% of new infections, come from the Southeast. “One reason is the disproportionate
number of African Americans,” he says, “they account for 19 % of Chattanooga’s
population and 51% of new cases. A lot of this stems from poverty. One quarter of
Chattanooga’s African Americans live in poverty.”
Besides that, people just tend to ignore HIV prevention education. “People are
unwilling to listen,” Evans said. “You know, we are in the Bible Belt, and there’s a large
stick-your-head-in-the-sand mentality. There’s a stigma.” While in more urban areas like
Memphis and Nashville, the ratio of homosexuals to heterosexuals with HIV is about
equal, in Chattanooga, the number of gay males with HIV is still slightly higher. And
many conservatives would rather ignore that Brokeback Mountain.
SOURCE: Chattanooga Cares

STUDY: Homeless
DESCRIPTION: Calculating the exact number of homeless people in an area is a
daunting task. Those surveys usually depend on, well, addresses, and many people
experience homelessness only for a temporary period; 37% of the nation’s homeless work
full or part-time, paying rent as they can afford it. The following figures are estimates,
based largely upon the number of people to use homeless services in a year. NUMBERS:
Chattanooga—9,000
National—3.5 million
COMMENTS: These numbers reflect a significant increase from the Homeless
Coalition’s last survey in 2003, which found that 4,300 people used homeless services in
2002. Why the jump? “One reason is that we’ve had an increase in those partaking in our
information services,” said John Doris, executive director of the Homeless Coalition,
“Also, the poverty rate keeps rising. Unemployment is the number one cause of
homelessness. The really poor just keep getting poorer.”
SOURCE: The Homeless Coalition, 2005, and the National Coalition for the Homeless,
2006

STUDY: Meth Lab Seizures

DESCRIPTION: In 2005, Tennessee accounted for 75% of meth lab seizures in the
Southeast. After the Meth Free Tennessee Act of 2005, which is why you can only buy
one Sudafed at a time, for example, caused a drop in those numbers. The South/ East
Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force (SETMTF) seized 385 less labs in 2005 than in
2004. Hamilton County, first in the state, saw 109 meth lab seizures in 2004. And after
the bill?
NUMBERS:
Hamilton County—76
Tennessee—1,201
National—12, 185
COMMENTS: “We’ve got a lot of open area, lot of rural communities, and typically, for
cooking, that’s where a lot of meth manufacturing is done. Sometimes economics play a
role, because you can get high for not a whole lot of money. And once you’re addicted,
you’re really addicted. You spread your knowledge everywhere. Meth, like everything
else, came from California. A guy brought it into Franklin County and it just spread
immediately down here, and then into the rest of the state. Our hot spots are still in this
corner of the state…The vast majority of the decrease of meth lab seizures can be
attributed to the [Meth Free Tennessee Act]. It’s an awesome law.
--Jim Derry of the Tennessee National Guard Counter Drug Division and the
SETMTF on why Southeast Tennessee is such a meth hot spot.
SOURCE: South/ East Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force and MSNBC, 2004

STUDY: Family Statistics

DESCRIPTION: In 1997, Chattanooga’s divorce rates were 50% higher than the national
average, and we had the 5th highest out of wedlock birth rate. Believing that the family
was a city’s corner stone, community leaders got together to form First Things First, a
non-profit organization with a mission to promote family values in the Chattanooga
community. They’ve done their job, but Chattanooga’s divorce rate still typically doubles
the state, and nearly triples the national, average. The following percentages reflect the
number of divorces per 1000 people.
NUMBERS:
Chattanooga’s Divorce Rate 10.4%
Tennessee 4.7%
U.S. 3.7%
Out of wedlock births in Hamilton County-1,615 (40.6%)
Births in Hamilton County—3,979
U.S.—44.9 births per 1000 unmarried women (34.6%)
COMMENTS:
“Since 1997 in Hamilton County, there has been a 33.6% decrease in divorce filings, a
25.4% decrease in the divorce rate, and as far as teen out of wedlock births go, there has
been a 26% decrease. [Our program] contributes to that but we don’t take credit for it,
because there are far too many things contributing, like people moving in and out of the
area.” –Julie Baumgardner, executive director of First Things First
SOURCE: First Things First and National Center for Health Statistics, 2004

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