Philadelphia Weekly

A few weeks ago Forbes.com released yet another of its online lists. This time it was Best Cities for Singles. Philadelphia rated No. 22, sandwiched between Columbus, Ohio, and Tampa-St. Pete. A few weeks before that, Forbes.com named Philly the country's fourth-best city for home-buying. Just a few months before that, Forbes.com said Philly was the fifth-most miserable city in the country, which made the home-buying ranking strange. Why buy a home in a pit of misery?

In the last decade Philadelphia has been named one of the ugliest (Travel & Leisure), most walkable (walks core.com) and fattest (Men's Fitness) cities. We've been rated high for our farmer's markets (Travel & Leisure) and been called one of America's most underrated food towns (Saveur Magazine). Put that together with misery, home-buying and singles, and you get ... National Geographic Traveler's Next Great City.

A casual observer might dismiss these lists and labels as barroom fodder. But like it or not, they have an impact.

The fattest label, in particular, became a truism that still holds today, though Philadelphia is nowhere near this year's top 10. The stigma was a catalyst behind Mayor John Street's appointment of a Health and Fitness Czar.

That list, by Men's Fitness, had an impenetrable grading system based on categories like "motivation," climate" and "mayor and city initiatives." Shouldn't the methods be more rigorous? Or is science less important than provocation?

Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, understands the forces in play. "I used to work at

U.S. News & World Report," Rainie says. "[Rankings were] our bread and butter. U.S. News has hospital rankings. If you're a discerning reader you'll see that the hospitals that do well in the rankings trumpet the rankings."

And those that don't do well on lists?

"I love how indignant people get when Philadelphia does get called fat and ugly," says Meryl Levitz, president and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Commission. "Whenever we get a list like fat or ugly or this or that, we decide on an individual basis whether to respond. We beg to differ on certain things. We'll respond if it pays to do so. Travel & Leisure knocked us for something, but in [a different issue] two of our hotels were tops in the entire country. It just seems so whimsical."

Whimsy or no, lists are a big seller.

"There's a promotional aspect," says Rainie. "The publication wants to find a niche and make a name for itself. If you come up with a ranking scheme that's interesting, there's a marketing boost for the publication."

In the age of digital media, there's little limit to the amount of content a publication can crank out. Forbes.com specializes in list-making. In the last few months they ranked "Hard Drinking Cities," "Most Expensive Cities" and "Cities With the Most Home Equity," among others.

Forbes.com declined to make any of its list-writers available for comment, but managing editor Carl Lavin offered his justification for such pathological list-making.

Lavin used to live in Merion, so he's no stranger to Philly's defensiveness. He understands Philadelphians get mad when they feel belittled, but he maintains that Forbes.com's rankings are quantitative and transparent. In fact, his manner suggests he's used to fielding calls from reporters who want to know why Forbes.com ran their city through the wringer.

"There's a fascination among our audience to see how things stack up in one place and compare that to a group of peers," says Lavin. "Civic leadership and residents [are] best served by willingness to examine Philadelphia's terrific aspects and flaws in comparison with other cities."

It's also a part of the new media landscape. "Online, people like to receive information in a range of forms, including segmented forms--nonlinear forms," Lavin says. "People in print do that too."

But the Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation's media relations director Cara Schneider isn't so sure polls and lists lend themselves to easy interpretation.

"You can go and find a point or a contradictory point to any list you happen to see," she says. "We came in No. 25 out of 25 in Travel & Leisure's poll on attractiveness. They weren't voting for the ugliest city, but people read it as such." But Schneider takes it in stride. "I have to laugh. We invented the House and the Senate here; there's a long tradition of voting and polling in this town. I think someone ought to do a poll on all the things that don't show up in polls."

Michael Fichman last wrote abut Philadelphia's forgotten ballparks. Comments on this story can be sent to feedback@philadelphiaweely.com or posted to our website, www.philadelphiaweekly.com -->