Back when I was a kid and Pittsburgh's papers used to make a fuss whenever it got named most livable city in the US (and this happened on average every two to three years), I was young and ill-informed and under the impression that this actually meant something. I wonder if Detroit was in the same position on those livable-city lists of my childhood? Were we always being made fools of, or is this a new game?

Detroit, #7 most livable city in America! If you're a twenty-something Patti Smith looking for a nicely grotty replacement for the Alphabet City of 1978, maybe. The best guess offered as to what's screwy with the metrics has to do with an inordinate weight placed on low-density housing and health services - which will tend to favor blasted industrial cities emptied out by imploded economies, yet still retaining the hospitals and alleged stocks of housing from the salad days of heavy industrialization.

h/t Instapundit. I'm starting to wonder how much he reads some of these links he's been passing along...