The No. 5 spot is a fine finale for the debut summer of "Jersey Doesn't Stink," that grassroots marketing and self-esteem campaign under way via Facebook, YouTube, and billboards, one of them on (where else?) our renowned turnpike.
Plus, the Trenton-Ewing coup comes at the start of the fall season on TV, where New Jersey "reality" shows are so numerous they deserve their own Emmy category.
(Perhaps our state's beleaguered public television system, which Trenton's Brainy Bunch so yearns to "privatize," could become the New Jersey Reality Network. Steve Adubato, who has semi-big hair like seemingly everyone else in the "real" Garden State, could host.)
Back in the actual world, the "America's Brainiest" folks looked at 362 metropolitan areas and analyzed census and other data, including the population share of people with advanced degrees and the portion of total employment held by mathematicians and scientists.
Featured at www.thedailybeast.com, the top-20 list carries the imprimatur of respected researcher and celebrity academic Richard Florida, best known for his 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class. In it, Florida, now a University of Toronto professor, suggests that a certain diverse and critical mass of smart, savvy, mostly young hipsters is essential for any community's economic vitality.
I arrived in New Jersey nearly 30 years ago, when I was arguably far more hip and definitely far less old than I am now.
A transplant like me may not have as much skin in the Jersey game as, say, a certain tanning addict named Snooki (even though she's from somewhere near Poughkeepsie). But I'm nevertheless heartened by the results of the brainy survey, just as I continue to be disheartened by the incessant dissing of my adopted state (check out "who's bashing" on www.jerseydoesntstink.com).
