Finally!  A city ranker I can get behind.

This morning The Daily Beast released it’s list of the 57 “craziest” cities in the United States.  The ranking was based on psychiatrists per capita (ATL rank: 46), stress (ATL rank: 33), eccentricity (ATL rank: 24) and drinking (ATL rank: 38).  Overall, Atlanta ranked 46th on the list, making us not all that crazy by comparison…though we were still nuttier than Charlotte and it’s 55th placing.

Atlanta’s token “crazy law” is: Crazy Law: “It is illegal to make faces at schoolchildren while they are studying”, which was pulled from this website.

If you’re wondering how you rank “eccentricity”, the Beast got the help of travel writer “and student of all things eccentric, Mike Barish”.

Cincinnati ranked as the nation’s “craziest city”, while Salt Lake ranked dead last at #57.

Got ours in yesterday’s mail along with our 2010 Census.  Who else out there has been tapped?

How would you evaluate Decatur’s overall performance and amenities today vs. two years ago?

This morning the Georgia Department of Education announced that Decatur High School ranked as both an “AP Merit School” and an “AP Challenge School” in 2009.

• To qualify as an “AP Merit School” a school must have “at least 20% of students taking AP exams and at least half of the AP exams scoring a 3 or higher.”
• To qualify as an “AP Challenge School” a school must have “fewer than 900 students” and offer “AP classes in the four core areas of English, Mathematics, Social Studies and Science.”

Down a place from last year, Decatur’s Brick Store Pub ranked as the 6th best beer bar in the world for 2010 on RateBeer’s annual list.  Amongst U.S. beer bars, BSP was second only to Redlight Redlight in Orlando (#4 in the world) for the second year in a row.

The other Atlantan on the list is HopCity Craft Beer & Wine at 1000 Marietta Street, which ranked 23rd in the world among beer retailers.

Amongst the best brewers in the “world” – from an American perspective – Three Floyds came out on top, while new-to-Georgia Founders came in 4th, a place ahead of another relatively Georgia newbie Bell’s.

The best individual beers list for 2010 can be found here.  I won’t even pretend to know what I’m taking about with that list.

h/t: Dirty South Beer Club (via Lain)

Photo courtesy of the City of Decatur

Mandated reflection time!

Anyone want to take a guess at the top 10 DM posts of 2009? (And by “top” I mean, “most clicked on”.)

Hint:  Top posts often times have a lot of comments, because obviously you have to click on a post to see comments, but that isn’t a hard and fast rule.  There are other ways to be #1.

Whatcha got?

One of last year’s winners

The city’s Cheryl Burnette writes in reminding us that the judging for “Decorate Decatur” is just around the corner.

On Sunday December 20th, a set of anonymous judges will troll the four square miles of Decatur and decide who among the decorated homes and businesses deserves the coveted House Cup…I mean Commissioner’s Cup.  (The cup itself is so coveted that it was quite a struggle to get the cup away from last year’s winner.)

Other homes and businesses will also be declared winners and though no cup-honors will be awarded, they will receive braggy signage.

And if your neighbor is asking you to help them get guaranteed attention from the judges (or you just have a favorite house), call 678-553-6573 and leave the address.

Disclaimer: Decorate Decatur does not encourage residents or non-residents to decorate property which is not their own.  Decorating your neighbor’s property without permission may result in a termination of friendship, a lack neighborly hellos at the mailbox, or gaudy retaliation.

Don writes in…

CSD wants to be recognized as a top 10 districts in the nation. I note that US News doesn’t list DHS among the top 29 of GA high schools. To be fair, Walton HS and Lakeside HS are missing, too, and I think they’ve got good reps. I’m hoping someone with more knowledge can explain why US News’s methodology may exclude DHS. Thanks

29 Georiga schools made the list, with Redan High School in Stone Mountain is the only high school in DeKalb County to register.

And to help you gather background info, the ranking methodology can be found in full here.  Here’s the summary…

A three-step process determined the best high schools. The first two steps ensured that the schools serve all their students well, using state proficiency standards as the benchmarks. For those schools that made it past the first two steps, a third step assessed the degree to which schools prepare students for college-level work.

Just released by CSD’s Maria Lewis…

Decatur, GA (2009) – State School Superintendent Kathy Cox recently recognized 27 schools from across the state as Georgia Schools of Excellence for the 2009 school year. Among these schools, Carl G. Renfroe Middle School was honored as one of 13 schools that have exhibited the greatest gains in student achievement over the past 5 years. Student achievement was measured through assessments in the areas of reading and mathematics.

“I am so incredibly proud of the teachers, staff and students of Renfroe Middle School for their good hard work that gave us the opportunity to be named a Georgia School of Excellence!,” said Renfroe Principal Bruce Roaden. “Only eight middle schools in the state were awarded with this honor. I am so pleased that the things we do on behalf of our students every day have been recognized.”

Georgia Schools of Excellence winners are honored in two categories, “Greatest Gains” and “Top 10%”. All of the 2009 Georgia Schools of Excellence will be honored at a banquet on February 5th at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle reported on this latest Forbes ranking yesterday, but I didn’t bite because honestly I’m getting a little tired with these things.  But hey, when your city ranks as #1 most toxic in the country, I guess that’s worth mentioning, right?

However, Atlanta could have never achieved such an elevated position without the help of a few neighbors.  From the Forbes article…

Crowded urban areas are often thought of as the most polluted, but the latter isn’t always caused by the former. While the Atlanta metro area takes top honors for toxicity, don’t blame the city alone. The Atlanta metro includes the cities of Sandy Springs and Marietta, the sites of chemical plants, metal coaters and concrete factories. The cities have toxic-release levels equal at or higher than those Atlanta, in spite of populations that are 15% and 13% the size of Atlanta’s, respectively.

“Hey you kids!  Get off my lawn!   No, seriously get off the lawn…that soil will melt your sneakers!”

Thanks to Eric for bringing this back onto my radar.

As noted in this morning’s AJC, the latest and greatest “American Community Survey” has just been released by the Census bureau, and while there’s no listing for the city of Decatur, there is a breakout for the City of Decatur School District.  As the AJC notes…

For the first time, this ongoing statistical portrait of America included information from geographic areas with a population of less than 60,000. The 2010 census and the ACS will help determine the distribution of more than $400 billion in federal tax funds yearly.

So without further ado, here are some random estimates about us, in no particular order.

• 326 females had a baby in the last year (give or take 154 babies), with the 35-50 year old demographic birthing the most babies.
• There are around 1,500 veterans inside the city limits (give or take 469 veterans)
• English (18.9%) , Irish (14.8%) and German (14.6%) are the largest ancestry groups.
• 69% of us commuted to work in a car, alone.  7% took public transit, 4.5% walked and 9.6% worked at home.
• 38% of Decaturites live in households that make in excess of $100,000 a year.
• Over half the city’s housing stock was built prior to 1959.
• 42% of households have one car, while 6% have three or more.
• Decatur is 57.5% female, 73.5% white and 22.8% black.