THE LIVABLE CITIES ALMANAC by John...

THE LIVABLE CITIES ALMANAC by John Tepper Marlin (HarperPerennial: $14). This smug and often silly collection of miscellaneous data about urban areas in the United States offers some surprising facts, e.g. interstate highways with low volumes of traffic have higher mortality rates than heavily traveled roads. But it primarily serves as an object lesson in the folly of attempting to quantify subjective judgments. One hundred American cities are ranked according to a highly arbitrary system that ignores both their cultural resources and the long-term effects of their climates. As a result, Marlin draws some very odd conclusions: He names Anchorage the second-healthiest city in America (Honolulu comes in first), although the description suggests he’s never even visited the place, let alone tried to live there. Los Angeles-Long Beach ranks 28th--behind Sacramento (10) Boise (18), Des Moines (19), Little Rock (23) and El Paso (24). The geographically imaginative description of Glendale as “a suburb to the north of Los Angeles and enveloped by Beverly Hills, Burbank and Pasadena” destroys what little faith the reader may have retained in the book. It’s worth noting that Marlin lives in New York City (No. 89 on the list), where he presumably watches “Glendale, 90210” on Thursday nights.