Take poll results, survey stats with many grains of salt

By Sharon Tubbs, City Times Editor


In print: Friday, May 2, 2008

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Our lives might be so much more clear cut if someone, somewhere wasn't always comparing us with everybody else.

I'm talking about those surveys and polls that consultants and number crunchers drum up and, yes, that journalists like me routinely write about.

Is Tampa, is Florida for that matter, a good place to live?

Well …

The surveys say the Tampa Bay area suits business owners, but isn't necessarily ideal for getting a job or owning a home.

And depending on which consultant you consult, Floridians are kind of smart. Then again, maybe not so much.

It's good to know where you stand, but the facts can get confusing.

It was one of those very unscientific Internet contests that got my attention to the madness of rankings. In a "quest to find the smartest city in the country," Tampa came in 11th place, a news release stated.

Ubisoft Entertainment, a California company, had partnered with the National Center for Family Literacy in the "Great American Word Challenge." Of course, it was a marketing gimmick intended to spark interest in Ubisoft's new game, My Word Coach. Players were given a definition and a word with a letter missing and asked to provide the missing letter.

I found the favorable ranking, albeit in fun, odd timing. It came within days of a St. Petersburg Times story that said Florida is among the largest states, but ranks 44 out of 50 for state appropriations to higher education. The information came from a Chronicle of Higher Education study.

Another study, by site-selection consultant KPMG, recently ranked the Tampa Bay area the third most affordable place to do business among 27 metro areas. Turns out, we have relatively low labor and building costs.

Yay!

Not so fast — you may not be able to work for those businesses.

Numbers released early last month revealed a gloomy picture of unemployment for the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area with the ranks of the jobless growing fast, compared with other major metro areas.

And the Tampa Bay area was ranked ninth riskiest for home price declines, according to mortgage insurer PMI Group Inc.

So as the value of your house plummets and you lose your job, you may be able to start a new business …

After all, you'll need some way to pay for your new hybrid car.

According to a survey, Florida ranks second, only to California, in the number of hybrids registered.

And cars apparently rule. In December, the Times reported on a national survey of 30 major metropolitan areas that ranked the Tampa Bay area dead last for walkability. In 2006, the state ranked second in the number of biking deaths, behind California.

But after City Times reported those facts again a few weeks ago, an alert reader pointed out that Tampa had been granted an honorable mention last year by the League of American Bicyclists for being a "bicycle-friendly community."

Huh?