Still Searching for the Great American Novel

by Conroy

I’m slowly making my way through the American literary cannon, a book at a time, in search of the elusive Great American Novel. I just completed David Foster Wallace’s massive tome, Infinite Jest, one of the more recent nominees for this title [1]. At over 1,000 pages (included over 90 pages of footnotes [2]) Wallace’s dense and multi-layered story certainly has the size of an epic. But his semi-parodic near future America and focus on a Boston tennis academy, the residents of an adjacent halfway house, wheelchair-bound Quebecois separatists, and an illicit movie so entertaining that it’s lethal to all viewers is in my mind a bit too idiosyncratic [3] to fit the bill as the Great American Novel. But what does fit the bill?

In concept, the Great American Novel is a title given to the novel, written by an American, which best encapsulates the American Experience, the spirit of the nation and the people, or better described by borrowing a term from German, the work that captures the zeitgeist of America. It’s the American equivalent of the national epic; America’s Les Miserables, Ulysses, or War and Peace. There’s no shortage of candidates for the title; here’s a shortlist (in chronological order):

• Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1852),
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1885),
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925),
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929),
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939),
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951),
• The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Below (1953),
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov (1955),
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960),
• Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (1973),
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (1985), and
• Underworld by Don Delillo (1997) [4].

Many of these books sit on my bookshelf, and many of them were rich rewarding reads, and certainly each captures a portion of the American Experience. For instance, in Moby Dick [5] there is the struggle of democracy, equality, and power, which echoes American pre-Civil War struggles with slavery; in Blood Meridian we are shown in stark tones  the violence that accompanied the settling of the American West; The Grapes of Wrath explores the crushing poverty of the Great Depression; and Underworld gives us lives lived in the low heat of the Cold War during the last half of the twentieth century.

But like the still view of a photograph each of these novels and all the others listed above can at best only capture a facet or a few facets of America, a limited angle, nuances and not the whole. After all America is too large, with a huge diverse population drawn from all over the world, and a history and culture too sprawling to ever be captured by one writer in one novel no matter how kaleidoscopic the story or how broad the cast of characters. And the same could be written about the efforts of a single filmmaker or historian or journalist. But this isn’t meant to diminish the writers (and other chroniclers) that attempt great novels or reach to express what America means. In fact I much admire the ambition of writers that yearn to express the soul of America even if the best they can achieve is partial success.

Whenever I think on novels and literature I always fall back to James Joyce and Ulysses because I’ve never read anything better. Joyce set out to write an Irish national epic and perhaps he succeeded (it’s worth keeping in mind that Ireland is a much smaller country than the United States), but what really speaks to me when reading Ulysses isn’t the Irish elements. Instead, when I strip away the structural and stylistic flourishes and place the literary, philosophic, and religious (and many other) correspondences in perspective, I find the most alive book I’ve ever read. Joyce’s Leopold Bloom, Stephan Daedalus, Molly Bloom, and what seems to be the whole population of Dublin come alive through their thoughts, emotions, motivations, memories, physical urges, biases, their interactions with each other, and their shared histories. Ulysses takes place over less than 24 hours, but it gives us the fullest glimpse of life and lives of any fiction I’ve read or watched or listened to [6]. Scholars and academics may be kept busy dissecting Joyce's techniques and allusions, but for me it’s the life of the novel that makes it important and worthwhile.

And indeed, while I can say pretty emphatically that Wallace’s Infinite Jest is not the Great American Novel, it is a book teeming with truths. Wallace’s collection of tennis prodigies, recovering (and not recovering) alcoholics and drug addicts, terrorists and government agents, and everyone they interact with, is vivid and bursting with life. At the core, after you’ve taken his weird future in stride, Wallace’s characters struggle with what it means to be a family, to make and sustain human connections, and to cope with the burden of being alive. It’s his take on the plight of what he considers to be the sad post-Cold War generations and our collective need to find some distraction, be it drugs or entertainment or sexual conquests, from the day-to-day struggle. And his remarkably fluid writing style (the words seem to have flowed onto the page from his mind), massive vocabulary (Wallace makes you keep your dictionary close), and talent for perfectly expressing detail (that tool that all great novelists must have) make Infinite Jest a first-rate and worthy read [7].

I’ve always believed that great artists, and especially novelists, are better equipped to describe the workings of the mind, from our motivations and emotions and rationalizations to our physical cravings and how we perceive the world, than science or religion or philosophy. Novelists like Joyce and Wallace offer insights into what is means to be human. As the great critic Harold Bloom noted, reading a novel isn’t going to make you a better person, but hopefully reading a great novel will provide at least a tiny explanation of life. If an author can do that, he or she has achieved a great success.

So I’ll continue searching for the Great American Novel. I doubt I’ll ever find one book that expresses all that “America” means or is, but I am certain that what I will find is even more important, glimpses of truth and life. That’s all we can seek from any art.

---

NOTES:

[1] Infinite Jest was published in 1996, when Wallace was just 33-years-old.

[2] Anyone familiar with Wallace’s writing, fiction and non-fiction alike, knows of his very effective use of footnotes, which I must admit is a bit of an inspiration for my own notes.

[3] This is but the barest synopsis of Infinite Jest, which is rich in characters, sub-plots, themes, and exquisite detail.

[4] And this list could be expanded to include Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Robert Penn Warren’s All the Kings Men (1946), Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1925), Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1953), Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996), Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952), Richard Wright’s Native Son (1940), Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint (1969), John Updike’s Rabbit series, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969), Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926), John Dos Passos’s USA Trilogy (1938), and Henry James’s The Wings of the Dove (1902), to name but a few.

[5] A work I must admit that I don’t particularly care for.

[6] I’ll be returning to discuss Ulysses much more fully in future posts.

[7] After reading the novel and Wallace’s descriptions of the crushing weight, the unendurable weight, of clinical depression, it is less of a surprise that he killed himself in 2008. He suffered from depression all his life and eventually the medications stopped working for him. It’s deeply sad and will deprive us of any more work from this gifted American writer. He left behind not only Infinite Jest but a large collection of entertaining, informative, and incisive essays and non-fiction pieces along with a couple of short story collections and a couple of other novels (the last of which, The Pale King, was unfinished upon his death and published posthumously).

The Heart of the Season

by Conroy

I last wrote about tennis three months ago after Novak Djokovic defeated Rafael Nadal in the longest grand slam final [1] in tennis history to claim his third Australian Open title. That result was a continuation of last year when Djokovic won in Melbourne and went on to dominate the season, claiming titles in just about every tournament he played through the U.S. Open, winning three grand slams, ten titles overall, and defeating Rafael Nadal six times along the way [2].

But 2012 isn’t turning out to be another 2011. Novak Djokovic remains number 1, but 2012 hasn’t started out as another year of dominance. Instead, the top three players – Djokovic, Nadal, and Roger Federer – have amassed remarkably similar results:

Player	2012 Record	Win %	Grand Slam Titles	Masters 1000 Titles	Other Titles
1.    Novak Djokovic	24-3	0.888	1	1	0
2.    Rafael Nadal	27-3	0.900	0	1	1
3.    Roger Federer	23-3	0.885	0	1	2

Djokovic has the big crown with his hard won Australian Open title, but each of the three men have claimed one of three Masters 1000 titles played this spring, and Nadal and Federer have picked up additional titles [3]. They’re records are strikingly similar with each man losing just three matches through the first four months of the season (which makes Djokovic’s run last year, where he didn’t lose his third match until mid-September, all the more remarkable). What’s more, of their nine combined losses, four have been to each other [4].

These results tell me two things: (1) the top-3 men remain head and shoulders above the rest of the tour, certainly when it comes to the winning the big matches, and (2) as we head into the heart of the tennis season, the race for number 1 in 2012 is very much up for grabs.

We’ve reached the start of four frantic months of major tournaments, starting with the Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Rome and followed by the grand slams at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Then after a very brief respite there will be the London Olympics [5], the Canada and Cincinnati Masters 1000 events, and finally the U.S. Open.

Last year, with the notable exception of Roland Garros [6], this stretch belonged to Djokovic, where he won five of the seven major tournaments played, including Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and claimed the number 1 ranking. What will this same stretch bring this year? I don’t make predictions, but I foresee a few possibilities (listed from most to least probable):

Djokovic Retains the Number 1 Ranking

One perspective would hold that Djokovic has nowhere to go but down. After winning so much last year anything less than a repeat performance would see him bleed rankings points and come back to Nadal and Federer. And indeed, if Djokovic fails to win at least one of the three grand slams this summer (and probably one or two of the other big tournaments) he’ll likely lose his top ranking.

However, the bottom line is the Serb has won the biggest tournament played this year (Australian Open) and arguably the most prestigious tournament after the grand slams (Miami). He lost in the finals of Monte Carlo to Nadal and the semi-finals of Indian Wells to an inspired John Isner. These results don’t indicate someone who has lost their focus or game. In my mind he’s a 50-50 bet to win Roland Garros, and believe me he’ll be focused and motivated in Paris a month from now as he goes for the career grand slam and four consecutive grand slam titles [7]. The same can be said for Wimbledon and he’s a clear favorite at the U.S. Open. Djokovic has a lot to defend, but there are not enough reasons to think he'll fail to win enough to stay at the top of the rankings and add to his grand slam title count.

Nadal Regains the Number 1 Ranking
It’s unsurprising that Rafael Nadal regained his winning ways once he got back on red clay, triumphing dominantly in his last two tournaments at Monte Carlo and Barcelona (for the eighth and seventh time, respectively). He beat Djokovic for the first time since 2010 at Monte Carlo (a result this writer predicted – I have witnesses), which got a huge monkey off his back and has to give him a lot of confidence heading to Roland Garros. I predict (okay, sometimes I make predictions) that Nadal and Djokovic will play again in the next couple of weeks at either Madrid or Rome, and if Nadal can backup his Monte Carlo win then he’ll have to be considered the favorite to win at Roland Garros for a record seventh time.

Unfortunately for Nadal, winning a Roland Garros won’t get him back to the top of the rankings. The Spaniard will have to overcome the Serb (and Federer) at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. Nadal can do it, he’s a hell of a competitor and he’s won both tournaments before. Still, beating Djokovic on a really big stage is something Nadal will have to re-prove. He has the ignominious distinction of being the only man to lose three consecutive grand slam finals, all to Djokovic of course. Until he turns that around, he won’t be reclaiming the top ranking.

Federer Regains the Number 1 Ranking

The casual fan may not realize that after last year’s U.S. Open the player with the best record, most tournament titles, and whose accumulated the most rankings points is Roger Federer (40-3, 6 titles, 4,855). The 30-year-old is off to his best start since 2007 – when he was still the dominant number 1 – and he will have his opportunity to get back to number 1 this summer. But to do it he’ll have to overcome Djokovic and/or Nadal at two of the three grand slams. Winning one grand slam almost certainly won’t be good enough.

Federer can do this, but he’s been utterly unable to solve Nadal at Roland Garros, losing to him there five times in the last seven years (keep in mind that his one Roland Garros title in 2009 came when he didn’t have to play Nadal). I don’t see that changing this year. And Federer might have to beat both Djokovic and Nadal, which on slow clay at this point in time seems like too tall a task. So then to get back to number 1 Federer would have to win both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. I think this is possible, he’s been just as good as Nadal and Djokovic at the U.S. Open the last couple of years (holding match points against the Serb in the semi-finals each of the last two years), and if he plays well at Wimbledon he can add to his collection of six winner’s trophies. The problem is that his two rivals are playing just too well. Federer has a decent chance to win one grand slam but winning two will be very difficult. He might be back at number 1 come September, but it’s a long shot.

The Long Fall of John Goodman

by Conroy

John Goodman on trial

If you’re intrigued by sensational courtroom drama involving the lurid details of the rich and famous, you’ll be fascinated by the recent trial of John Goodman, polo tycoon, founder of the International Polo Club Palm Beach, and popular playboy [1].

In the foggy dark early morning hours of February 12, 2010 Goodman was driving his $200,000 black Bentley along the quiet west county roads near Wellington, Florida. Driving recklessly in low-visibility Goodman ran a stop sign and violently struck a Hyundai driven by 23-year-old engineering student Scott Wilson. The impact was so violent that it knocked Wilson’s car from the road and into an adjacent canal. Wilson trapped in his car, drowned. His Bentley badly damaged from the crash, Goodman left the scene on foot.

He called 9-1-1, an hour later, from the mobile home of a nearby resident. The medical examiner noted that the long delay between the accident and the 9-1-1 call sealed Wilson’s fate. The recording of Goodman’s call (listen here), indicates that he (1) knew he had been in a car accident, (2) it was his fault, and (3) he sounds confused like he’s drunk but trying not to sound drunk. When he was finally arrested hours after the accident his blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit. A sensational legal battle was about to begin.

Goodman hired famed high-powered Miami defense attorney Roy Black, whose previous clients include physician William Kennedy Smith [2], radio host Rush Limbaugh, and actor Kelsey Grammer, and who’s frequently appeared on TV as a legal commentator. He pleaded not guilty to the charges of DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide. Then, in order to shield his considerable fortune from the civil lawsuits that would surely be filed by the Wilson family, he legally adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend in the fall of 2011. He immediately gave her a portion of the $300 million trust he had set up for his two biological children. A family scrabble was bound the ensue, and sure enough his two teenaged kids filed suit in February attempting the have the adoption thrown out so they could maintain sole beneficiaries of the fortune.

Goodman's (top) and Wilson's (bottom) mangled cars

Once the trial began, Black presented the following defense. Earlier in the evening Goodman attended two events, the first at the White Horse Tavern and the second at the Players Club [3], where bar tabs show he ordered many rounds of vodka and tequila. According to the testimony of friends, including polo player Ignacio “Nacho” Figueras [4], he bought most of the drinks for others and was not intoxicated when he left the Players Club. Goodman then drove his car in search of a Wendy’s for a late night frosty. Approaching the intersection where the accident would occur, Goodman’s vehicle suddenly malfunctioned and despite his best efforts to stop the car it accelerated forward through the intersection. He then struck something, banging his head in the process. He didn’t know what he had hit and when he got out of his car to investigate he didn’t see another car or person. The accident had left him dazed and confused and his cell phone had died. So he wandered off in search of help and nursing an injured wrist and ribs. He soon saw a light down the road coming from an open barn door. He went inside in search of a phone, which he didn’t find but he did see a bottle of liquor. He drank from the bottle hoping the alcohol would alleviate his “excruciating [physical] pain”. Then he left the barn, spotted the light of a nearby trailer and called 9-1-1 using the owner’s phone. That was Black's explanation for the delay in calling 9-1-1 and the elevated blood-alcohol level.

On a believability scale with 1 representing the unvarnished as-God-is-my-witness recounting of events and 10 being a preposterously unbelievable fabrication, Goodman’s explanation of events rates at about a 13. The jury agreed and on March 23 of this year – more than two years after the accident – Goodman was found guilty of DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide; he faces up to 30 years in prison [5]. Roy Black has claimed jury misconduct, but that charge has been rejected by the court, though further arguments on this point are set to be heard on April 30. Sentencing will likely occur in early May.

The Perfect Climate - Part 5

by Conroy

Rio, unsurprisingly, has one of the best climates in the world

I spent the first four parts of this series exploring my climate ranking system and applying it to American cities in search of the "perfect climate". Now it’s time to expand the rankings to the whole world. Below I’ve ranked 150 cities [1] using both my original formula, which favors warm places, and the alternative formula presented in Part 4, which favors consistently temperate locations.

This is the fifth post in my “Perfect Climate” series. To check out the first four, use the following links: The Perfect Climate – Part 1 The Perfect Climate – Part 2 The Perfect Climate – Part 3 The Perfect Climate – Part 4 Also check out Conroy’s Perfect Climate Rankings page.

 As a reminder, warm cities are places with annual mean temperatures in the mid to upper 70s (or higher) and little seasonal variance. Examples include Miami, Rio de Janeiro, and Bangalore, India. Temperate cities are places with annual mean temperatures in the mid 60s (no higher) and little seasonal variance, and especially no really hot months. Examples include San Diego, Mexico City, and Cape Town, South Africa. I’m presenting dual rankings because these preferences seem to predominate when it comes to climate taste. For both approaches, cold cities fare poorly.

One thing to note regarding the “warm cities” ranking, in my original formula I assumed that the higher the annual mean temperature the better. I was examining American cities the warmest of which is Honolulu, Hawaii with an annual mean of 77.5 degrees. However, when I expanded my rankings to encompass all the world’s cities, I ran into a problem: much of the Earth is very hot. Many cities across Africa and Asia have annual mean temperatures that exceed 80 degrees. While I enjoy warm conditions, even I have to admit that there’s an upper limit above which the climate grows too hot. I decided to modify my original formula to penalize cities where the annual mean temperature exceeds 78 degrees [2]. This adjustment works the same as the temperature penalty applied in the alternative (temperate) climate formula for cities with annual mean temperatures above 65 degrees (see Part 4).

The World’s Climate
Before jumping to the actual rankings, I'll note a few general impressions from my review of climates for hundreds of places in all parts of the world.

Latitude and elevation combine to give Nairobi a pleasant climate

• Large portions of South America, Africa, and Asia are located at low latitudes but relatively high elevations. This combination of tropical locations perched well above sea level is a magic formula for a favorable climate. The tropical latitude results in consistent solar radiation throughout the year, which means little temperature variance, but the higher elevations moderate the temperature. Cities in these zones include Nairobi, Sao Paulo, and Bangalore, India. Each boasts a climate that would be far hotter (and far less bearable) if located near sea level.
• It’s surprising how few large cities are located in really cold places. Only six cities experience mean low temperatures in the single digits (F) during one or more winter months: Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ottawa, Montreal, and Edmonton, Canada, and Shenyang and Harbin, China. Indeed, Harbin (China's tenth largest city), in the far northeast of China right on the edge of Siberia, is the only major global city to experience mean low temperatures below zero (F) for any month of the year. It’s appropriately nicknamed the “Ice City”, and the winter cold there is worse than in Arctic places like Nome, Alaska. This relative paucity of large cities in places with harsh winters is another demonstration that the great majority of people the world over choose not to live in cold climates.
• Conversely, cities with average high temperatures above 100 degrees during one or more summer months are common across the American southwest, Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The highest monthly mean temperature for any major city belongs to Baghdad, Iraq where the July high is a heat-stroke-inducing 111 degrees. That’s nearly as hot as Death Valley during high summer. Other "hot" cities include Phoenix, Riyadh, Delhi, and Khartoum. In fact, the capital of Sudan has the highest annual mean temperature of any major city at 85.8 degrees. (It's worth noting that I developed this climate system thinking of the U.S. where air conditioning is ubiquitous. That's certainly not the case through the "hot" world, so the warm rankings should be considered with that in mind; warm may not be so pleasant where it can't be escaped.)
• Perhaps the continent with the most consistently superb climate is South America. All of that continent’s major cities score well on both the warm and temperate rankings. And of all nations, Brazil’s big cities boast almost universally excellent climates. This is also true of the other large southern hemisphere country, Australia, where all of its large cities also have friendly climates. This is a major contrast to the large nations of the northern hemisphere that are either cold (Canada and Russia) or feature widely varying climates (U.S. and China).
• If you’re interested in finding unvarying temperatures, then follow the Equator. Quito, Ecuador, Manaus and Belem, Brazil, Male in the Maldives, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Brunei all lie on or near the Equator and are among the relatively short list of cities that have annual temperature variances of less than 3 degrees.
• Finally, it’s interesting to compare the most extreme climate on Earth to my climate rankings. Russia’s Vostok Station in Antarctica is renowned as the coldest place on the planet, the Pole of Cold [3]. The lowest ever measured surface temperature of -128.6 degrees was recorded there in 1983. The average August low temperature is -97 degrees, and it earns a climate score of -105. The temperatures at Vostok are comparable to the surface of Mars in winter. It puts things into perspective when evaluating the “perfect” and “terrible” climates across the globe. Harbin's climate is far closer to sunny Rio de Janeiro's than it is to interior Antarctica.

Ice sculptures in Harbin, the world's coldest big city

Now on to the rankings.

The Perfect Climate - Part 4

by Conroy

Do you prefer the weather of warm Miami or...

Ask yourself this question: What city has a better climate Miami or San Francisco? Anyone that’s read this blog and in particular my earlier posts analyzing “the perfect climate” will know that I favor the heat and sunshine of South Florida over the consistent cool of Northern California. However, I was in Florida last week, first in Orlando and then in Fort Lauderdale, and in keeping with what has been a remarkably warm 2012 for the eastern two-thirds of the United States, it was summer hot with highs at or above 90 and more humidity than is normal for early April. I was on vacation and glad for the summery temperatures [1], but as I sweated under the afternoon sun I did have to ask myself whether summer at Easter is really how I would define my perfect climate.

...temperate San Francisco?

And judging by the many comments I received on my three previous Perfect Climate posts, I’d say there is a strong sentiment regarding this topic. I defined what I considered the perfect climate, but many readers have different preferences (see a sampling of reader comments below).

This is the fourth post in my “Perfect Climate” series. To check out the first three, use the following links: The Perfect Climate – Part 1 The Perfect Climate – Part 2 The Perfect Climate – Part 3

Fortunately, one of the benefits of the climate ranking system I developed is that it can be adjusted for different tastes. I’d like to examine one such adjustment, one that addresses the question I posed at the beginning of this post. But first, a review of my ranking system.

Conroy’s Perfect Climate
Most people have their preferences for what makes a perfect climate, but as I explained in Part 1 I feel that temperature is the key factor and dominates humidity, and other elements like sunshine, wind, and precipitation. When it comes to temperature there are four variables to consider:

• mean annual temperature, the higher the better [2]; 
• the variance between the hottest month and the coldest month, the lower this difference (the less extreme the seasonality) the better [3]; 
• the mean temperature for each month of the year, the more “comfortable” the monthly mean the better (or stated another way: How comfortable is it at any given time of the year?) [4]; and 
• the mean diurnal temperature differences by month (the difference between daily high and low), the lower the better because a comfortable daily mean doesn’t mean much if actual daily temperatures vary greatly [5].

I use historical temperature data [6] for a city and apply it to a formula I developed [7] that yields a climate score [8]. The higher the climate score, the better the climate. I computed the score for nearly 500 places in the United States. The top three climate scores are associated with Hilo, Hawaii, Honolulu, and Key West. The three lowest scores belong to Nome, Fairbanks, and Barrow, Alaska. I doubt that many people would quibble with these results. The ranking of climate scores for the 30 largest U.S. metropolitan areas is provided in the table below. For a full discussion of how I used the four temperature variables to quantify the perfect climate, read The Perfect Climate – Part 1 post, and for commentary on the rankings see The Perfect Climate – Part 2.

Climate Rankings for the 30 Largest Metropolitan Areas
Rank	Metropolitan Area	Climate Score
1	Miami, FL	44.9
2	Tampa, FL	37.8
3	Los Angeles, CA	37.1
4	Orlando, FL	36.4
5	San Diego, CA	36.0
6	Houston, TX	29.5
7	San Francisco, CA	27.9
8	Riverside, CA	25.3
9	San Antonio, TX	23.9
10	Sacramento, CA	22.4
11	Phoenix, AZ	21.0
12	Dallas, TX	18.0
13	Atlanta, GA	16.6
14	Seattle, WA	14.2
15	Portland, OR	13.9
16	Las Vegas, NV	13.0
17	Baltimore, MD	9.9
18	Washington, DC	9.0
19	Philadelphia, PA	5.7
20	New York, NY	4.3
21	Cincinnati, OH	3.8
22	St. Louis, MO	3.6
23	Kansas City, MO	3.3
24	Boston, MA	2.5
25	Chicago, IL	1.3
26	Detroit, MI	0.1
27	Pittsburgh, PA	0.1
28	Cleveland, OH	-0.2
29	Denver, CO	-0.4
30	Minneapolis, MN	-12.6

Honolulu is the number 1 big city in my original rankings

After tweaking the formula, computing the climate scores, and analyzing the rankings, I was pleased. The rankings more or less reflected my view of the perfect climate. In particular, places in the hot and humid South and Southeast ranked high, as did temperate California, and then places in the baking Southwest. The lowest ranking places were (of course) freezing Alaska and the highly variable Northern Great Plains.

After I published these rankings I reviewed where Americans have chosen to live over the last half century and the results seem to validate my thinking. People prefer warm winters to cool summers. People will endure high summer heat to avoid freezing winter cold. See The Perfect Climate – Part 3 for more details on the correlation between climate and American demographic trends.

However, as pleased as I was at these results and despite how Americans seem to have (and continue to) vote with their feet for the climates they choose to live in, I received many critical comments on my system and the rankings, including:

“I see that San Diego rates really high, and having spent a lot of time in "America's Finest City", I can attest that it has an almost ideal climate. I much prefer the dryer conditions there than the sticky humidity in Florida.” – CT, Eugene, OR

“Wow! Having escaped Houston's oppressive humidity and 100º heat even in June for Denver's 300+ sunny days/year, I gotta pick my subjective observations over your methodology for picking a place to live!” – Nowitall, Denver, CO

“Ill have to be honest with you about the Florida climate. I've lived in Florida for about 12 years (in the Tampa area) and the climate is nothing to strive for. The summers are absolutely brutal. April- October you have to deal with temps above 90F with a lot of humidity. It’s not the heat as much as it is humidity. Every summer morning I always walk my dog. In the morning it’s about 86F with usually 90 percent humidity. 5 minutes outside and you’re pouring with sweat.” – Anonymous, Tampa