Top city for sucker stories

Every time you turn around Utah or one of its hamlets—usually Provo or Salt Lake City—is being listed in some bullshit report as a “top city” for retirement, single life, starting over, business friendliness, mental illness/mental health, ice cream consumption, entrepreneurs, politeness, sobriety–just about anything except soul.

The latest story is Provo topping a list of cities (as the Tribune puts it at the “tip top “) that are awesome for  “successful aging”— whatever that means.

It’s fine if groups and magazines seeking free publicity make this stuff up using questionable indexes and never setting foot in the burgs they select. But does the Tribune have to run this crap endlessly with zero skepticism? (Such happy items, of course, are the meat and potatoes of the KSL/Deseret News “values” coverage. Come to think of it, isn’t Utah at the tip top for online porn subscriptions? Whoohoo, we’re No.1!)

To his credit, even Provo Mayor John Curtis seemed a bit dubious of the aging honor—being that it comes after another study found Provo the “youngest” of cities. But Curtis is no fool, so he accepted the accolade and told the credulous Trib:

“We have a saying down here that visitors consider Provo to be their home.”

OK, I can believe that visitors—even octogenarians—say they consider Provo their grandma’s home. But of course, maybe that’s what the report means by “successsful” aging.

By the way, Salt Lake City is No. 6 on the this aging list, probably not something you’ll see on the Visit Salt Lake site anytime soon.