Knoxville doesn’t appear in Men’s Fitness magazine’s lists of America’s top 25 fattest and fittest cities. Memphis earns the honor of 4th fattest city. Nashville is the 25th fittest city. The ranking indicates that:
Almost 9 out of 10 Tennesseans get so little exercise that they risk health problems, according to a study by the CDC. In fact, in the same study, one out of three people hadn’t gotten any physical activity in the past month.
Curiously, in the report card Environment section under “Air” Nashville receives a “B,” while Memphis gets an “F.” In contrast, for “Climate” Memphis earns a “B,” while Nashville gets a “D.” Are these two cities, 200 miles apart, that much different with respect to air quality and climate? I haven’t spent a lot of time in either, but I would have guessed that if there was a difference between the two cities, it would have run the opposite way–air quality worse in Nashville, climate worse in Memphis.
The air quality grade doesn’t surprise me at all. My ex-SO (who’s still a good friend) is economic development director for one of the communities across the river here, and she tells me that she’s lost out on several industrial development opportunites because of air quality issues, which really sucks from her perspective, since her air quality problems stem totally from her community’s proximity to Memphis, and that’s something totally out of her control (since apparently Memphis refuses to do more to improve their own air quality).
The climate grade does surprise me; in light of the fact that the cities aren’t that far apart, I wouldn’t think that the climate is that different, either. Given that Memphis is a bit south of Nashville, and given that to my mind warmer climate is better climate (all other things being equal), I’d think that Memphis would get a marginally better climate grade. But not a “B” vs. “F” better….
I’m hardly an expert on air quality; I was thinking that Nashville is in closer proximity to coal power plants. Or, put differently, Nashville is closer to here, so it must be bad.
As for climate, I have the impression that the two cities are similar during the winter, but that Memphis is hotter and more humid during the summer. That probably wouldn’t bother me much, but some people don’t like it.