Boston has fewer bookstores than San Diego. Worse tans, too.

According to the website LiteraryTraveler.net, Boston--home to millions of universities and untold book clubs operated by Jodi Piccoult-obsessed soccer moms--has fewer bookstores than San Diego.

This should sound devastating. Boston? Fewer bookstores than San Diego?? Shouldn't Harvard and MIT and Boston College and Suffolk and Simmons and any other whatchamacallit school single-handedly keep bookstores in business?

But let's look at some opinions I'll pretend are facts:


1.) San Diego is known for an exponentially higher retirement population than Boston. Don't believe me? According to US News and World Report, San Diego has over 100 senior citizen organizations and over 3,000 community care facilities for the elderly. Boston barely has a mall for old people to power-walk around at 7am.

And old people read. As I wrote here over a year ago, the National Endowment of the Arts says old people buy books in significantly larger numbers than anyone not potentially living in God's waiting room.

Thus, through my great powers of scientific observation, I deduce that San Diego's overabundance of old folk leads to a more bookstores.

2.) Boston buys more Kindles and Nooks, per population, than San Diego and company.

Why? According to some research sources, people who buy eReaders tend to be more educated than book buyers, and have higher incomes, too.

Guess what Boston has plenty of? Colleges and universities. Absurd amounts of colleges and universities. And many of those colleges and universities are populated with trust fund babies.

College trust fund babies don't visit bookstores.

3.) Combining the previous two points:

Over 60% of eReader buyers are under the age of 55.

Boston: younger, richer, more educated, buys more eReaders.

San Diego: older, poorer, less educated, doesn't buy as many eReaders.

In essence, it's all how you look at facts. Put another way? Sure, everyone in San Diego has a better tan than a Bostonian. But everyone is Boston looks like they've got honey-kissed skin compared to folks from Sweden. Just depends on what facts you choose to look at.

Sadly, Boston has a serious dearth of infectious pop bands that Sweden claims, like ABBA and Ace of Base. It's one of the most tragic things Boston has facing it, bookstores be damned.