Sunday, October 7, 2012

Where's the Fastest Place?


In the book A Geography of Time, Robert Levine (http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/levine-time.html) includes a ranking of the speed of life in thirty-one countries.  Which countries have the fastest tempo of life?  The measures used to answer the questions: Walking speeds (how long it took a pedestrian to walk 60 feet in a metropolitan area), how long it took to buy a stamp at a post office and the accuracy of public clocks.

Fastest country in the group?  Switzerland.  Slowest?  Mexico.  The US ranked at 16, behind Hong Kong (10), France (11) and Singapore (15).  Ahead of Canada (17), South Korea (18) and China (23).  The survey was done fifteen years ago which may mean today the rankings may have shifted, its unlikely current rankings would be completely different.

No matter how interesting a survey can’t tell us what feels like the fastest place we navigate. 
How you would you construct the ranking of the places you visit and work? 


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Magnificent! (As usual. :-P )