Steve Doyle’s Blog

Breaking News?

In case you haven’t heard … Forbes Magazine named the City of Chula Vista one of America’s most boring cities. As ludicrous as that sounds, the facts behind listing are even more hilarious.

According to writer Joshua Zumbron, “To get a measure of which (city) got the least media attention over the last year, we looked at 2008 news coverage of the country’s 100 largest cities in national media outlets–newspapers the Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal; national newsweeklies Time and Newsweek; and national business magazines Forbes, Fortune and BusinessWeek. Since larger cities are expected to (and indeed do) receive significantly more press attention than smaller ones, we measured coverage on a per-capita basis to even the playing field.”

Okay, that explains some of this farce. Chula Vista is a boring city because it doesn’t have people running Ponzi Schemes, declaring war on Mexico or trying to secede from the nation. Chula Vista didn’t burn down, fall into the ocean, get buried in mud or wiped out by a hurricane. Chula Vista wasn’t the birth place of a presidential candidate or the scene of a mass murder. The Space Shuttle didn’t land in Chula Vista and little green men from Mars didn’t show up demand to be taken to the Mayor’s office. So, given all those things that didn’t happen in Chula Vista, I guess you have to call it one of the top 10 most boring cities in America … right? Well, for those reasons and the fact the picture the magazine shows of Chula Vista isn’t even part of the City … maybe we want to be boring in Chula Vista under that definition!

On the flip side of this argument, I do know that Chula Vista held nationally televised off road races at The Quarrey. I do know that many of the amazing athletes we watched at the Olympic Games in 2008, trained at the world class Olympic Training Center. And, internationally famous artists brought their talents for all to see at the Cricket Amphitheater! Add to that list, the marvelous bay front with it’s restaurants, parks and marinas, four excellent golf courses, Knott’s Soak City Water Park, the Otay Lakes, great shopping, ethnic food purveyors, amazing new civic facilities and first class master planned communities, like Winding Walk, the City of Chula Vista has an endless list of things to do, places to go and people to see.

Maybe what we need to do is create our own Top Ten List! How about the category of “Most Boring Magazines”? Do I have any nominations?