The city of Lansing—yes, the one in Michigan—has been named among the “brainiest” cities in the nation, according to a new measure that seeks to track the "brain performance" or cognitive capacity of metros in a “new and potentially more direct way,” according to an article in The Atlantic Cities.

The metric, developed by Lumos Labs, is based on their cognitive training and tracking software, Lumosity. It covers some 20 million members (and 320 million individual game plays) who use the company's online games to assess and attempt to improve their cognitive performance.

To measure the smartest cities, Lumosity scientists tracked the cognitive performance of more than one million users in the United States on their games, mapping them across U.S. metros using IP geolocation software. Individual scores were recorded in five key cognitive areas: memory, processing speed, flexibility, attention, and problem solving. The data was normalized into a basic brain performance index controlling for age and gender. Only metros with more than 500 observations were included. The data cover 169 metros. 

Read the article in The Atlantic Cities....

Here are America's 25 brainiest metros, according to Lumosity's metrics:

1. Charlottesville, Virginia

2. Lafayette, Indiana

3. Anchorage Alaska

4. Madison, Wisconsin

5. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose

6. Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City & Dubuque, Iowa

7. Honolulu

8. Johnstown-Altoona, Pennsylvania

9. Champaign & Springfield-Decatur, Illinois

10. Minneapolis-St. Paul

11. Boston-Manchester (Massachusetts/New Hampshire)

12. Austin

13. Rochester, New York

14. Gainesville, Florida

15. Fargo-Valley City North Dakota

16. Lansing, Michigan

17. Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo

18. Burlington-Plattsburgh (Vermont/New York)

19. Pittsburgh

20. Syracuse, New York

21. Baton Rouge, Louisiana

22. Columbia-Jefferson City, Missouri

23. La Crosse-Eau Claire, Wisconsin

24. Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York Pennsylvania

25. Springfield-Holyoke, Massachusetts