Five measures of efficiency

Little things can make big differences when it comes to getting through a day as efficiently as possible. The report identified five simple criteria for measuring urban time-efficiency and ranked cities based on their combined scores in all categories.

1. Ease of movement and travel (traffic congestion, commute and walking efficiency, airport timeliness)
2. Ready accessibility of health and safety services (waiting times for medical appointments, number of physicians, emergency response times)
3. Availability of information and technology (broadband and wireless, bookstores and libraries, telephone hotlines)
4. Environmentally sensitive time-savers (efficient and inexpensive recycling programs, bicycle friendliness, farmers’ markets, community gardens)
5. Lifestyle time-savers (take-out restaurant food, personal trainers, personal organizers)

Honorable mention for a sixth modern convenience

Ready availability of payday installment loans and short term loans for bad credit didn’t merit a separate time-efficiency category in the CNN Living report.  In all major U.S. cities, however, the best payday loans can be found online very quickly; and logically, their availability is subsumed in the information and technology category.

Ten top time-saving cities

1. Seattle. Seattle boasts extensive public-transit systems and a state-of-the-art signal-optimization program that synchronizes hundreds of traffic lights to promote smooth vehicular travel through the city. Seattle is also known to have one of the most on-time airports in the country, and in the last two years, the city has added 50 miles of new bike lanes. Seattle has several Neighborhood Service Centers where people can pay utility bills and parking tickets, apply for passports and even hold a hearing with a magistrate — all in one stop. Waiting times for doctor appointments are said to be short. Not surprisingly, the city has more coffee shops than any other city in the U.S. as well as the most Wi-Fi spots.

2. Portland, Ore. Bike-friendly Portland is home to the nation’s fourth-largest light-rail system, and airport delays are few. Emergency services are so responsive that the city has one of the country’s highest cardiac-arrest survival rates. Equally important from a time-saving perspective, finding an inexpensive lunch is reputed to be very easy.

3. San Francisco. San Francisco offers smart technology to help residents make the most of time. San Francisco ties Seattle for the most booksellers per capita and offers an endless array of fast dining options. San Francisco has a 24-hour 311 information hotline, a 511 hotline and online services providing updates on biking, public-transit and traffic conditions.

4. Boston. Not only does Boston have the highest walk-to-work rate in the nation, it also offers technological tools such as Boston’s Citizens Connect app for instant reporting of problems or complaints (with or without photos for proof) from an iPhone. Single-stream recycling pickup means residents don’t spend time sorting, and abundant farmers’ markets make “green” a time-efficient choice.

5. Minneapolis. Minneapolis is number one for farmers’ markets, number two for bicycle accessibility and among the top few in terms of community gardens per capita. Snow alerts are available via text message, e-mail and online social networks. No matter how cold the day, in just a minute and a half, residents get hot Neapolitan pies at Punch Pizza, a popular Twin Cities restaurant chain.

6.  Denver. Denver offers a city-wide bicycle-share program that makes commuting by bike a time-efficient choice. Waits for doctor visits are short, and Denver has the largest number of certified personal trainers per capita in the nation. Denver also speeds the flow of information with wide-spread library services and internet accessibility.

7. Washington, D.C. The nation’s capital has the second-highest non-car commuting rate and one of the highest ratios of farmers’ markets to population. Other time-savers include proportionally large numbers of take-out restaurants, certified personal trainers, and professional organizers.

8. Pittsburgh. Public transit in Pittsburgh is impressive for a city of its size. Most notably, the system includes three bus-only highways to maximize commute-time efficiency. Pittsburgh is also one of the top five cities in the country in terms of the number of bookstores per capita.

9. Miami. Miami has the highest number of doctors per capita of any city surveyed, which should translate to short wait times for appointments. It’s also easy to save time when parking on Miami city streets. Miami is the first major U.S. city to make it possible to pay for street parking by cell phone. Not only do you save time by not having to run somewhere for meter change, when you pay by cell phone, text alerts tell you when time is running out. Miami also has widely available internet access, free single-stream curb recycling, and a wide array of take-out food.

10. Atlanta. Atlanta has the shortest wait for doctor’s visits of all cities surveyed. Traffic moves at a snail’s pace, but the city makes up for lost time with abundant community gardens and an efficient recycling program.

Eleven more time-efficient cities

To see how Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and eight other major U.S. cities help people save time, read the full report at CNN Living.

Microsoft research building in Redmond, Wash. Image from Flickr.

Microsoft confirmed that it’s laying off 800 more employees today. Along with that announcement come a couple of fun facts: not only are they ahead of their June 2010 deadline, they are ahead on numbers of people they planned to lay off!

So I guess laying off 5,800 employees isn’t so hard is it? The company announced in January that it would lay off 5,000 employees by June 2010. So the 800 people who were laid off today can rest assured that by cutting their jobs, Microsoft was going above and beyond the call of duty!

Sorry, I was quick to judge

Of course, I could be being overly cynical here. I suppose finishing the layoffs as soon as possible was perhaps to spare employees the mental anguish of wondering if they’d get the ax. Of course, it’s a little more agonizing to have to look for a job and wonder where your next pay day will come from, but I’m trying to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt.

As far as laying off an extra 800 employees, it is true that the economy has changed even since Microsoft’s announcement in January. Furthermore, Microsoft didn’t pinky swear that it would only fire 5,000 people, so I guess it’s off the hook.

The buzz online

Comments on a popular Microsoft blog based in Seattle, Wash., say that contract positions for Microsoft have started popping up on Washington’s unemployment web site. Microsoft is based in Redmond, Wash.

One commenter says “it looks to me like Microsoft is simply replacing full-time slots with contractor/vendor positions.” An interesting strategy, and probably not one that laid off employees or their families are too fond of. Other speculators believe that Microsoft will continue to lay people off, even though the company has reached its goal.

Several newspapers recently have decided to cease print operations and become online-only news operations. It seems this trend is creeping into the magazine industry now, too.

Blender Magazine plans to maintain its web site, Blender.com, but its April issue will be the last to exist in hard copy form.

Yep, it means layoffs

Blender’s owner Alpha Media Group announced the change Thursday, and it says about 30 employees will lose their jobs as a result. With fewer jobs available every day, they might need to live off short term loans for a while.

“We went as far as we could in a difficult environment,” said an Alpha Media spokeswoman, Nora Haynes.

Blender’s ad content fell 31 percent in 2008.

Blender history

Blender Magazine hit the shelves in 2001. An entertainment magazine, Blender often focused on music in reviews and features such as “greatest songs ever.”

Other fallen publications

Other magazines have fallen prey to declining ad revenue as well. This year, other big publications including Domino and Country Home have already ceased printing.

More publications’ sad stories

Newspapers seem to be bearing the brunt of advertisers’ decreasing demand for print space. Recently the Seattle Post-Intelligencer decided it would convert to an online-only format. The Rocky Mountain News in Denver shut its doors completely after 150 years in the business.

The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News now deliver newspapers only three days per week. So far, they still print every day. Even the second-largest newspaper on the West Coast, the San Francisco Chronicle, is considering ceasing print operations.