The Daily Dammit, Gannett! had a story about some small company’s social media hireling mentioned Springfield in an article entitled Springfield isn’t the worst place to be should zombies descend. One company’s research explains why.
The company is Lawn Love, which looks like it’s a referral service for lawn and exterior care providers. The blog post, er scientific analysis is 2021’s Best Cities for Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse.
I guess Springfield, Missouri, came in 56 of 200.
But let’s look at the methodology:
We ranked the 200 biggest U.S. cities from best to worst (1-200) based on their overall scores (out of 100 points), averaged across the weighted metrics listed below.
Public Health
- Share of Population in Good Health (Weight: 3)
- Physical Activity Rate (Weight: 3)
- Share of Population Who Jogged in Past Year (Weight: 2)
Vulnerability
- Natural Hazards Index (Weight: 1)
- Number of Military Bases (Weight: 1)
- Hospitals per Capita (Weight: 2)
Infrastructure
- Average Home Square Footage (Weight: 2)
- Share of Available Homes with Basements (Bunkers) (Weight: 3)
- Share of Homes with Complete Kitchen Facilities (Weight: 1)
- Share of Homes with Complete Plumbing Facilities (Weight: 1)
- Off-Grid Lifestyle-Friendliness (Weight: 2)
Supplies
- Supermarkets (Costco, Sam’s Club, Target, Walmart) per 100,000 Living Residents (Weight: 3)
- Shopping Centers and Department Stores per 100,000 Living Residents (Weight: 2)
- Pharmacies/Drug Stores per 100,000 Living Residents (Weight: 3)
- Hardware Stores per 100,000 Living Residents (Weight: 1)
Protection
- Hunting-Gear Stores per 100,000 Living Residents (Weight: 3)
- Weapons and Ammunitions Stores per 100,000 Living Residents (Weight: 3)
- Outdoor-Gear Stores per 100,000 Living Residents (Weight: 2)
Mobility
- Biking-Friendliness (Weight: 1)
- Hiking-Friendliness (Weight: 3)
- Number of Campsites (Weight: 1)
- Port Availability (Weight: 2)
- Marina Availability (Weight: 2)
Although the “methodology” mentions the number of gun stores, it does not say anything about the number of guns already in private hands, nor does it talk about population density (the fewer people nearby, the fewer potential zombies). In both of these cases, Springfield is already high on the list. Or the number of preppers in the area, nor the neighborliness or Christian values of an area–which would lead to better bonding of groups of survivors, but probably less intrigue than you get in the popular culture.
It’s why your zombie apocalypse movies and television shows take place in urban environments, where different people get thrown together and are suspicious of each other.
But, yeah, the number of basements here is indeed low, which really surprises me since this area gets its shares of tornadoes.
Also, good on that particular content writer, cranking out that blog post for maybe $50 and getting it picked up by at least one newspaper. Unless, of course, it was done the easy way–being the reporter herself or a friend of the same.
Also, as a reminder, it was I who wrote the book on surviving a reanimated skeleton apocalypse. Okay, I exaggerate: I wrote a blog post called A Brief Dissertation On Where To Shoot An Evil Reanimated Skeleton.
