[13b9f227ecf0]

It's proximity to Canadian latitudes. The nearer you get to Canada in the USA, consistently you get better educational outcomes and crime rates.

The obvious solution to our social problems in America is to move all the low achievers to be near the Canadian border.

[bmm6o]

Detroit is about as close as you can get (geographically) to Canada.

[gwern]

Congratulations, you won today's "reply to a statistical generalization with a single outlying datapoint/anecdote" no-prize! Write in for your fabulous reward.

[bmm6o]

And 100 HN points to you for spotting the fallacy! Well done, but you don't really believe the suggestion that after controlling for all else, closeness to Canada ends up being correlated with educational outcomes and crime rates, do you? It's obviously a joke.

[gwern]

I think that if you really control for all else like ethnicity, it would go away, but to condition on that much would miss the point.

[jfb]

Perhaps better to say, "Windsor is as close as you can get (geographically) to Detroit".

[kyllo]

I hear Buffalo, NY has a pretty high violent crime rate as well.