Monday, August 28, 2006

Re: Forbes

Forbes might be on the wrong side of the battle of the sexes, but at least they've got one thing right: Milwaukee is America's drunkest city.

Milwaukee ranks high for its drinking habits across the board. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey 2004, more than 70% of adult Milwaukeeans reported that they had had at least one alcoholic drink within the past 30 days--the highest percentage on our list. Twenty-two percent of Milwaukee respondents confessed to binge drinking, or having five or more drinks on one occasion--also the highest on our list. And 7.5% of the population were reported as heavy drinkers--adult men that have more than two drinks per day, or adult women who have more than one drink per day.

9 comments:

Beakerz said...

Yea. I think I saw something in like MSNBC or something about drinkin' and the top states for it.....Where was my college state, WV? We could drink damn it.
Well, maybe 'cause I'm not there anymore

dara said...

It was cities, not states, so I don't know about WV.

I was a little surprised that Miami ranked really low, though. I spent most of high school drunk in the greater Miami area. And, even more surprisingly, New Orleans was towards the bottom of the list. What's most surprising to me is that Miami, New Orleans, and New York ranked lower than DC, and way way way lower than such hot spots as Columbus.

Jason said...

This isn't too much of a surprise since Milwaukee (or Mee-lee-wah-kay as the Algonkians would say) is the city that invented Beast Ice. Which from what I can recall of my freshman year of college, seemed like the best idea ever. Unfortunately it became campus crack and while our dorm was full of irresponsible drinkers, everyone was a responsible recylcer so the housekeeping staff was disturbed by the giant bins full of blue cans every few days. Things got ugly that year.

Justin S. said...

Milwaukee is a deserving #1, and really they should have combined Milwaukee and Madison in the rankings as they did with Washington and Baltimore.

It doesn't surprise me at all that Columbus got a high ranking. The whole town is based on a university and state capitol, which means lots of drunks.

dara said...

Jason: For us, it was the little $.98 bottles of malt liquor.

Justin: I'm not going to disagree about Milwaukee. But Columbus? I'm sure any other state capitol with a college is just as bad. For example, Tallahassee, especially during the FSU football season and the spring legislative session. Plus, there really is nothing else to do there except drink.

Justin S. said...

Well, the problem with the poll is they don't take smaller towns into consideration. I'm sure Tallahassee is a contendor, but Columbus makes it because it's big enough to be included in their list.

Justin S. said...

Looking at their methodology, I see another problem:

Alcoholism: Cities were ranked based on the number of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings held in the area, as a proportion of the number of residents over the legal drinking age. Higher-ranking cities reported more meetings per capita.

Maybe people in Miami and New Orleans are less likely to acknowledge the alcoholism and less likely to attend AA meetings?

dara said...

Justin: That must be it. You're clearly not a drunk enough city until your residents admit that they have a problem.

I don't know about you, but I'm not planning on going to drink beer in Columbus instead of on Bourbon Street, South Beach, or the Vegas Strip.

mad said...

Milwaukee ranks No. 1 because there ain't shit to do there. Even the 24-hour Kinkos closes at 9 p.m.