It will come as no surprise that the residents of a city known as "The Nation's Watering Hole" like to have a beer or two.
But Milwaukee isn't just your average brewing town. It's the hardest-drinking city in America, according to Forbes.com's ranking of America's Drunkest Cities.
In Pictures: America's Drunkest Cities
To determine the rankings, we started with a list of the largest metropolitan areas in the continental U.S. Thirty-five candidate cities were chosen based on availability of data and geographic diversity.
Each city was ranked in five areas: state laws, number of drinkers, number of heavy drinkers, number of binge drinkers and alcoholism. Each area was assigned a ranking in each category, based on quantitative data, and all five categories were then totaled to produce a final score, which was sorted to produce our rankings. ( Click here for the complete methodology.)
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.
High percentages of alcohol consumption and abuse can translate into serious trouble for a city, including increased public health costs. (See " Cutting Alcohol's Cost.")
Milwaukee has long had a reputation as a city built on beer. It was once the nation's top beer-producing city, home to four of the world's largest breweries: Schlitz, Pabst, Miller and Blatz. Legendary sitcom characters Laverne and Shirley fixed bottle caps on one of the city's assembly lines. Even the name of the town's baseball team--The Brewers--alludes to its boozy past. Today, Miller Brewing, now a subsidiary of SABMiller (otcbb: SBMRY - news - people ), is the only major brewery left in town, but other major corporations call the city home, including Harley-Davidson (nyse: HOG - news - people ), Briggs & Stratton (nyse: BGG - news - people ) and Manpower (nyse: MAN - news - people ).
Prominent Milwaukeeans say the city's history gives it a bad rap. "It's just such a stereotype," says "Lips" LaBelle, longtime afternoon DJ on 94.5 FM WKTI. "Milwaukee has so much to offer, and I hate to see it painted in that light. I don't think [alcohol abuse] is any worse here than in any other city." Perhaps the city's wide and varied summer activities are driving up the alcohol numbers, he suggests--Milwaukee is also known as "The City of Festivals."
Or, there could be another explanation. "It's cold here, and we need our brandy," says LaBelle.
Coming in second on our list is another chilly metro: Minneapolis-St. Paul. The twin cities ranked No. 2 for adults who reported having had a drink in the last month, No. 3 for binge drinkers and No. 12 for heavy drinkers.
Rounding out the top five drunkest cities are Columbus, Ohio; Boston; and Austin, Texas.
Curiously, several towns with a reputation for partying and drinking didn't rank very high on the list. You might be able to score a free cocktail in any Las Vegas casino, but overall, the city comes in at only No. 14. New Orleans is home to Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras, but it only ranked in 24th place. And spring-break party spot Miami placed all the way down at No. 33 of 35.
Of course, just because a city ranks high on the list doesn't make it a den of debauchery. A top-drinking town could be populated by grandmas who imbibe a glass of wine every night to keep their heart healthy. And just because someone tips back a few beers doesn't make them irresponsible.
But it's a safe bet that nobody's going thirsty in Milwaukee.
1. Milwaukee
2. Minneapolis-St. Paul
3. Columbus
4. Boston
5. Austin
6. Chicago
7. Cleveland
8. Pittsburgh
9. Philadelphia
10. Providence
To determine America's Drunkest Cities, we started with a list of the largest continental U.S. metropolitan areas--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics. Thirty-five candidate cities were chosen based on availability of data and geographic diversity.
Each city was ranked in five areas: state laws, drinkers, heavy drinkers, binge drinkers and alcoholism. Each metro was assigned a score in each category, based on quantitative data. All five categories were then totaled into a final score, which was sorted into our final rankings.
State Laws: Cities were ranked on a scale of 1 to 8, based on the state laws affecting alcohol sales and consumption in the area, where a city ranked #1 has the least restrictive policies. We considered factors like the letter grades from Mothers Against Drunk Driving's Rating The States report; whether the state has passed laws banning open containers of alcohol in a car; and whether large containers of alcohol like beer kegs must be tagged with identifiers linking them to their purchaser.
Drinkers: Cities were ranked 1 to 35, based on the number of adults who reported having had at least one drink of alcohol within the past 30 days in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey, 2004. The higher a city's rank, the larger the percentage of its population are alcohol consumers.
Heavy Drinkers: Cities were ranked 1 to 35, based on the number of adult men who reported having had more than two drinks per day, and adult women having had more than one drink per day, in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey, 2004. The higher a city's rank, the larger the percentage of its population are heavy drinkers.
Binge Drinkers: Cities were ranked 1 to 35, based on the number of adults who reported having had five or more drinks on one occasion in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey, 2004. The higher a city's rank, the larger the percentage of its population are binge drinkers.
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.
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Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:47 am Posts: 46000 Location: Reasonville
i saw this yesterday but was too drunk to post it. thanks grimmace.
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Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Quote:
1. Milwaukee 2. Minneapolis-St. Paul 3. Columbus 4. Boston 5. Austin 6. Chicago 7. Cleveland 8. Pittsburgh 9. Philadelphia 10. Providence
I lived in Akron, Ohio until I was 18, Columbus until I was 25, and then in Chapel Hill, NC.
Guess where I was the drunkest??
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Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:38 am Posts: 5575 Location: Sydney, NSW
Orpheus wrote:
Austin is one drunken ass city, I knew it would be on the list.
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Jammer91 wrote:
If Soundgarden is perfectly fine with playing together with Tad Doyle on vocals, why the fuck is he wasting his life promoting the single worst album of all time? Holy shit, he has to be the stupidest motherfucker on earth.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:14 am Posts: 37778 Location: OmaGOD!!! Gender: Male
JimNasium wrote:
Maybe the drunkest residents, but the drunkest in it would be vegas by far
Yeah, I saw those comparisons about Vegas and New Orleans and Ft. Lauderdale. People travel to those places to get drunk, the residents are more sober.
It's like how people who live in Amsterdam don't smoke weed.
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Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:54 pm Posts: 12287 Location: Manguetown Gender: Male
Hinny wrote:
I'm somewhat alarmed by the celebration of alcoholism.
Part of the european heritage.
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It's like how people who live in Amsterdam don't smoke weed.
it always amazes me how people see Amsterdam as it's own entity, with it's own right and freedoms, where as all of these right's and freedoms apply the the whole country of Holland. I get this all the time at work, when they ask me where i am from i say Holland they look weird at me, then i say Amsterdam......they all go oh yeah! It's a shame "tourists" never make it outside of Amsterdam, there much more to Holland than Amsterdam alone, including smoking weed legally . now all i can hope my postings on this messageboard aren't included in my "file" when i apply for US citizenship
ps this is nothing against you PD, just singling this one out because you mentioned it AKA please don't ban me
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:47 am Posts: 46000 Location: Reasonville
Hinny wrote:
I'm somewhat alarmed by the celebration of alcoholism.
i don't see a problem with a drinking as a whole. go out, have a few, sit back, relax. come home from work, have some wine, relax the mind.
i see a problem with binge drinking.
_________________ No matter how dark the storm gets overhead They say someone's watching from the calm at the edge What about us when we're down here in it? We gotta watch our backs
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:55 am Posts: 9080 Location: Londres
corduroy_blazer wrote:
Hinny wrote:
I'm somewhat alarmed by the celebration of alcoholism.
i don't see a problem with a drinking as a whole. go out, have a few, sit back, relax. come home from work, have some wine, relax the mind.
i see a problem with binge drinking.
The article says it takes into account alcoholism. Which is more than just the relaxing drink or the odd binge. I may be exaggerating, considering my experience with working with alcoholics, but I'm really just talking about the people who sink 20 beers day after day, week after week, month after month.
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. now all i can hope my postings on this messageboard aren't included in my "file" when i apply for US citizenship 