America's Drunkest Cities - Forbes.com

America's Drunkest Cities - Forbes.com
Forbes magazine took the top 35 metro areas in the US and rated them on 5 alcohol related categories:

1. State Laws 9 point rating scale (using a variety of sources) low scores are more loose with their liquor laws.
2. Number of Drinkers (1 drink in last 30 days - self report)
3. Heavy Drinkers (2drinks/day for men and1drink/day for women)
4. Binge Drinking (more than 5 drinks on one occasion - not clear about the time frame)
5. Alcoholism (number of AA meetings as a proportion of population)

The top of the list is mostly cold-weather midwestern cities, with the exception of Boston at 4 and Austin at 5. I seem to be making my way down the list to less drunk cities. Here are the cities I have some connection with:

3. Columbus, OH - #2 in heavy drinkers, 5 in binge, and 6 alcoholism. #17 in drinkers, and relatively strong laws 7 (out of 9) Maybe some OSU influence here.
7. Cleveland, OH - #2 in alcoholism, 7 in drinkers, 10 in heavy, and 19 in binge
16. Cincinnati, OH - middle of the road score for middle of the road city
24. New Orleans - quite a surprize, main surveys were conducted in 2004, so the data should match the former New Orleans, ranked 33rd in number of drinkers, but rated a 4 in liquor laws - would probably be a 1 if they took into account how the laws are actually enforced
33. Miami - maybe a combo of the health nuts and old people at work on this low rating.

Via Neatorama

Tags: cocktail, drinking, science, cities, ratings, experiment33, exp33