Mad as Hell: America’s Angriest Cities
August 27, 2006 by Mary Jo Manzanares
Filed under Travel Tips
New pal, and AOL City Guide, Andie Taylor, tipped me off to a study of the 100 angriest cities in the United States.
It was a big surprise for me to learn that Orlando, Florida was found to be the angriest city. Is it too much Disney-mania? Too much fake touristy niceness?
The study, commissioned by Men’s Health magazine, didn’t rely just on anecdotal stories or a poll. Instead, it was a complicated mix of factors such as: the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, FBI reports of aggravated assaults, Bureau of Labor statistics on workplace violence, traffic congestion information, and traffic citations.
WHEW! Who knew there was so much to be angry about?
Here’s a list of the top 10 angriest cities:
- Orlando, Florida
- St. Petersburg, Florida
- Detroit, Michigan
- Baltimore, Maryland
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Wilmington, Delaware
- Miami, Florida
- Memphis, Tennessee
- Jacksonville, Florida
- St. Louis, Missouri
My hometown of Seattle ranked 43. Read the entire article for the full list.
So, I wonder why Florida gets 4 of the top 10?
I pondered that myself.
I wonder if the fact that the Florida cities on the list rely heavily on tourism has anything to do with it. Maybe that heavily skews the traffic issues, as well as the workplace violence issues.
Yikes, that is an awful lot of southern cities. Come to think of it, I got yelled at in Florida for bagging my own groceries. I thought I was being helpful lol… Her name was Elizabeth and she had to be seventy!
I thought it curious that so many of the cities were in the South as well. There must be some explanation.
As a southerner and native Floridian I think I have insight into this phenomenon. Transplanted yankees, devoid of any civility, have flocked here in record numbers since the mid 90’s, bringing their attitudes and arrogance with them. Overdevelopment and overcrowding of our cities to accomodate these throngs have destroyed the reasons people first came to Florida. Mix the transplants with the large, uneducated, underemployed underclass and you have the recipe for our current state of hell.