Not insane
The Daily Beast has decided for some reason to rank the 57 largest metro areas on the basis of sheer craziness, and the OKC comes in at a relatively non-drooling 39th, just behind (of course) Dallas.
Criteria: psychiatrists per capita (we ranked 29th), stress (25th), eccentricity (20th), and drinking (55th). Even Salt Lake City outdrinks us. Nashville imbibes the least, which explains absolutely nothing about country music; Milwaukee, Austin and Las Vegas tied for heaviest drinking, which presumably doesn’t need explanation at all, though contrary to popular belief, not everyone in Wisconsin is a lush.
Memphis sports the highest stress level, says the Beast; San Francisco the largest number of shrinks; New Orleans (duh) the highest level of eccentricity.
(Title courtesy of George G. Papoon.)
David »
13 March 2010 · 8:35 pm
Lists like this make me glad that I don’t reside in a Top 57 community.
Hell, I don’t even reside in a Top 100 community. Think we’re down around #355 or so, based on this: http://www.census.gov/popest/metro/CBSA-est2008-pop-chg.html
Lisa Paul »
13 March 2010 · 10:17 pm
Actually San Francisco leads the nation in two things: #1 in wine and literary consumption (not just books purchased but books purchased in the “literary” category of poetry, serious fiction and scholarly research). So you know we just love to get trashed and read poetry. Things just haven’t changed since the Beats stalked North Beach.
CGHill »
13 March 2010 · 10:53 pm
Literary consumption, however, does not necessarily equate to craziness, unless you get so lost in a book that you can’t find your way out of it again.
Phoebe Snow’s “Poetry Man” just sprang, unbidden, into my head. And while she covered Jesse Fuller’s “San Francisco Bay Blues” on her first album (Shelter 2109, 1974), she hailed from New York City. I mention this because I always thought of her as being from the West Coast for some reason. (She’s currently recovering from a stroke.)
Kay Dennison »
14 March 2010 · 1:41 am
I was astonished that Cincinnati is #1!!!!!! On the other hand our three largest cities made the list!!!! I live in Ohio and Cleveland is nuttier than Cinci ever thought about — so is Columbus but that can be attributed to the Ohio State campus. And trust me, I make my own contributions to the insanity. Maybe it was Cleveland’s low level of shrinks . . . because we just enjoy our insanity — rather than try to cure it.