How Angry Is Your City?
Now this is a true slap in the face to those of us that call Orlando home. It seems that Men’s Health magazine has ranked the top 100 Angriest Cities in America. They have the list posted on their website here: How Angry Is Your City? and Orlando has the dubious distinction of being #1. (Another city I formerly lived in, Tulsa Oklahoma, was #41.)
I have to admit that I was pretty taken back with this list. I mean, everyone knows that the Land of the Mouse is the “Happiest place on Earth,” right? So how did this happen?
When one looks at the measures that were used to compile this list, some things have to be questioned. The first factor listed is the incidence of high-blood pressure among men. I’m not completely convinced this means we are particularly angry here. I am more suspicious that it may have something to do with our rather unhealthy diets and lack of exercise regimes. I mean, we’re surrounded by amusement parks and there are only so many funnel cakes and turkey legs one can eat without clogging a few arteries. Add to that a few fried gator tails and some BBQ and you are on your way to serious hyper-tension.
Now the whole aggravated assaults thing bothers me. I wasn’t aware that we had a worse problem than other cities. Sure, our statistics for murder and violent crime are up sharply this year, but looking at the numbers for the whole country looks like everyone is up this year as well.
Road rage–well, I’ll give them that one, but you have to realize how difficult it is to try to get across town with some moron weaving across lanes trying to read a map trying to find the parks. You know, if you just drive straight and fast, there are big signs that point out the proper exit for anything the out-of-towners might want to do or see. That’s not angry, that is just politely offering my assistance to newcomers.
There is more to the road thingy, however. You see, Orlando is not just a popular tourist destination, it is also a popular place to relocate. That’s all fine and dandy, but the infrastructure isn’t keeping up with the influx of new arrivals which is creating quite a bit of congestion on roads that were fine a couple of years ago. Granted, it’s no Los Angeles, but for a town that just a couple of decades ago was more rural than urban, it’s quite an adjustment.
Now, speeding citations? Is it supposed to be the driving fast that means we’re angry or the fact that we got a ticket for it? Yeah, maybe it’s getting the tickets that is making us angry.
Now this factoid from Money Magazine may actually shed more light on why we might be angry.
MONEY Magazine: Best places to live 2006: Orlando, FL snapshot
Notice that we aren’t making as much money as the best cities and therefore don’t have near the purchasing power. Those things always make me a little agitated. Our auto insurance is higher and we just found out this week that some major insurers are going to be hiking home insurance to help them recover some of their losses from the hurricanes (which I suspect is going to be a subject of a future rant). I find it interesting that this shows our incident of cardiac mortality almost dead even (no pun intended) with the best cities in America. Hmmm…that seems odd if we are really that angry.
On the other hand, Money shows that we have more bars than the best cities–that should make us happy, right?! We also have more movie theaters and golf courses. It is true that we have much fewer ski resorts, but just try water skiing in Colorado in January!
I still love it here, regardless of what this article revealed. Perhaps it will make a few less people move in and clog our roads. Of course, let the tourists keep coming…they’re paying our taxes! 