WhistlinDixie

Choking

I always figured that Flint was rather polluted, given its large automotive industry that until recently had been a major part of the city. After running across the American Lung Association‘s annual State of the Air for 2007, I can see that my beliefs are now vindicated. Flint, and, by extension, Detroit, show up in four of the nine top 25 most polluted lists. (BTW, Wayne County is the home of Detroit.)

Oh Flint, How I Hate You

A little web-scouring led me to a couple of top-25 lists that paint a pretty sad picture of Flint, the city that is bound and determined to leave me as a mere shell of my current self by the time I graduate from college.

First off, the infamous America’s Safest (and Most Dangerous) Cities report, published by Morgan Quinto Press. This year, Flint managed to get third, behind only Detroit (an hour away) and St. Louis, Missouri. Heck, even the mean streets of Compton, CA are safer than Flint. This helps explain the two student safety reports that went out to all students within the first three weeks of the Fall school term, one for a mugging right smack dab in the middle of campus and the other just a block or two north. Of course, none of this stuff happens when I’m on campus. Guess A section students are a bit smarter than their B section (ie, Party Section) counterparts.

Secondly, a listing of America’s most liberal and conservative cities, compiled by GovPro.com. In this study, Flint came in as the 10th most liberal city in the nation and Detroit came in first. What surprised me was that the home of the great bastion of hippie liberalness (the University of Michigan), Ann Arbor, failed to even make the charts. The only reason that I can see for this was that Ann Arbor either failed to hit the 100,000 population mark or it just was not considered significant enough to be polled. Also, Chicago was only ranked 17. I fail to see how Flint could ever be considered more liberal than Chicago.

And you wonder why Flint sucks so much. Not only is it one of the most liberal cities in America, but it is also a great place to go to get your self killed. Its things like this that make me wonder if a good education is reason enough to risk my life by staying in Flint. The town definitely isn’t getting better in my lifetime.

Ohioans Love Their Booze

According to a report from Forbes.com, Milwaukee, WI is the "drunkest" city in America. However, according to the study, Columbus, OH has the third highest number of heavy drinkers, giving it a rank of 3rd drunkest city in America, and Cleveland has the second highest number of alcoholics, giving it a rank of 7th. Cincinnati was all the way down at 16. Ohio was the only state to manage getting two cities into the top ten. I’m not sure if I should be proud of that or not. I bet the OU (top ten party school) students love it.

For those of you too lazy to try to find the actual rankings (they are hidden pretty well), here is a rundown: (Note: All rankings out of 35 except state laws, which is on a scale of 1 to 8.)

And You Thought That You Were Safe

Just recently, Morgan Quitno posted his 12th annual America’s Safest (And Most Dangerous) Cities report. Even if it is not the most up to date (it was based off of crime statistics from last year), it is still considered to be the most accurate and all encompassing such compilation out there. You might assume that cities such as Chicago would be right up there, but you would be wrong. In the top five are Detroit (2) and Flint, MI (4), where my college is located. Surprisingly, three Ohio cities made the top 25: Cleveland (12), Dayton (17), and Cincinnati (20). On the list of the top 10 most dangerous cities with populations greater than 500,000, Columbus was ranked 7. (Detroit was number 1.) On the list of the top 10 most dangerous cities with populations between 100,000 and 499,999, Flint, MI was #2, Cleveland #9, and Dayton #10. In the list of top 10 most dangerous cities with populations between 75,000 and 99,999, Canton, OH came in at 6 and Youngstown, OH at 7. The one high point for Ohio was the number 19 ranking for Parma in the top 25 safest cities in the US.

A little bit of crude "statistical" analysis on my part revealed a disturbing bit of information: Ohio might be the most dangerous state to live in in the US! How did I arrive at this conclusion, you ask? Well, I simply counted each occurrence of all of the states in the US on each list. A state got a plus one for having a city on the safe list, minus one for having a city on the dangerous list. Some cities were counted twice since they occurred on both the overall chart and one of the population specific ones. Using this method, Ohio got a minus 7. The safest state from my analysis was California, with a rating of plus 10, followed closely by New York, with plus eight (no negatives, either). I realize that this is a very crude method to use, but considering the fact that I don’t have access to the actual crime stats and that I don’t feel like trying to assign weights to different rankings and categories, it is the best you’ll get out of me.