How Angry Is Your City?

The last time an entire U.S. city got monumentally mad was back in 1864, when a guy named Sherman paid a little visit to Atlanta. This isn't to say that it takes 100,000 invading troops to make a town lose its temper -- Orlando has never been a strategic military target, and yet the folks there are furious. Yes, Orlando, home of the Magic Kingdom and mandated happiness. Who knows? Maybe living in Goofyville wears thin after 35 years.

 

Our search for evidence of urban anger began with the percentage of men with high blood pressure, from the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (as calculated by Sperling's BestPlaces). We then factored in FBI rates of aggravated assaults and Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers on workplace deaths from assaults and other violence. And because rage and the road often go hand in hand, we also included traffic-congestion data from the Texas Transportation Institute, as well as speeding citations per state from the Governors Highway Safety Association.