The data behind America’s angriest cities
When you think of how anger shows up in communities, you probably picture scenarios like aggressive driving and violent crime. In some cities, these metrics (and others) are much more noticeable, whether it's due to greater stress levels, rush hour traffic, or other factors.
Using data based on four different metrics, we ranked the angriest cities in America, where frustrations overflow more frequently than others. Here's what we looked at across the country's 50 most populous cities:
- Hours spent in rush hour each year: More time spent in traffic can quickly lead to hotter tempers.
- **Wellbeing Index score:**This Gallup poll looks at career, social, financial, community, and physical elements.
- Aggravated assault crime rate: We gathered the number of aggravated assault cases per 100,000 residents.
- Road rage: This is the percentage of accidents in each state caused by aggressive or careless driving.
Which cities earned the reputation for being angrier than others? Here's a roundup of the top 11 locations across the country.
Methodology
The Zebra pulled four data points to analyze the top 50 MSAs (by population) in the U.S. related to anger.
- Hours spent in rush hour each year[1]
- Wellbeing Index score[2]
- Aggravated assault rate[3]
- Percentage of accidents caused by aggressive or careless driving[4]
MSA data was used where applicable, and we sometimes substituted city or state data as necessary.