Presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to bring Chicago-style politics to Washington. Obama chats with key backer Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley at a recent campaign rally.
Chicago is the worst “nanny-state” city in the U.S. — the metropolis with the most stringent regulations interfering with the exercise of personal freedoms.
That’s the finding of a survey by Reason magazine, a libertarian publication, which ranked cities according to the degree they treat citizens as a “nanny” might treat children incapable of making their own decisions.
The magazine ranked the 35 most populous American municipalities in eight categories: sex, alcohol, tobacco, guns, movement, drugs, gambling, and a catch-all category of food and “other.” The higher the score, from 1 to 35, the more restrictive the city.
In the sex category, for instance, Reason looked at such factors as the number of strip clubs per capita, gay-friendliness, and adult entertainment regulations.
For alcohol, it took into account restrictions on happy hours and operating hours, blue laws and excise taxes on beer, wine and liquor.
The movement category included laws governing seatbelt and motorcycle helmet use, and government-operated surveillance cameras.
And for the food/other category, Reason looked at menu-labeling laws, pet codes, bans on trans fats, cabaret laws and other regulations of “a paternalistic nature.”
Chicago finished in the bottom half of every category, including 34 for tobacco, 33 for guns and 28 for food/other.
Reason cited a ban on serving alcohol at all-nude strip clubs, restrictive gun control laws, a public smoking ban, and widespread use of surveillance cameras. It also noted that nearly a quarter of Chicago’s precincts are alcohol-free.
Not far behind in second place was Seattle, with 35 for both alcohol and smoking and 32 for food/other, although it did receive a 4 in the drug category for its permissive marijuana laws.
New York was next, with 34 for food/other, 31 for smoking and 28 for movement. The city banned trans fats in restaurant cooking oils and ordered fast food chains to show calorie content on their menus. Police have issued citations for infractions as minor as sitting improperly on a milk crate, and from 1997 to 2006 they arrested and jailed more than 353,000 people for possessing small amounts of marijuana.
At the other end of the rankings was, not surprisingly, Las Vegas, which in addition to 1 for gambling also got 1 for sex, 4 for alcohol, 6 for movement, and 7 for food/other.
Miami was next, finishing in the top half of all categories except drugs, with 1 for movement and 1 for food/other.
The city “melds Florida’s conservative guns ‘n’ smokes freedom with the licentiousness you might expect from a cosmopolitan port,” Reason observes.
Three other Southern cities finished in the top 10 — Louisville, Jacksonville, and Atlanta.
Here are the rankings, from most “nanny” to least:
Presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to bring Chicago-style politics to Washington. Obama chats with key backer Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley at a recent campaign rally.
Well being that the chances of you moving to NYC or LA are probably very slim. You shouldn't really have to worry about it should you? lol
This was a fascinating article (I googled it and read it in full). I'm surprised that seattle is number 2, not 1. However, many of these laws are statewide voter initiatives. Then again, the area is typically rated one of the best places to live- primary downfall is real-estate costs.
The great thing about America is that the citizens of cities and states can vote on initiatives and people that represent their interests.
We're a big country. If you want a hooker, move to Vegas, if you want to smoke in church, move to St. Louis. If you want to openly shoot heroin, Portland, OR is the place to be.
I find Seattle an amazing city that respects civil liberties and overall quality of life more than anywhere I've been in the US.
Now, if you want to burn a heater in a strip club church while packing .45, serving fortified alcohol communion to the chronically homeless- be my guest.
