The 11 Angriest Cities In America: Guess Which California City Made The Cut?

Some of us remember Howard Beale in the 1976 movie "Network," as the epitome of an angry man.

So angry, the network newsman of 40 years ago, fed up with the state of affairs in the country, goes on live television coast-to-coast to shout the now famous line, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Things have changed dramatically in the intervening years.

An angry person no longer needs the stage of live television to express any simmering discontent when the internet can reach far more people with far less literal bandwidth.

In fact, there's a Facebook site definitively named "I'm Mad As Hell And..."

You get the idea.

Sure enough, it's active.

Are we still angry? No speculation here; only sociologists can tell us for sure.

But Thrillist this week suggested that 11 cities in America had acute cases of anger, and in many of those cases, the magazine suggests anger may have intensified over those past 40 years.

We'll provide the full list at the end of this article.

For Californians, it appears more folks than Tony Bennett have left their heart behind in San Francisco, as anger over the changing soul of the city has given the land of Lombard a national ranking of eighth Angriest City in America, according to Thrillist.

San Francisco is considered the "Perfect Angry City Storm."

The magazine is the first to point out there's nothing scientific about the information they've provided.

Instead, the rankings are based on "the more irrational, often trivial anger-inducing behaviors that make up the DNA of a particular city’s inhabitants. Their general attitudes toward sports, traffic, tourism, food, other people from their city, why the f*** that guy on the street is looking at them like that, and so forth."

Here's what Thrillist had to say about San Francisco:

Californian anger is not like other anger. It isn’t quite the passive-aggressive anger you see up in Portland, or the face punching anger you see in Boston. Imagine the most chill guy you went to college with, likely on the ultimate frisbee team, having the worst day of his life, with event after event falling outside his favor. At first he’s like “whatever, this is just a crappy day, it’s cool, man.” But EVENTUALLY he just blows his f***ing top. That is California anger, and SF is your chill friend from college’s worst day, every day.
I’ve lived in SF for eight years now, and watched as the city has bent and adjusted itself to the second tech boom with the guilt of liberal rich kid, the city equivalent of Philip Seymour Hoffman in 25th Hour. It still takes the money coming into the city, but you can tell somewhere in its core, it doesn’t feel good about what it has done to the soul of the town. And the anger around the issues this has created: London housing prices, gross traffic starting at 2:30pm on every bridge, a wave of people moving there not for the energy and the ethos of the city but because of the riches and the restaurants, and pad that on top of the longer-lasting SF problems like an aggressive homeless population, and fucking GIANT HILLS EVERYWHERE cramping your calves, and you have the Perfect Angry City Storm.
Still, it is only California anger after all, so it’s not rising above eight.

Here's the list of the 11 Angriest Cities in America, as chosen by Thrillist, with selected comments for each area:

1. Philadelphia: "(Philadelphia) Flyers fans threw bracelets honoring their owner who’d recently died of bladder cancer onto the ice at a game to the point where the announcer had to yell at them."

2 , Cleveland: "...their football stadium is now rightfully known as the Factory of Sadness, thanks to a hilarious video that is also, well quite angry."

3. Boston: "Boston anger is a combination of things...an insecurity stemming from constant self-evaluation against New York..."

4. Washington, D.C.: "DC is one of the few American cities you could almost argue was designed for anger."

5. Detroit: "Detroit, quite simply, has always been fueled (!) by a combo of rage and dickishness."

6. Chicago: "A breakdown of the annual cycle of Chicago anger, starting on Jan 1st: hangover anger, back-to-work anger, fell-on-a-patch-of-ice-coming-back-from-work anger..."

7. New York City: "New York anger is a reflex; it is a genetic trait passed down by generations of New Yorkers."

8. San Francisco: "The Perfect Angry City Storm."

9. Portland: "...anyone from California is a devil impostor according to PDX standards, but SF is the most notorious."

10. Las Vegas: "...the entire premise of the city is based around filling a need that technically no longer exists?!?!"

11. Nashville: "...that party train is chugging most of the year, bringing hoards of bros and bro-ettes to ruin everything in sight every Thursday night through Sunday morning."

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