A Map from the Vault: Bars, Bookstores, Bowling Alleys & Adult Entertainment

The other day when looking for a larger version of the Beer Belly of America map, I happened across a map that we made back in the early days of the blog in which we compared references to bars, bookstores, bowling alleys (an oblique nod towards Putnam) and adult entertainment.

For some reason, this map never made it on to the blog, but is worth revisiting. In it, the colors represent which of the four search terms was most prevalent at any location. A green dot means there were more bookstores, a red dot indicates more bars, yellow shows more bowling alleys and blue marks places that had more references to adult entertainment than the other three categories.

The pattern of more bars than anything else shows up solidly in Montana, the Dakotas, the Midwest and parts of the Northeast, with the exception of New England, which is interspersed with a sprinkling of places with more bowling alleys.

In contrast, much of the southern U.S., particularly the Southeast, has many more references to bookstores than to the other search terms. As this is a relative measure, this does not indicate there are more bookstores in the Southeast than the Midwest but that there is a greater number of bookstores relative to bars in this region.

Also interesting is the clusters of more bars along the Gulf coast (Texas, New Orleans and Florida), as well as the southern half of Arizona. This suggests that these parts of the southern U.S. have a different relationship with bars than much of their surrounding areas.

Lastly, the pattern of adult entertainment shows that Nevada represents a very different milieu than the rest of the U.S. The only other points in the U.S. where adult entertainment exceeds the other categories are predominantly rural areas in the Southeast and the central valley of California.

What do church, bowling, firearms and strip clubs have in common?

One answer (or at least the one we're willing to print) is that they all represent ways in which Americans can spend their time. But which parts of North America are more focused on one or the other? Or, more precisely, where are the resources for each activity more available? Using the number of listings indexed by the Google Maps directory[1], the map below visualizes the comparative prevalence of churches, bowling alleys, guns and strip clubs across the US (as well as parts of Canada and Mexico). Each point is color coded according to which activity had the most number of hits in the Google Maps directory.

Upon first glance, it is easy to see the relative supremacy of two topics, churches (in blue) and guns (in green), which cover most of the points in North America. Churches dominate throughout most of the southeast and upper midwest (echoing our findings from the virtual bible belt map) while the Northeast, the West and much of Canada show a higher number of listings for guns. One should not, however, interpret this to mean that guns are more prevalent in Canada than the southern U.S. (which clearly does not equate with the offline reality). Instead, the Northeast and Canada have relatively fewer listings for churches than in the south, leading them to be color coded with the next leading activity, i.e., guns. Likewise, there are plenty of gun listings in the southeastern United States, they are simply overshadowed by the listings for churches.

Of more interest are the small pockets in which either bowling alleys or strip clubs are most numerous, bucking the near-universal trend focused on guns and church. For example, there is a prevalence of strip clubs around Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada, as well as Los Angeles, California. Additionally, Canadian cities seem particularly well represented with clusters in Montreal, the Buffalo-Toronto corridor and the Seattle-Vancouver region. Interestingly enough, there seems to be some correspondence (especially in the Northwest US and Toronto) with our map outlining user-generated definitions of fun.

The small pockets of strip clubs around eastern Tennessee along the North Carolina and Georgia borders seem inexplicable, until one considers the advertising landscape along the I-75 corridor, in which religious and pornographic iconography are ubiquitously juxtaposed.

The few areas in which the bowling alleys outnumber churches, guns and strip clubs, are more difficult to explain. There seems to be little rhyme or reason for these bowling hot spots, as they do not correspond well with places with a relative specialization in bowling alleys. The areas shown in red are exclusively rural, so their classification may simply be a result of there not being much else there. Or their residents could really like their bowling. In any case, we plan on contacting Robert Putnam and seeing if he can offer any insight on this.


[1] Google Maps directories are drawn from a range of sources such as yellow page listings. This category is distinct from and excludes user-generated placemarks used in other maps found on Floatingsheep.

Rust Belt Bowling

What is one to make of Robert Putnam's now-infamous assertion that despite bowling reaching an all-time high in popularity, it's new found nature as a solitary activity is indicative of a decline in civic engagement, increasing social isolation and alienation amongst Americans? Although it cannot support any definitive conclusions, the relative concentration of listings of bowling alleys in the Google Maps directory[1] tells an interesting story about where this process of social isolation might be taking hold.


The above map shows places in which the number of listings for bowling alleys in a single place exceeds the national average number of listings by 20% (i.e., only indexed values >1.2 are shown). Although some of these places continue to show the dominance of urban areas (the larger a place is the more bowling alleys it might have), this explanation is far from sufficient. The maximum indexed value is located in Southfield, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, a highly unlikely location, given that listings in Google Maps directory are concentrated in major cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco. Further inspection shows that much of the activity mirrors the extent of the American Rust Belt, a region formerly known for its dominance in the manufacturing industry, now known more for its collective decline in the face of a severe economic downturn.

So what does this spatial correlation mean? A loose application (and we mean loose) of the theories of Max Weber (the 'iron cage') and Karl Marx (alienation of labor) might show that due to their full integration into the world of capitalist manufacturing, individuals living throughout the Rust Belt have turned to bowling as a refuge from their work lives, or lack thereof. It could be possible however, contra Putnam, that Rust Belt citizens have actually turned to bowling as a way of reconnecting with their community, rather than disengaging from it.

Or (stepping back from the brink of Germanic socio-economic theory) this map could simply highlight the cultural geography of a leisure activity with strong associations to the geography of early to mid 20th century manufacturing centers. Unfortunately for us, however, Google Maps cannot tell us why people bowl or whether they are bowling alone [2]. So for now, we remain wondering whether bowling is indicative of a resurgence of community or growing individualism. Let along the more troubling question of how Wii bowling fits into this.

[1] Google Maps directories are drawn from a range of sources such as yellow page listings. This category is distinct from and excludes user generated placemarks that we use in other maps.

[2] Or at least not until the release of Google BowlCam which is now in beta testing.