The Great American "Pizza" Map

Having spent considerable time over the past months analyzing the distribution of a number of strangely juxtaposed social phenomenon (ranging from religion to bars), today's map should come as no surprise to anyone. After all, isn't the comparison between the number of user generated references to "pizza", "guns" or "strip club" an obvious one to make? Perhaps not, but we're doing it anyway.

To our knowledge this is the first time that this particular set of fractures within American society have been mapped. And it is likely to be the last time as well, so don't blink.

The Great American "Pizza" Map

The map reveals that America seems to be largely pro-pizza with the red dots of pizza spreading across the landscape (the Midwest and Northeast seem particularly well endowed) like a rich and robust tomato sauce. Perhaps there is something after all that everyone can agree upon. (Although the unity behind pizza would likely break down over a fight between "New York" and "Chicago" styles.)

Moreover, there are a number of clusters -- represented by green dots – with more references to guns than pizza. We're not quite sure what life there is like (as we live in a particularly large swath of sauce) but it does give one pause for thought. Are these patches of green olives? Peppers? Jalapeños? Pesto? In any cases, these clusters are predominately rural areas – where apparently there are more guns than pizza.

Lastly one sees a few scattered locations where strip clubs are more popular (we're looking at you Las Vegas) than either guns or pizza. Much like the token scattering of pineapple that one is forced to endure on pizza (there's always one person who suggests it!), strip clubs represents a decidedly marginal activity in the aggregation of human experience illustrated in this map.

In any case, this post has made us hungry so we're off to grab a slice.

Where do people Make it Rain'?

I make it rain. I make it rain on them.
-Fat Joe featuring Lil' Wayne, "Make it Rain"

No surprises here (except for FloatingSheep's mastery of slang). The folks in Las Vegas make it rain. No, not precipitation. The kind defined by the Urban Dictionary as "When you're in da club with a stack, and you throw the money up in the air at the strippers. The effect is that it seems to be raining money." Indeed.

It shouldn't startle anyone that the largest city in the only US state where prostitution is legal also has the most user-generated references to strip clubs. Contrasting its usual ranking in the urban hierarchy of user-generated geographic information (i.e., somewhere in the middle), Las Vegas is undoubtedly considered by the collective intelligence of the Internet as the place to go to see the clothes come off.

But it is also clear that this phenomenon is national with clusters of strip club reference throughout the U.S. with Florida, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, New York-New Jersey (Bada Bing!) and Portland standing out in particular. Does Las Vegas retain its penchant for seedy entertainment when the raw number of hits are normalized by both the average number of mentions of 'strip clubs' in user-generated placemarks and the relative specialization at each point (values divided by the number of mentions of "1")?

Even when the raw values of user-generated placemarks are normalized by these two measures (with values showing less-than-average specialization excluded), Las Vegas remains the national hotbed for strip clubs by a considerable margin. But what explains the relative prevalence of strip clubs in the area around Aiken, SC? Or most of Connecticut, for that matter?

Clearly further research is needed but that's NOT what we mean. We're more than content to let it remain one of life's little mysteries for now.

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.