Green Bay named country's ‘drunkest city'

During the 1960s, Green Bay, Wisconsin, was known as Titletown because of the success of the NFL’s Packers, winners of five league titles and the first two Super Bowls.

Green Bay can add another title now. According to 24/7 Wall St., a Delaware-based financial news and opinion company, the city is rated as the drunkest city in America.

"The excessive drinking rate among adults in Green Bay is the highest of any metro area in the country," according to a study released Wednesday. The group analyzed self-reported data from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. The data was collected across nearly 400 metro areas, the Green Bay Press Gazette reported.

According to data collected by 24/7 Wall St., Green Bay has 138 bars and more than 26 percent of adult residents drink to excess. The national average is 18 percent, the Press Gazette reported.

Excess drinking appears to be a trend in Wisconsin, too, according to the study. Of the 20 drunkest cities listed by 24/7 Wall St., 10 are from Wisconsin — and the state owns the top four spots with Eau Claire, Appleton and Madison finishing behind Green Bay. Wisconsin also has seven of the top 10 cities, with Oshkosh (No. 6), Wausau (No. 9) and La Cross (No. 10) rounding out the list.

The study also found cities with heavy drinking tend to have better-educated, higher earning and healthier populations than cities with the lowest excessive drinking rates, the Press Gazette reported.

The ratings appear to be skewed toward the upper Midwest, with cities from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota and Montana all represented in the top 15. The first non-Midwest city in the rankings is the Fort Drum-Watertown area of New York, at No. 16.

Cox Media Group