Lakeview is living up — or down, depending on how you view it — to its reputation as one of the biggest party neighborhoods in the city of Chicago.
Just-released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that Lakeview has the highest rate of binge drinking in the city, and one of the highest in the country. Geolocation coordinates provided by the CDC rank the area around Wrigley Field as having the 20th highest rate of binge drinking in the country and the highest in the city of Chicago, with 34.1 percent of all residents engaging in the activity within the past 30 days.
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The CDC defines binge drinking as “drinking 5 or more drinks on an occasion for men or 4 or more drinks on an occasion for women,” and heavy drinking as “drinking 15 or more drinks per week for men, or 8 or more drinks per week for women.”
The CDC ranked 29,000 census tracts as part of its 500 Cities project. A quick analysis of the CDC’s data shows that, overall, Chicago has 13 census tracts among the top 50 highest binge-drinking rates in the country.
Taking a look at the map of Chicago shows a sharp contrast in the drinking habits of residents north and south of Interstate 290. The vast majority of neighborhoods north of the interstate and closer to Lake Michigan show at least 24.4 percent of all residents in the area have engaged in binge drinking within the past month. Head south of I-290, and you’ll see vast swaths of areas where 12.7 percent or fewer residents have engaged in the behavior in the past month.
The fact that Lakeview has such a high concentration of binge drinkers is likely about as big of a surprise as the fact that it gets cold in Chicago during the winter, given the fact that the neighborhood includes both Wrigleyville and Boystown, two areas of the city well known for their nightlife.
Matt Lindner is a freelancer.
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