Here at Milwaukee Record, we employ a sentient machine known as the Great Job, Milwaukee Bot to keep track of the city’s many appearances on dopey online lists, as well as any time a national publication deigns to acknowledges our pathetic Midwest existence. To this point, the infernal machine brought us news that Rolling Stone liked Summerfest, and that The New York Times thought Milwaukee was a “cursed sports city”, and Travel + Leisure thinks we’re ugly as fuck. Today—mere days removed from Wisconsin being dubbed the 9th happiest state in America—comes news that Milwaukee is the 34th most fun city in the country.
The “study,” which was “conducted” by “reputable” list aggregator WalletHub.com, compared the 150 largest U.S. cities based on 58 key metrics to somehow quantify something as subjective as fun. Metrics taken into account were most restaurants per capita, most park playgrounds per capita, most acres of park land per capita, most fitness centers per capita (Fitness! Fun!), most dance clubs, and lowest movie costs. Milwaukee didn’t land in the top five in any metric, including most festivals per capita, most accessible bars, and lowest average beer price. We call bullshit on at least two of those.
Our fair and fun city’s number 34 ranking is the highest of any Wisconsin city. Madison came in 51st, which actually sounds about right. Then again, Las Vegas and Orlando came in first and second, so this whole list is fucked.