In the Pilot episode of GCB, one of the characters remarked that Dallas has both more churches and more strip clubs per capita than anywhere else. (I assume in the US.)
So what’s the Straight Dope? Is this actually a true statement or is it hyperbole?
I put this question in General Questions because I’m interested in a factual answer to this question. If you want to discuss GCB, please go to CS.
Thanks,
J.
According to this, Provo, UT had the most churches per capita in 2000, about 1 per 370 residents. Dallas was 221 out of 276, with a ratio of about 1 per 1700 residents.
I imagine Amsterdam probably gives it a run for its money on the strip club front?
Compared to other cities, towns and villages in the United States, communities in the Southern US tend to have far more lenient zoning and land use regulations. Thus, it’s often easier for a SOB (sexually oriented business) to find a location and get the appropriate approvals in the South than other parts of the country. In Texas, it’s especially easy in unincorporated areas throughout the state, or Houston, where there’s no zoning.
Portland has a reputation for having the most strip clubs per capita. Haven’t been able to find what I would call solid confirmation on that.
Portland, Oregon weighs in at 7.74 clubs per 100,000 residents as of January 2012, and has long held the title in the USA.
Source: http: / /thenakedhustle.com/portland-more-stripclubs-per-capita/ (Possibly NSFW).
However, Springfield, Oregon, the real home of The Simpsons, comes in at 9.3 strip clubs per 100,000 residents, making it the real title holder.
http://springfield.kval.com/news/business/most-strip-clubs-capita/246433
I’m native Texan and I’ve lived and worked in and around Dallas for the past 15 years. Anecdotally, there are a lot of churches, but about the same as any Texas city.
The strip clubs seem to be concentrated in a couple of areas, close to Love Field and in Northeast Dallas close to I-635 (the LBJ Freeway). They seem to change hands – or at least names – on a regular basis. I have no idea if we have more or less than other urban locales.
I have friends with better first-hand knowledge. I’ll ask them. Seriously. I don’t frequent such places. Like my friends. Really.
Dallas strip clubs have gone downhill ever since the city passed an ordinance banning any physical contact between dancers and patrons, and then raided a number of clubs who dared to ignore the stupid rule. I haven’t been to one in the years since then and would be amazed if they can find any business at all.
The little village of South Byron near me has a strip club.
It’s so small it doesn’t even have its own census listing. But the town of Byron, which it’s located in, has a population of only 2369. That gives you a per capita figure of 42.2 strip clubs for every 100,000 residents.
State Line, Idaho is an incorporated place with 28 people (2000 census, but it’s unlikely to have changed much) and as far as I can tell from Google, 2 strip clubs. I’ll let any interested parties calculate it on a per 100,000 basis, but it’ll easily beat any of the other cities mentioned above.
[
](Mark Twain in Montreal)If Twain could walk down Saint Catherine street now he would be impressed.
I live in Austin, not Dallas.
That said… while I have absolutely NO data on the number of churches OR the number of strip clubs in major US cities, it sure FEELS true that there are both loads of churches AND loads of (ahem)“gentlemen’s clubs” all over Texas. Often in close proximity to each other.
Now, a secular, cynical Blue Stater may want to believe that proves there are millions of hypocritical Christians racing out of church on Sunday to the nearest tittie bar, but I don’t see that. Apart from an occasional bachelor party, upscale crowds don’t go to those tittie bars. When I drive past one of them (Austin is crawling with them), I see seedy pickup trucks in the parking lots, not minivans. A Baptist megachurch and a seedy strip bar down the block just don’t appeal to the same clientele.
As others have noted, most Sun Belt cities have never had tight zoning laws. It’s relatively EASY to set up a strip club in an ordinary strip mall in most TExas cities, whereas even Blue State cities with looser attitudes toward sex can usually make it difficult to open a strip club in ordinary residential districts.
The town of Turlock California was mentioned in Ripley’s Believe it or Not as having the most Churches per capita. This was back in the 1930s IIRC.
When I lived there in 1970 there was something like 83 churches inside city limits. The town had about 10,000 residents back then.
There is exactly one…brothels are plentifull, stripclubs not so much. I think stripclubs are a fairly american thing - allthough there are other places that have some - and the city with most stripclubs per capita will be either in the US or possibly Canada.
I would have thought Houston held the title for most strip clubs. There are some areas where there’s literally one on almost every block. And I’m not talking about the seedy parts of town either, I’m talking some of the major thoroughfares, like Westheimer.
Did the OP really expect a show titled Good Christian Bitches to be chock full of facts?