Did you know there was an index to measure misery?
Misery is defined as a state of great unhappiness and emotional distress. The economic indicator most often used to measure misery is the Misery Index. The index, created by economist Arthur Okun, adds the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. It has been in the narrow 7-to-9 range for most of the past decade, but was over 20 during the late 1970s.
Forbes has collected America’s 10 Most Miserable Cities. True, it may suck to live in these cities, but at least you can take pride in knowing that you’re tough enough. Flex those muscles.
America’s Most Miserable Cities:
10. Providence, R.I.
Rhode Island loves your tax money, baby. Only NYC is worse. Maybe that’s why everyone is leaving?
9 Charlotte, NC
Bank of America and Wachovia call this city home, which doesn’t bode well for its unemployment rates.
8.Modesto, California
If you don’t have a job, move to Modesto! You’ll fit right in.
7.Los Angeles
Do you like driving, paying taxes and breathing pollution? Los Angeles is for you!
6.Chicago
If you like disappointing sports teams, wasting the best part of every day sitting in mind-bending traffic jams and freezing your ass off—move to my hometown—Chicago! If you’re not sure you can take it, google “Gaper’s Block” before you make any decisions.
5.Philadelphia
What do you get when you add long commutes, toxic waste, and violent crime? Sports fans who boo Santa Claus.
4. New York City
High income taxes, stupidly expensive housing, “the costs can make all but the super-wealthy miserable.”
3. Flint, Michigan
You can buy a house for $104,000… but where will you work?
2.Stockton, California
Stockton is the epicenter of the subprime meltdown. What more do you need to say?
1. Detroit
The Motor City has high unemployment and tops the country when it comes to violent crime. As if that wasn’t bad enough—Detroit is toxic. It’s near the top of the list of cities that require the most Superfund dollars to clean up toxic waste sites. Congratulations, Detroit! You’re the most miserable people in the U.S.!
Guess it really is time to move to Pittsburgh. Do they allow Bears fans there?
America’s Most Miserable Cities [Forbes]
(Photo:Jason Lujan)
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Seriously, no Minneapolis? It was -15 degrees the other morning when I walked my dog. It’s like 5 degrees today and people are talking about how “nice” it is. Winter starts in September and ends in April. Yeah, it’s clean and there’s stuff going on, but have you ever felt -40 wind chill?
No Atlanta? Baltimore? St. Louis? NEW ORLEANS? Washington DC?
I have spent weeks in each of those cities and given the option of spending the rest of my life in one of them or death, I would need to think about it.
These people clearly didn’t do enough travelling. They were right on the money with Flint, Detroit and Philly though.
Most of the big Philly apologists I have met moved out of their beloved city years ago. I always make sure I have at least a half tank of gas when driving through Philly so I will not need to get out of the car.
I want a best cities list please.
If not for the murderous cost of living in NYC, I’d live there. I wouldn’t raise a family there, but as a single bachelor it’s one of my favorite places to burn a weekend at. The average commute is 36 minutes? That’s only 1 minute more than I already have to waste daily, while doing about 15-20 miles over the posted limit. Violent crime is not that bad either, I feel far safer walking the streets of NY than Reading and Philadelphia.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: OK actually I will agree with you on the sidewalk thing. It’s incredibly annoying that the city seems to pay no attention to sidewalks and only cares about clearing roads.
you forgot balto md….i was a police there for 28yrs…it’s a seedy dirty place now…if you hap;pen to go there ,stick to the inner harbor area or camden yards…that’s where all the police protection is….when i grew up in balto, it was a pretty nice place to live….
11 years in Las Vegas puts that POS city at the top of my list. The memory of living in that cesspool makes my life in Chicago a lot easier. Bring on the snow! Bring on the tornados! Our sports teams might suck, but at least we have some!
I think it’s a great list, valid and helpful. Thanks.
@chiieddy: just like someone from boston to chime in where they have no bearing or insight related to the topic.
“Did somebody say ‘boston’!? no? well let me talk about boston”
@Sleze69 – Come on, you know that the Santa incident is just one example of Philadelphia fandom. This is the city that every player surveyed by Sports Illustrated said is the worst to go to of all time, that they routinely have small children flicking them off as the bus passes through town. Philadelphia is the city that threw batteries at J.D. Drew, and the city where everyone cheered when Michael Irvin was seriously hurt on the field with a neck injury. I had a friend from Philly who wore his Penn State jacket to the Linc because it was a cold day, but because it wasn’t green got harassed and had beers poured on him all day.
And the fans in Philly revel in the “Broad Street Bullies” and players like Chuck Bednarik, who tackled Frank Gifford so hard it took him out of football for over a year. I’ve worked with guys who’ve bragged about how many murders have occurred in their neighborhood.
Yes, Philadelphia has a lot going for it too, and I personally love working there, but it really is as bad as people say.
Philadelphia is a rough town in general and the fans deserve the reputation they’ve earned.
I’ve lived close enough to Chicago, Flint, and Detroit to be able to say that, yes, they are pretty miserable.
@mgermano: Lots of young professionals live in Bloomfield/Friendship/Squirrel Hill and they’re pretty reasonably priced – much more so than Shadyside and South Side, which are completely overrated. If you’re more than a two blocks or so away from the corner of Negley and Penn, Friendship can be really pretty and really nice, although that particular corner is definitely sketchy and maybe not worth the $174/month I paid in rent last year…
big up! we’re number #1, yessir!
@pauliee: And Lawrenceville, too. We’re cheap.
And our new city councilman is neither corrupt nor old!
I currently live in Juneau, Alaska and it can be a miserable place. The town consists of about 35k people. Besides being a state employee job options are very limited. I’m renting an old beat up 3 bedroom condo with two other roommates for $2000 a month plus we pay all the utilities (about another $400 a month). Housing costs are through the roof here and very limited with what you can find.
Juneau is part of the North American continent, but because of all the mountains and ice fields we’re landlocked. Only way out is by a ferry boat down to Prince Rupert, BC or Bellingham, WA. Or to fly out of here. The winters are cold, dark and harsh and the spring/summer/fall it just rains 95% of the time. I’ve been pinching my pennies to save up to escape this land locked prison.
That’s why I live in Vermont, best of all worlds. Hills, Trees, Boston or Montreal in about 3 hours by car or NYC in 6. Oh and we have fewer people in our state than some metropolitian areas. Sure I have to drive an hour to get to a shopping mall, but there is always the internet. @vastrightwing:
I guess no ones been to Camden, NJ. Has to be the most depressed city in the US. Plus it gets bonus points for being across the river from Philly.
As a Camden refugee…where the hell is our spot on the list?
@braindesign: Yeah, kind of like how everyone else in this thread is doing with their home city?
What a dumb list. I am quite happy living in NYC on my very modest income, thank you very much. And I’m from Boston, and while it’s not a miserable city, it’s certainly not a fun city. I mean, it’s quaint and all, but the streets are difficult to navigate, the public transportation sucks and there’s no nightlife.
Vegas is strangely absent from the list. We have been slammed by the housing meltdown here because we have some many people moving to Vegas on a regular basis that they needed to keep building and building and expanding our city.
Then BAM! everything pops and people are loosing houses left and right, people stop spending money which puts more people out of work, ect.
Plus we have tons of easy access to gambling and that’s a surefire way to make people poor and miserable. The CAT transit system is wholly unreliable and esspecially in the extreme heat of summer waiting 45minutes to an hour and a half for a bus can be brutal.
Our city is ugly too, only a handful of green places. Mostly all concrete, dirt, and steel.
I do find the inclusion of Stockton and Modesto hillarious. I spent a lot of time in my 20s in central/northern California and can attest to those being pretty miserable places to call home. Modesto does have a really awesome taco place on highway 120w which I can’t recall the name of to save my life. But if you’re ever driving through Modesto and see a taco stand on the highway stop in.
I’m surprised there are no places in Florida on that list. Like Orlando, Miami or Daytona Beach for example.
@ Cancerian: The only place on the “Best Places to Live” that is conservative is Sugar Land, TX, and I’m fairly certain someone was paid to say that: having lived there, it sucked like the rest of Greater Houston.
The list is bunk, anyway, due to two glaring omissions: New Orleans (nothing says miserable like living in a trailer because your home was washed away with the rest of the city) and Houston (wealthy, yes, but people live in isolation, take three hours to get to work, and I don’t know if anyone notices the weather reports, but instead of seasons, it’s three months of summer and nine months of Hell).
@Finder: Uh, are you stupid or something? The comments about the sports teams were made by Meg Marco, not Forbes.
I am from metropolitan Detroit and it is true that within the political boundaries of Detroit it is fairly miserable just as it is whereever you have a predominantly poor black urban ghetto and incompetent leadership. The fact that we have such a ghetto is the direct result of liberal democratic policies of the last 50 years and the corresponding cult of victimization and lack of responsibility promulgated by hip hop, jive-ass leaders in the black community. The result is that in Detroit only 54% of its population can read and only 24% of its students graduated from high school.
That being said, I laugh when I read some smug idiot’s comments, as he sips his mocha latte, about how great it is to live in Chicago or on the Coast. This is the same smug idiot who plans to vote for Obama. If you want to know what “change” looks like, come to Detroit’s inner city. If you want to know how misery feels, vote Democrat.
As for me, I don’t drink Starbucks and I think hip hop is something pigs do to when they copulate. As for misery, I don’t look to the government or some moronic list to tell me and yet I still manage to find happiness. As for metro Detroit, I’m sorry to say that it looks just like where you live (regardless of location) with all the same fast food joints, Box stores, gas stations and traffic.