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Carlos Osorio / AP
The General Motors headquarters in downtown Detroit.
By Colleen Kane, CNBC.com
With common factors such as traffic, crowds, noise, grime, and crime, cities are generally not perceived as oases of calm.
But what makes one city more stressful to live in than the next? To gauge the stress of residents in American cities, data cruncher Sperling’s Best Places considered the 50 largest metropolitan areas (which includes suburbs). The team considered the following factors: divorce rate, commute times, unemployment, violent crime, property crime, suicides, alcohol consumption, mental health, sleep troubles, and the annual amount of cloudy days.
There wasn’t much variance in several categories. For alcohol consumption per month, each of the top 10 cities ranged from 8.7 to 14 drinks per month; for days per month with poor mental health, the metro areas ranged from 2.9 to 4.3; and for days per month of poor sleep, the range was 6.9 to 8.2.
The data behind this list does not paint a cheery picture. The Sunshine State, in particular, seems much less sunny — dismal, even. What follows are the five metropolitan areas that fared the worst using the above criteria.
5. Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Michigan
Population: 1,918,288
Divorced: 11.4%
Commute time – minutes: 27
Unemployment: 15.7%
Violent crime per 100,000 population: 1111.2
Property crime per 100,000 population: 4,152.4
Suicides per 100,000 population: 9.6
Cloudy days annually: 180
Standout factors: The Detroit metropolitan area is in the 100th percentile for violent crime and property crime. It also ranks in the 97th percentile for poor mental health days per month, though it is in the second percentile for alcohol consumption per month.
4. Jacksonville, Florida
Population: 1,374,303
Divorced: 12.3%
Commute time – minutes: 28.0
Unemployment: 10.4%
Violent crime per 100,000 population: 557
Property crime per 100,000 population: 3,772.4
Suicides per 100,000 population: 13.9
Cloudy days annually: 139
Standout factor: Jacksonville is in the 95th percentile for divorces.
3. Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Florida
Population: 2,472,015
Divorced: 11.5%
Commute time – minutes: 33.2
Unemployment: 12.5%
Violent crime per 100,000 population: 733.3
Property crime per 100,000 population: 4,678.3
Suicides per 100,000 population: 9.3
Cloudy days annually: 117
Standout factors: Metropolitan Miami is in the 97th percentile for property crime, and 95th percentile for violent crime, but is in the fourth percentile for alcohol consumption.
2. Las Vegas-Paradise, Nevada
Population: 1,908,008
Divorced: 13.2%
Commute time – minutes: 27
Unemployment: 14%
Violent crime per 100,000 population: 763.4
Property crime per 100,000 population: 2,921.9
Suicides per 100,000 population: 18
Cloudy days annually: 65
Standout factors: Las Vegas-Paradise is in the 100th percentile for divorces, but it had the least cloudy days of the 50 cities analyzed.
1. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida
Population: 2,780,818
Divorced: 12.3%
Commute time – minutes: 28.3
Unemployment: 11.2%
Violent crime per 100,000 population: 500
Property crime per 100,000 population: 3,387.2
Suicides per 100,000 population: 15.5
Cloudy days annually: 127
Standout factor: Tampa is in the 97th percentile for suicides.
Click here to see all of America's most stressful cities on CNBC.com.
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With it's lack of community and poor city management, Los Angeles should be right in the middle of the study, and since it is not, I find the whole study to be discredited.
Couldnt agree more! I lived in L.A. for 10 years in my twenties. The traffic in that city is beyond explaination. That alone should make it number 1 on this list. LA traffic=Justifiable suicide!
Add LA's neighbor, San Diego, to the list. Annoying hipsters, illegals, high cost of living, no sense of community, gangs, noise, traffic, and lack of jobs are just a few of the reasons it belongs on this list.
Yeah fgh, it's hard to believe that there ten areas that are worse than dallas. Whew!
I hate to even drive through there.
right! I live in st petersburg. Tampa and clearwater I can understand with traffic and b.s. but if you stay on the point there is absolutely no traffic in st pete , bike lanes and trails everywhere its great, the weather is great. I was in the pool yesterday! and the heater is broke. this article is crap! yes dallas is 17 below freezing in jan. and 117 with what 90 days 100 plus in summer. is that not stressful? besides all the
'produced water" from natural gas drilling giving people cancer in forth worth dallas area.I lived there 8 months whew!
hey anonymous move to st pete ...think about it WHY live in fl if your not 20 minutes or less to the beach. its kinda uh uh dumb. yes tampa sucks .article shoulda said cleawater tampa instead of st pete tampa. either way dude get out of tampa. get by the beach. you know if you live anywhere in florida and you have to drive 30 minutes or an hour to the beach you know there will be traffic that may take even longer, its the beeeaaach.and then you will know you are living in the wrong part of florida. thiiink abouuut iiiit.
I was born in Long Beach and lived in Huntington Beach, Westminster, and Fountain Valley. I loved every place I lived at. I loved the weather, going to the beach, and the unbelievable amount of choices of things to do. I never once dealt with any violent crime until the day I moved out of the state. I can understand if you have to be on the freeway everyday or actually live in downtown LA but other than that I think Cali is great. I think the ones complaining about it are the ones who live there and are spoiled. Try living in Tucson, lol. San Diego is great too. I think you concentrate on the negatives of a place too much.
I live in the Tampa, Clearwater, St. Pete area. It's not that bad; I couldn't imagine living in New York City or Los Angeles, much more stressful. In my opinion this whole article is bull hockey.
Maybe they don't count hispanic or gang controlled cities.
Stress is such a subjective topic though. Because a lot of other people in particular area seemed to be stressed out based on statistics, this is not necesserily a predictor of your level of stress should you decide to move to one of these cities. Stress is also relative to lifestyle choices and behaviors. So, this article is sort of like an article on "cities where you are most likely to catch an STD". Just because you happen to live in New Orleans or Las Vegas does not automatically mean you will.
3 of 5 in Florida. So much for Conservative governance.
Los Angeles is a huge city and is a great place to live. Quit all the belly-aching. There are no perfect cities.
I wish this economy was better so I could explore more of this great country.
I was very, very surprised to see 3 Florida cities in the top 5 most stressful city lineup...
yeah, yeah, I know Seattle is 9th, but why are so many in Florida?
B/C Florida kind of sucks. I live in Tampa and I have to tell you, this is the WORST place I've lived. I used to live in New Jersey and Virginia and here....it's just awful. You DON'T want to live here but I have to live here b/c I'm still in high school and let me tell you their education sucks too. Everything about this area is just stressful for NO reason. My SAT scores actually dropped when I moved down here, the classes are pointless and I haven't learned a thing. I'm sleep-deprived and have to get on the bus at 6am and get home at 4pm. The adminstration is absolutely awful. The job market is scarce. It's also not so aesthetically pleasing and the crime rate...it happens every second. We leave in the less desirable area unfortunately, and the people here are dumb as @!$%# and talk about committing crime when they aren't already or too busy getting high every other hour. There's alot of pregnant teenage girls and the guys are serious creeps. There's ALOT of sex offenders within a one mile radius and I'm pretty sure alot more things go on but I don't leave the house unless it's for school or going to the car to go somewhere else.
Having lived in Florida since the late sixties, 2 names come to mind. Disney and Bush(Jeb).
Florida got clobbered pretty well by the recession. Housing market is a mess. High costs for homeowner's insurance. Unemployment is still high. But it isn't a wasteland. I can't speak to Jacksonville, but I've spent a fair amount of time in Tampa and the surrounding environs. It's still a neat town. Gasparilla is fun. The beaches are still pretty good. Ybor City is best experienced on an off-night since it can get pretty crowded during major events. If I had one criticism of Tampa, it's that the "old boy network" is still alive and well. If you're not a native, you'll always be some kind of outsider.
nobret...I found an irony in the fact that Obama just chose to promote tourism from a State that holds five of the top ten miserable cities in the Country....What exactly was he promoting and what message will he be sending to the rest of the world..."Please come to American and spend a lot of money to visit misery". Maybe he should have gone to a Real National Park in possibly a happy place in the United States....maybe the message would have been, well more American and less self-serving.
Bids the question....have Floridians learned how to vote yet?
Jacksonville is still VERY much 1960's red neck good ol boys.
txmom, did you notice he was standing in front of the house that Mickey built. Who do you think are going to benefit from those dollars spent by the tourists? Certainly not the people working minimum wage/poverty level in the attraction/hospitality industry.
Vote??? Have you ever heard of a chad??????
Used to live in Tampa (USF area) in the 74-75. One year was enough... Live in New England... love it!!! 4 seasons... snow... GREAT Summers... Mountains... Trees, etc.
Never again in Florida. Not even a nice place to visit. Too much traffic and transients... Lots of freeloaders... No wonder crime is so high... I understand why people commit suicide living in Fla. Its no treat...
I think lots of people move to Florida to "start anew" and bring their own problems with them, thus the high divorce rate, and higher unemployment than the norm. We have resided in the Tampa area for 20 years (from the Midwest) and we would never move back to the Midwest. Cloudy days?? Yes, we have afternoon showers sporadically every afternoon in the summer....but those are fluffy clouds surrounded by blue skies. We love that we can be outside year round, and see green grass and flowers every day of the year. Who wants to see gloomy gray skies, and dead grass covered with "snirt" (dirty snow)? Our jobs have given us a good living, not rich, but a nice house in a good neighborhood. Our 4 children received excellent college educations with Bright Futures scholarships provided by the state. College educations even without scholarships were less expensive here than it would have been in our home state, and all the children have great jobs. These ratings were based on many factors which skewed the results against our state.
Uhhhh, guys, that includes you anon....Florida seems an awesome place with awesome people, at least the places I have worked there. Being from the middle of the country, things are different, but being a snow bird or a tourist, I was treated like family everywhere I went. Great folks, though a bit humid and who likes LOVE BUGS?? That said, gotta wonder if Florida's high suicide rate is due to its high rate of snow birds who got there and realized they were dying anyway and in pain....solution.
Anon....it is what you make it. Based on reading your comments, I am assuming you a she, so...."pull up your big girl panties" and make it work. You hate it because you had to leave your last place and refuse to give Tampa a chance. I was in Winter Haven for 6 months and the people in Tampa were great. Pessimism makes you hate wherever you are while optimism makes you like it even if its bad. Put on a smile, make the best of what you got and wow.....you are gonna find Tampa is a great town with great people......
No Bret...I didn't actually watch his campaign message I mean policy briefing in a theme park..Where I certainly believe that tourism is a great way to get an economy moving...and yes an avenue of employment for some low wage jobs and some middle income jobs and fewer Disney CEO type jobs...I just find the irony funny as it is sort of becoming serial stupidity...the harder he tries the more we get to laugh...perhaps he is the key to bringing joy to Florida.
Would that be the hanging chad or the dimpled chad?
After living in just about every other corner of the US (NY, Cali, etc), I now live in Florida. I must say that of the states I have lived in and travelled to, it is the most stressful by far.
By far the most intolerant of other people, their beliefs, etc. I have run into an astonishing amount of racist people here. I didn't know that racism was still so thick in the south. Though I am not surprised after finding out it is the pill capital of the world, and a very conservative state.
Conservative - holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change orinnovation, typically in relation to politics or religion.
I say this in the sense that a lot of people here are not open to change, or other people who are different from the flock.
Lot of hypocrites also. When it comes to Cannabis especially. Also, though the majority of the population is Christian, their values are almost completely gone. I saw an 8 year old in Target with shorts that covered less skin than my boxer briefs. My jaw hit the floor (not in a good way,...(covering my ass from the sickos)).
Obama and his administration NEVER understood Americans who would rather have a job and DIGNITY than the humiliation of FORCING unemployment and food stamps down their throats!!! They have manipulated the unemployment numbers and restricted employment to death in order to serve their Communist beliefs!!
Christopher,
Keep in mind 70% of the Florida population is retired. Most would rather see the baggies get the hell out.
Christopher, where were you at? I haven't had that experience at all. nobrent has it right.
I lived in both New York and LA.LA is worse.
I noticed many of the posting about Florida and the voting issues there! If those same people would go watch, Impossible Ballots. That documentary will explain what they found out about the election on 2000. And how the ballots from the electronic voting machines were altered! There is a much larger issue here regarding our election system involving a paperless vote counting system. In stead of blaiming Florida, go to the root of the problem, the tactics, and measures that have been implemented. And Americans must stop getting there news from tv, and do there own research thru books, and internet surfing, like watching documentaries. One site that has a huge selection, www.wideeye.cinema.com Get informed America, our country depends on it!
The only reason why the St. Johns River flows north is because Jacksonville sucks.
That's funny. Thanks for the laugh!!!
Garbage story.
Las Vegas is #1 for divorces not because of any perceived stress, but because of Nevada's divorce laws, which are very lenient. Non-Nevadans pop in to Vegas to take advantage of those laws, skewing the results. I doubt actual Nevadans divorce at rates much different than the national average.
Cloudy days in Florida? Cloudy days in Florida are a lot different than cloudy days in other places, like Seattle or Portland. Clouds come and go over the peninsula. Because its a peninsula. Rains come and go, forming over the Everglades or from any one of the bodies of water around Florida's long coastline, which is the longest in the nation except for Alaska. A state in a warm sub-tropical area surrounded by water and riddled with lakes and rivers is going to have clouds and rain with some frequency. Most Floridians take it in stride because they almost never get snow days.
Are we to understand that Miamians are teetotalers who are beset by violence and property crime? Or could it be that criminal incidents are reported more often because Miami has a large number of tourists there at any given time? The fact that crime might go unreported elsewhere doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Miami's got crime, but its nothing like 1980.
And most of Detroit's problems stem from one word: unemployment. Detroit has been struggling with global competition in the auto industry for 30 years, exacerbated by the recent exceptional economic downturn. Nothing new here. Please keep moving. Keep moving please.
This garbage article makes me mad. I'm going to go get a drink, lose my job and then get divorced. After that, I'll beat somebody up and steal their property. When the cops close in, I'll kill myself under the cloudy sky.
I agree with the garbage story theory. As well as yeserdays rudest cities story. The journalists have to just keep clacking things out to earn their paychecks. There are going to be stressful events, long lines, divorces, rude people from the smallest village to the largest city. I really think it boils down to an individual perspective and how one chooses to live ones life and approach others and difficult situations in an uplifting and positive manner as much as it is possible. Whats with all the bummer reportage? Its up to us as individuals as to how we perceive, react to and deal with situations. We have unique and individual minds with capacity to cope (or choose not to and stress out endlessly). We arent cattle.
I totally agree with both of you
ChrisMcK, agreed. We haven't had anyone jump off the Skyway in a long time, but then the snowbirds aren't all coming down lately....
David, it's because Florida is now a part of The United States of South America.
Apparently i'm so far south i'm north
no comment
I've lived in all these cities except for Jacksonville. This article is a crock, St Petersburg is one of the best cities to live in and shouln't be associated with Tampa. St Pete is a perfect sized town with everything, even Europeans with a home town feel with luxuries. Detroit stressful only because unemployment...back in the hey day it Rocked!
Detroit should be no. 1 We're miserable here!
I wouldn't be caught dead in most of these places.
I know, all those vacation spots.. who would want to go there?
In Detroit you might!
booyaa
Obviously, the writer or researcher(s) have never stepped foot in Chicago. The absolutely most stressful city in the country. With its near 300 days of cloudy weather and 6 month winters that open up popholes in the streets as big a caves. City politicians that make New York politicians look like boy scouts, no parking, expensive everything, near tops on lists for most serious crimes committed, gangs all over, and just plain grimey and dirty city....has to be on this list.
sorry, but chicago doesn't have six months of winter...december thru mid march, that's it...lived in area for 50 years, winters are actually easier than they were 30-40 years ago...and i've lived in the city, worked in the city for 25 years, seems like a pretty decent place to me...great museums, can find plenty of retail/restaurants that don't cost you an arm and a leg...now their sales tax, ok that sucks...and property taxes...but don't exaggerate on items that just aren't true...
Chicago is the only place that has a 5 mile, two hour commute on a regular basis. Generally I do not consider commuting stressful, then I thought of Chicago...talk about road rage! Only place in America where a guy has traveled the same route for thirty years and still is in the wrong lane when they have to get off the highway.
Alcohol consumption is a bonus, when did it become a negative?
Chicago has similar weather and filth as Detroit but also cooler city has more to offer.
I live in St. Pete, FL. It really is not that bad here. I am from Cincinnati and living in the sunshine state is great. There are a lot of homeless people here but they mostly hang out in Tampa, over the bridge. The Employment sitch is pretty bad down here and there are a lot of forclosures, but I always say if your going to be broke you might as well be by the beach.
Having lived in the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area for over 40 years, and traveling across the country for a living for the past 10, I can tell you that bundling Tampa in with the Cities across the bay is just wrong. Hillsborough(Tampa) and Pinellas(St.Pete/Clw) are two totally different communities and I would never live in Tampa, but would never live anywhere else but Pinellas. With the great people who reside there and the Gulf Beaches that consistantly rank in the top ten in the country along with the incredible weather, stress is not something I would associate with this area. Even after visiting hundreds of other cities across the nation, I still can't wait to get home every chance I get.
It is because the middle class is non existant in most cities in the country. It is great for the rich of florida or anywhere else. Wher poverty reins there is very little optimism to go around. Hence drugs and alcohol and crime take over. Thank grovers goonies for this happening in America.
no wonder they are under stress,i live in a rural area and would not bother to go to work if it took me that long to get to work.plus you must come home and get some sleep.pity the smart people,i have a cousin that worked really hard through university and he works in toronto,he has brothers that visit him every year because he doesn`t have the extra cash for atrip home.his brothers worked really hard in their twenties and thirties pouring cement and they were good at it.now his brothers are on easy street and he is looking at the unhealthy job of working behind a desk until he has a heart attack.
So I guess the thing that causes the most stress, according to this liberal PC group is divorce. Things like murder rate, cost of living, crime an unemployment are not considered stressful.
Wow, what a shocker for #1, the area I live in. You did not mention the miserable traffic and congestion, as well as the unbearable summers. I knew I wanted to leave here, now the reason(s) more clear than ever!
then go already. I find the summers enjoyable and i commute from clearwater to tampa daily, traffic isnt bad at all. Clearly, i am a happier person than you.
My butt smells
Rough life, get over it!
Guess we can all agree.... Texas is awesome.
Never been to that Country.
That's why Mack Davis wrote the song "Happiness is Lubbock in you're rear view mirror". I lived there for 3 years.
Texas is awesome? Obviously you've never spent time in traffic in Houston, Dallas, or the stretch between Austin and San Antonio. Concerning traffic, those cities are bad, at least every time I've been there. I worked for a week in Houston and was able to watch the traffic in 610 each day. Not once did traffic get up to 55 miles per hour. That highway was a logjam from at least 6 am to 6 pm.
Why choose cloudy days as a factor? I don't equate clouds with stress, and I doubt many studies have.
considering the "clouds" they speak of only last a few minutes then move on. I'm looking outside right now and nothing but blue skies. Temperature is a bit low, only 68. It's been a pretty cold winter.
(crosses Florida off the list of potential places to retire)
I lived in Tampa for 9 years, and am now currently residing in Las Vegas. I have to agree with a previous commenter, it IS stressful in the Tampa area. The school system is jack@!$%# at the moment, and I swear the students couldn't get any dumber. If anyone in that area remembers the kids who drilled into that ammonia pipe a few years ago down in Riverview, you know what I'm talking about. I was able to stay out of the high schools for the most part and went to a private school. Vegas isn't much better, but I believe it's just because of the unemployment rate. When you're 19 years old and have no job experience, yeah, it's gets pretty stressful to be constantly turned down for entry-level jobs that they could EASILY train you for.
I have lived in Miami all my life. The 80's were absolutely horrible due to influx of Cocaine and refugees with no jobs but today, Miami is better than ever. Tourism is at it highest in decades largely due to our weather and there so many different things to do and places to visit. Commute times have gone up only because there has been such a large rise in our population over the last 10 years. Stress and divorce are everywhere. You don't think cities like Kansas City and L.A. have added stress due to gang violence and exploding drug abuse? Anyone who ever took a statistics class in college knows that stats can be manipulated to say just about anything. I welcome Colleen Kane to buy a swimsuit and head down to South Beach in the dead of winter and see if she can find a way to relieve stress.
Absurd - one-third days in Tampa are cloudy??? Don't think so.
depends on the time of the day. durring summer it will rain for like 5 mins then it will go back to being sunny.