Forbes Magazine just released its list of the 10 most miserable cities in America. Of course, most people are pretty skeptical about the subjective nature of such “top 10” offerings. You don’t have to be David Letterman to appreciate the laughable artificialities of any such list. But still, most of us can’t help but check out the picks — for corroborations of our preconceived impressions on the matter, or assaults on our assumptions.
The list of miserable cities runs the gamut, from big to small, from would-be Olympics contender Chicago to car-theft capital Modesto, California.
Chicago is attacked on several fronts. “Lousy weather, long commutes, rising unemployment, and the highest sales tax rate in the country are to blame for the Windy City being near the top of our list,” the editors write. “High rates of corruption by public officials didn’t help either.” So, Rod Blagojevich can take some credit for helping Chicago make #3 on the list. His scandal (only the most recent of several to plague his former office) is the kind of public gift that keeps on giving.
Other cities that take a hit: Memphis, Tennessee (for an “onerous” sales tax and its employment vulnerability vis-à-vis FedEx, the city’s largest employer “by far with 30,000 employees.”); Cleveland, Ohio (for massive annual snowfalls and Lebron James’s pending departure); Flint, Michigan (as a function of its reliance on a teetering General Motors); Miami, Florida (for its rising crime rates and sinking housing prices); and St. Louis, Missouri (which “scored in the bottom half of all nine categories we looked at for the Forbes Misery Measure … the only metro area to pull off that feat”).
Buffalo is New York’s only representative on the list, tagged for its high annual snow fall and its dwindling population. Flint’s Michiganders are joined by those in Detroit. Modesto (at No. 5) is bested by another California city, Stockton, supposedly No. 1 on the miserable list. “Only 15 percent of Stockton adults have a college degree, which is one of the lowest rates in the U.S.,” the magazine points out. “Unemployment is expected to hit 15 percent in 2010, while housing prices should keep falling back to their mid-1990s level when the median home price was $130,000.”
The Misery Measure includes a complicated (and arguably arbitrary) combination of differently weighted climatic and economic factors, and as a new resident of Philadelphia, I was glad that my current hometown didn’t receive an ignoble nod. Nonetheless, it seems like such an odd assortment of picks. I’ve been to just about all 10 of these cities, but I’ve been much more miserable in about 50 other American cities that aren’t listed. Indeed, academics are pretty good about sharing war stories from their stints at colleges and universities in big and small cities all around the country. And academia’s list of “most miserable cities” would probably look much different from this one.
