OT: USA Today Worst 50 Cities
South Bend made the list at #40 for violent crime rate (??) that is sure to get worse September 1st.
Ohio had Toledo, Dayton, Cleveland and Youngstown on the list.
Michigan had Flint, Kalamazoo and Detroit (#1) on the list.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/06/13/50-worst-cities-to-live-in/35909271/
Looks like I missed Canton, OH.
Kalamazoo? What a joke. Flint I get. Detroit, less so if we're talking 2018 and not 1988. But Kzoo?
Here was their justification.....
"Air quality in Kalamazoo is nearly the worst of any U.S. city. The city's air is considered hazardous for about 15% of days in a given year, a far larger share than the 6% average nationwide. The city is also among the most dangerous nationwide. There were 1,217 violent crimes in 2016 for every 100,000 residents, more than triple the U.S. violent crime rate of 386 per 100,000.
As is often the case among cities on this list, Kalamazoo is poor. Over 30% of the population lives in poverty, more than double the U.S. poverty rate of 14%."
What's with the bad air quality? I didn't think there was that much heavy industry in Kzoo.
Fumes wafting in from Gary, IN?
Yeah I was surprised at the inclusion of Kzoo but with the 3 times the national average for violent crimes per 100k and a pretty high poverty level I guess that'll do it.
Even in 1988, Kalamazoo wasn't that bad. At least kids back then can still walk around and play at night and not worry like we do now in the middle of suburbia. Yes, I understand that it's more of the state of mind then it is a change in the environment.
Did you read the article? I was on the same page with you before I read it. Horrible air quality, high crime rate, and high poverty rate (which I take issue with considering they aren't adjusting for cost of living, which is notoriously low in the mid-west).
They looked at the ~600 cities with a population of 50k (about the size of Battle Creek or Royal Oak) or more. Considering that they are looking at the bottom 1/12th, I'm not quite as shocked to see them on the list. I wouldn't think other cities like South Bend, Gainesville, Syracuse, or Salt Lake City would be on the list either, but someone has to be there.
Syracuse and South Bend are hallowed out former industrial towns. I'm not surprised at all. Once you get off of campus, both towns are dumps.
I ... like Detroit (to visit).
This sounds like a report that was decades in the making - bearing no resemblance to current reality.
If you drive a couple miles outside of downtown Detroit in any direction (excluding into the river), you will see that this is still very on point. And that is where the majority of Detroiters live, so...
People who don't spent much time outside of downtown/midtown would have that assessment.
Don't disagree with any of the statistics, but Detroit blows for two reasons for the average citizen like me: High property and automobile insurance rates. City income tax sucks as well.
When I moved back to Detroit in 2010, I almost had a heart attack when my rates jumped.
Toledo represent! This place is a shit hole...but we don't have hurricanes, earthquakes, abnormal sinkholes, terrorist attacks, jobs or drinkable water so we got that going for us...
Killer algae tho
USA Today is a garbage "newspaper" and this list is just dumb.
I don't understand how you can put Miami and Miami Beach on a list like this ranking as worse than Gainesville, FL. Gainesville is a shitty trashy Ann Arbor and there is no way in hell Miami is a worse place to live. Hell, rent in downtown is relatively cheap compared to other big cities around the country
On the flip side, here are 10 of the best cities to live in the US:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/us-news-world-report-the-10-best-places-to-live-in-the-us-in-2018.html
1. Austin, TX
2. Colorado Springs, Co
3. Denver, Co
4. Des Moines, IA
5. Fayetteville, AR
6. Portland, OR
7. Huntsville, AL
8. Washington, DC
9. Minneapolis, MN
10. Seattle, WA
Woo Hoo....Iowa representing at #4. My adoptive state!
This is such a bad list. I've been to Des Moines for work and its not a city. Its a small downtown with a massive "metropolitan area" to get to the population numbers. Comparing major cities cities to places like Fayetville, Des Moines, Hunstville, etc is just ridiculous. Majori cities have suburbs larger than those places in their metropolitan area.
Also the measures of where is a good and bad place to live are dumb. Acting like crime and poverty impact all people equally is stupid. Its sad how much inequality there is but I would much rather live in NYC, Chicago, LA, DC, etc over Des Moines or Huntsville because those cities actually provide arts, and a diverse food scene, and culture, and numerous other things and the fact that crime rates are technically higher mean nothing to my upper middle class ass and the life I lead. I would much rather live in Detroit than a third of the cities on the top 10 list and my quality of life would be fantastic.
I think the list is fine, it’s just misleadingly titled.
These are not the worst places to live, but rather the worst places to live for the average resident already living there.
Denver is a great place to live, but don't really want too many people to find out. We have enough people here as it is.
I think they are already on to us. Take a look at your property value over the last 3 years
Are you from there? I have a friend in Boulder from NJ. He said everyone there hates transplants but are transplants themselves lol
I'd put St. Paul at #9 but not Minneapolis.
I was wondering about this. I've lived in neither and visited both, and while both are nice I've been more impressed with St. Paul than Minneapolis.
I grew up in Minneapolis, so I could never say that St. Paul is better. But now that I am older I can definitely see the appeal of St. Paul. Really, though, I would say that comparing the two is tough. They are both great, and part of what makes the Twin Cities nice is that you have the two different city-centers so close together.
Current Minneapolis resident and love the place. St Paul....not as much, but nothing wrong with the place.
St Paul isn't bad either but the crime is a bit worse and if you're looking for stuff to do, Minneapolis is a better bet. Everything in St Paul shuts down super early.
Both great cities but very different vibes in each. Minneapolis is energized, young, things to do, people to see, faster paced. St Paul is relaxed, smaller, cute and feels like there is more tradition there.
I've only driven through Huntsville, AL........a dozen times or so. I never once thought it looked like a place I wanted to live. Must be taxes, cost of living, and weather or something.
Detroit deserves number 1... sorry.
Toledo should be number 2...
Glad I live in A2 currently!!
I would like to argue with you........but facts and truth and stuff.
LOL, I was born there my man, so I hear you. It was a good city, but sadly has turned to shit.
You'd rank your hometown #2, Shea?
Only 3 MI cities on the list. Saginaw must be moving up in the world.
I heard about this list last week. My guess is Saginaw is too small to make the list.
No Lansing? Seems to be pretty rapey over there
Lists like this are the laziest of lazy journalism. It seems fun to crap on places like Flint and Detroit for a lot of people, especially when the the age of the internet highlights their failures.
On the plus side, these things can change and those of us who enjoy a challenge and building things see opportunities. D.C. would have been on one of these lists in the 80s. Probably the same with Atlanta and Miami. NYC was nearly bankrupt in the 70s.
As with any city, the livability for an individual depends on their income.
For me, living in Detroit (Midtown area for 1 year and downtown for 1 year) was great. I spent 99% of my time downtown or near the WSU medical campus, where most of the new development has taken place.
Living in Detroit for the average resident, however, is an entirely different experience. I don’t doubt that Detroit is the worst city in America for many people. Obviously, this discredits many of the amazing aspects of Detroit culture for even the poorest residents. But as a city, in terms of its infrastructure for the average resident, it doesn’t sound too far off.
South Bend doesn't shock me. That city is a dump. Notre Dame has a beautiful campus, but you get off that campus and that city pretty much sucks.
Yep. My best friend got married in South Bend (his wife is from there) and their reception hall had to have two security guards at the entrance to stop people from wandering in or messing with cars in the parking lot.
The list is skewed by not considering the entire metropolitan area. St. Louis, a city I know well, is No.3 on the list based mainly on crime and poverty, But it is clear from USA Today's description that that is based just on the City of St. Louis. Only 11% of the 2.8 million people in the St. Louis metropolitan area live in the city. The rest of us also consider ourselves St. Louisans. If you ask anyone who lives in the suburbs where they are from, they will say St. Louis.
USA Today hits St. Louis for a poverty rate of 23.8%, nearly 10 percentage points above the US average. But in the St. Louis metropolitan area as a whole, the poverty rate is only 11.4%. See https://censusreporter.org/profiles/31000US41180-st-louis-mo-il-metro-area/. That's well below the national average.
So I wonder what this list would look like if they considered metropolitan areas rather than cities.
I don’t think the list is skewed, it just isn’t showing what you are looking for.
Suburbs, for the most part, are largely interchangeable, and definitely do not belong on a list of “worst places to live.”
This list is more to point out what places have the worst conditions, etc.
The list is almost certainly skewed. At 11% St. Louis has a much smaller percentage of its population in the central city than many other metropolitan areas do, maybe most others. Here are some neighboring cities: the City of Kansas City, Missouri, has 23% of the population of its metropolitan area. For Indianapolis, it's 43%, Chicago 28%, Memphis 49%, Little Rock 27%, Tulsa 42%, Des Moines 35%, Milwaukee 38%, Columbus 41%, .
To do a fair comparison, you'd either have have to compare St. Louis to the inner 11% of other metro areas or do a comparison of metro areas.
Three Midwestern cities that aren't too far above St. Louis are Detroit (15%), Cincinnati 14%, Cleveland (19%, and lower if you include Akron and Canton).
The point is that the living conditions of the suburbs of any city have very little to do with the living conditions of the actual city itself.
As I said, suburbs are largely interchangeable. Comparing the suburbs of Metro Detroit with the suburbs of St. Louis is a mostly pointless exercise.
Urban cities, on the other hand, have a ton of variation in the living conditions of their residents.
But his point is that different cities have drawn their boundaries in different places. If you go to the outer reaches of Columbus proper, the feel is indistinguishable from the suburbs. Thus, Columbus has urban and suburban areas within it, while St. Louis has just urban (an oversimplification, I'm sure). So when you compare statistics like crime and poverty of Columbus proper and St. Louis proper, you are not comparing apples to apples.
That’s not actually what he’s saying. He’s saying that the population of Detroit and St. Louis proper is a smaller proportion of the total metro population than areas like Columbus.
This does not imply that Columbus has urban and suburban aspects to it. It just means that the population of the city proper makes up a larger chunk of the total metro population.
Not to belabor it, but this is close to what I'm saying. St. Louis has neighborhoods in the suburbs that are probably similar to neighborhoods that are within the city limits of Indianapolis and Columbus. What would a comparison of the poorest 11% of those metropolitan areas to St. Louis look like? That would be closer to an apples-to-apples comparison than what USA Today did.
Like the idea or not.... this is where the "Better Together" idea would really benefit the image of STL.
The problem with that approach is that Detroit used to have a much larger population, but then people fled to the suburbs. So the small population of the city proper relative of the metro area is a very important reason why Detroit is the worst city to live (for the average resident).
The same probably applies to various degrees to many other cities on the list.
A place like Columbus didn’t have that problem as much, so it has nicer developments on the outskirts of the city proper.
It would be a completely different list. They looked at cities with a population of 50k or more. If you start adding in metro areas many of these cities merge, which removes disparity between areas. For example, Metro Detroit would include Detroit, Warren, Sterling Heights, Dearborn, Livonia, Clinton Twp, Canton, Westland, Troy, Farmington Hills, Macomb, Shelby, Southfield, Waterford, Rochester Hills, West Bloomfield, Taylor, St. Clair Shores, Pontiac, Dearborn Heights, Royal Oak, Novi, and Ypsilanti Twp. That's 23 of the 31 cities in Michigan with population over 50k. Not only does that not give any of these cities a chance to show as a top city, but it likely also buoys Detroit more than it deserves.
Maybe they're counting East St. Louis too?... /s