Most Stressful Cities

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? In order 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 a lot of 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 10 metropolitan areas that fared the worst using the above criteria. 

By Colleen Kane
Posted 18 January 2012

Population: 1,300,866
Divorced: 10.67%
Commute time – minutes: 27.7
Unemployment: 11.2%
Violent crime per 100,000 population: 540.2
Property crime per 100,000 population: 3,567.5
Suicides per 100,000 population: 13.2
Cloudy days annually: 137

Standout factor: The West Palm Beach metropolitan area is in the 93rd percentile for divorces.

Population: 2,612,052
Divorced: 11.3%
Commute time – minutes: 30.3
Unemployment: 9%
Violent crime per 100,000 population: 316.7
Property crime per 100,000 population: 3,881.7
Suicides per 100,000 population: 11.7
Cloudy days annually: 229

Standout factor: The Seattle metro area is in the 100^th percentile for cloudy days.

Population:  2,163,293
Divorced: 11.2%
Commute time – minutes: 27.9%
Unemployment: 12.5%
Violent crime per 100,000 population: 478.1
Property crime per 100,000 population: 3,106.6
Suicides per 100,000 population: 11.5
Cloudy days annually: 100

Standout factor: The Sacramento metro area is in the 87^th percentile for unemployment.

Population:  4,251,553
Divorced: 9.6%
Commute time – minutes: 33
Unemployment: 14.7%
Violent crime per 100,000 population: 368.5
Property crime per 100,000 population: 2,694.6
Suicides per 100,000 population: 9.5
Cloudy days annually: 97

Standout factor: This region is in the 100^th percentile for poor mental health days, though it’s only in the fourth percentile for cloudy days.

Population: 2,140,540
Divorced: 10.7%
Commute time – minutes: 29.6
Unemployment: 10.4%
Violent crime per 100,000 population: 613.7
Property crime per 100,000 population: 3,594.5
Suicides per 100,000 population: 11.3
Cloudy days annually: 123

Standout factor: The Orlando-Kissimmee area ranks in the 87th percentile for property crimes.

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 100^th 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.

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.

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.

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 100^th percentile for divorces, but it had the least cloudy days of any city on 50 cities analyzed.

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.