Most Miserable U.S. Cities Are Surprisingly All Liberal Cities

Forbes has put together the most miserable U.S. cities

Economist Arthur Okun developed the original Misery Index in the 1960s. It combines unemployment and inflation (and was 10.2 last year nationally, down from an 18-year high of 12.1 in 2011).

Our look at misery is more localized, and includes unemployment, as well as other things that aggravate people.

This year we examined nine factors for the 200 largest metro areas in the U.S. The metrics include the serious: violent crime, unemployment, foreclosures, taxes (income and property) and home prices. We also include less weighty, but still important quality-of-life issues like commute times and weather.

We tweaked the methodology in this year’s list in response to feedback from readers, dropping our rankings of both pro sports team success and political corruption, since both were based on regional, rather than city-specific data. We also added a new measure–net migration–which we see as a clear gauge of whether or not residents feel a community is worth living in. Detroit, which ranked No. 2 last year, also would have finished No. 1 under the previous methodology (click here for more details about the criteria for the list).

And how’d that turn out?

  1. Detroit, MI
  2. Flint, MI
  3. Rockford, IL
  4. Chicago, IL
  5. Modesto, CA
  6. Vallejo, CA
  7. Warren, MI
  8. Stockton, CA
  9. Lake County, IL
  10. New York, NY
  11. Toledo, Ohio
  12. St. Louis, Mo.
  13. Camden, NJ
  14. Milwaukee, Wisc
  15. Atlantic City, NJ
  16. Atlanta, Ga.
  17. Cleveland, Oh
  18. Poughkeepsie, NY
  19. Gary, Ind
  20. Youngstown, Oh

Every single one of those cities votes overwhelmingly for Democrats. You’re saying “woah, woah, Teach, Atlanta and St. Louis are in states that vote Republican. That means you are a complete and utter liar, and how dare you make this whole story up!!!!1!!!” Ah, but Atlanta is mostly in Fulton County, which voted 64-34% for Obama over Romney. DeKalb County, which includes a tiny bit of Atlanta, voted even higher for Obama over Romney.

The city of St. Louis, considered independent of a county, voted 82.7-16% for Obama.

Every single one of these cities is a recipient of massive liberal/Democrat policies and governance. Their citizens are overwhelmingly liberal. The funny (not ha-ha) part is that liberals are abandoning these cities in droves (those that can escape), which is one of the article measurements. And where do they tend to move? Areas that aren’t practicing far left policies and ideas, then these, let’s call them…..a**holes, bring the same Leftists ideas which destroyed the cities they’ve abandoned to other cities.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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