America’s most stressful cities – and other city trivia

Portfolio.com studied America’s 50 largest metropolitain areas to rank them for how stressful each one is. They studied housing costs, unemployment, income growth, poverty, sunshine, unhealthy air, robberies, murders, deaths from circulatory-system diseases and commuting.

Given that stress is a major killer and according to a CBS Evening News fifth annual Labor Day survey, more than half of Americans are somewhat or extremely stressed at work. Also, a shocking one in six workers reported being “angry enough to hit a co-worker.”

Each city has different stressors and not surprisingly, Detroit is deemed the most stressful city and suffers from the highest unemployment rate of the 50 cities (whereas Washington had the lowest unemployment rate).

Top 15 least stressful cities:

These are the 15 least stressful cities in order from least stressful to more stressful.

1. Salt Lake City
2. Virginia Beach
3. Minneapolis
4. Raleigh
5. Austin
6. Oklahoma City
7. Denver
8. San Antonio
9. Kansas City
10. Phoenix
11. Portland
12. Boston
13. San Jose
14. Louisville
15. Jacksonville
16. Richmond

The 15 most stressful cities:

These are the 15 most stressful cities in order from most stressful to less stressful.

1. Detroit
2. Los Angeles
3. Cleveland
4. Riverside
5. St. Louis
6. New York City
7. New Orleans
8. Chicago
9. Birmingham
10. Miami
11. Memphis
12. Philadelphia
13. Atlanta
14. Cincinnati
15. Washington

Factoids about city rankings:

• Buffalo was deemed to have the most affordable housing while Los Angeles has the least.
• Las Vegas had the highest drop of income per capita at 6.17%. On the opposite end was Virginia Beach which had the only uptick in income per capita, having risen 0.95%.
• Memphis had the highest percentage of families living below the poverty level at 13.9%. With 4.7% of families living below poverty, Washington ranked best in this category.
• Regarding deaths from circulatory system diseases per 100,000 residents, New Orleans has the most (414) while Austin has the least (134).
• Phoenix and Las Vegas were tied for the sunniest cities with 85% of the year experiencing sunshine while Pittsburgh was the least sunny with only 45% of days.
• Ozone levels were the highest in Sacramento and lowest in San Francisco.
• Cleveland had the highest number of robberies per capita and Virginia Beach had the lowest.
• New Orleans had the highest murder rates while Salt Lake City had the lowest.
• The longest commute goes to New York City with 34.55 minutes while Buffalo had the shortest commute at only 20.78 minutes.

Is your city anywhere on these lists? AG is headquartered in Austin and we were surprised that we ranked for having the least cardiac related deaths. Very interesting. What struck you as the most surprising? Tell us in comments.