Imagine living in a city with the country’s highest rate for violent crime and the second-highest unemployment rate. As an added kicker you need more Superfund dollars allocated to your city to clean up contaminated toxic waste sites than just about any other metro. Forbes Magazine does an interesting evaluation on cities you probably don’t want to move to.

Detroit, MI

Unfortunately, this nightmare is a reality for the residents of
Detroit. The Motor City grabs the top spot on Forbes’ inaugural list of
America’s Most Miserable Cities.

Misery is defined as a state of great unhappiness and emotional
distress. The economic indicator most often used to measure misery is
the Misery Index. The index, created by economist Arthur Okun, adds the
unemployment rate to the inflation rate. It has been in the narrow
7-to-9 range for most of the past decade, but was over 20 during the
late 1970s.

There also exists a Misery Score, which is the sum of
corporate, personal, employer and sales taxes in different countries.
France took the top spot (or perhaps bottom is more appropriate) with a
score of 166.8, thanks to a top rate of 51% on personal incomes and 45%
for employer Social Security.

But aren’t there other things that
cause Americans misery? Of course. So we decided to expand on the
Misery Index and the Misery Score to create our very own Forbes Misery
Measure. We’re sticking with unemployment and personal tax rates, but
we are adding four more factors that can make people miserable: commute
times, weather, crime and that toxic waste dump in your backyard.

We
looked at only the 150 largest metropolitan areas, which meant a
minimum population of 371,000. We ranked the cities on the six criteria
above and added their ranks together to establish what we call the
Misery Measure. The data used in the rankings came from Portland, Ore.,
researcher Bert Sperling, who last year published the second edition of
Cities Ranked & Rated along with Peter Sander. Economic research firm Economy.com, which is owned by Moody’s, also supplied some data.

1. Detroit, MI
2. Stockton, CA
3. Flint, MI
4. New York, NY
5. Philadelphia, PA
6. Chicago, IL
7. Los Angeles, CA
8. Modesto, CA
9. Charlotte, NC
10. Providence, RI

The people of La-La Land have some of the best weather in the U.S.
(it’s ranked seventh) but scored poorly when it came to commute times,
Superfund sites and taxes. And we did not even factor in air quality,
where Los Angeles is the worst in the nation by far, according to
Sperling.

The biggest surprise on our list is Charlotte, N.C.,
which is ranked ninth. Charlotte has undergone tremendous economic
growth the past decade, while the population has soared 32%. But the
current picture isn’t as bright. Employment growth has not kept up with
population growth, meaning unemployment rates are up more than 50%
compared with 10 years ago. Charlotte scored in the bottom half of all
six categories we examined. It scored the worst on violent crime,
ranking 140th.

So take heart, Detroit, you are not alone. After all, misery loves company.

Ranks are based on the 150 largest metro areas.

In Pictures: America’s Most Miserable Cities