June 14 (UPI) — Poverty, unemployment, a poor economy and one of the nation’s highest violent crime rates is what ranked Detroit atop a list Wednesday of the worst places to live in the United States.
A new report by 24/7 Wall St. ranked the 50 worst U.S. cities using nine categories — crime, demography, economy, education, environment, health, housing, infrastructure and leisure.
Detroit, with a downtown population of 672,829 people, has a median home value of $43,500, a poverty rate of more than 35 percent and only 14 percent of residents have a bachelor’s degree.
At the peak of U.S. auto manufacturing in the 1950s, 1.8 million lived in Detroit. Today, more than a third of Detroit residents live in poverty. The city also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, the report said.
Flint, Mich., ranked second with a 10 percent unemployment rate — twice the national average — and 44 percent poverty rate, which is the highest in the country.
St. Louis ranked third, followed by Memphis, Tenn., and Cleveland. The report said the northern Ohio city saw 1,633 violent crimes for every 100,000 residents in 2016, quadruple the national rate.
Rounding out the top 10 are Wilmington, Del., Albany, Ga., Springfield, Mo., Baltimore and Milwaukee.
To determine America’s 50 worst cities to live in, 24/7 Wall St. studied about 600 U.S. cities with populations of at least 50,000 in 2016.
Wednesday was Detroit’s second straight year topping the list. In 2016, it ranked second behind Miami.
