Business Week declares Portland, Oregon America's unhappiest city
#1 - Portland, OR
Overall rank: 1*
Depression rank: 1
Suicide rank: 12
Crime (property and violent) rank: 24
Divorce rate rank: 4
Cloudy days: 222
Unemployment rate (December 2008): 7.8%
BusinessWeek.com ranked 50 of the largest metros based on a variety of factors including depression rates, suicide rates, divorce rates, crime, unemployment, population loss, job loss, weather, and green space. The most heavily weighted factors were the depression, suicide, jobs (unemployment and job loss), and crime rates. The depression rate is based on drug company data on antidepressant sales. The rate of depression within a place, the total number of reported depression cases divided by the total population. The suicide rate is for 2004 and comes from “The 2007 Big Cities Health Inventory” compiled by the National Assembly of County & City Health Officials (NACCHO). The crime risk indexes for property and crime used for the scoring were based on FBI crime reporting for the seven most-recent available years. Divorce rates and 2009 population change come from the U.S. Census. The number of cloudy days came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Note: I love Portland. I have a lot of really interesting friends there, a parent and a sister who live there, and I think it's culturally pretty cool. Good music scene. Strong community identity and scrappy attitudes prevail over those endless days of dreadful weather. Nevertheless, you kind of can't argue with the numbers, and I'm sure that's affecting all of the above positives.
Overall rank: 1*
Depression rank: 1
Suicide rank: 12
Crime (property and violent) rank: 24
Divorce rate rank: 4
Cloudy days: 222
Unemployment rate (December 2008): 7.8%
BusinessWeek.com ranked 50 of the largest metros based on a variety of factors including depression rates, suicide rates, divorce rates, crime, unemployment, population loss, job loss, weather, and green space. The most heavily weighted factors were the depression, suicide, jobs (unemployment and job loss), and crime rates. The depression rate is based on drug company data on antidepressant sales. The rate of depression within a place, the total number of reported depression cases divided by the total population. The suicide rate is for 2004 and comes from “The 2007 Big Cities Health Inventory” compiled by the National Assembly of County & City Health Officials (NACCHO). The crime risk indexes for property and crime used for the scoring were based on FBI crime reporting for the seven most-recent available years. Divorce rates and 2009 population change come from the U.S. Census. The number of cloudy days came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Note: I love Portland. I have a lot of really interesting friends there, a parent and a sister who live there, and I think it's culturally pretty cool. Good music scene. Strong community identity and scrappy attitudes prevail over those endless days of dreadful weather. Nevertheless, you kind of can't argue with the numbers, and I'm sure that's affecting all of the above positives.