Sounds legit. There's no way a place like Detroit can be more miserable than Miami. All those topless chicks on the beach in thongs and year round nice temps. Man, it's so depressing down there.

Ugh. Not this shiat again:

The rankings are based on factors including jobless rates, violent crime, foreclosures, income and property taxes, as well as considerations like weather, commute time and political corruption.

jobless rates - Stupid factor is stupid. More telling is the overall availability of jobs for all skill levels. I don't care if the jobless rate down here in New Orleans is 10% or 2%. I care that I can find jobs that pay what I need and are at my level of skill. (I can't, but I'm lucky to be running my own business. If I had to find a job, I'd be screwed in NOLA.)

violent crime - Fairly meaningless to the general population. The sheer majority of violent crimes are crimes where the two people know each other. Drug deals gone bad. Husband freaks out and kills his wife.

foreclosures - Has nothing to do with the city. If you lose your house in Miami, you'd have lost it in Chicago too.

political corruption - Oh, please. Most people don't have any idea about the news. And political corruption affects people very little. Not saying zero, but very very little.

property taxes - a once-per-year ding. Used to live in a suburb with like $1000/year taxes. Now live in a city with some of this highest property taxes: $4000/year. In the grand scheme of things $3k isn't going to make me miserable year round.

income, commute time - Those I can agree with, sure.

Better to be miserable in Coral Gables then being miserable in Cleveland. IMHO.

Backwards Cornfield Races: Obviously they have never been to stockton

I've never been to Stockton but have always been curious about seeing it ever since seeing a screening of Fat City. Does it still have that flophouse and palooka feel to it?

TheDumbBlonde: Better to be miserable in Coral Gables then being miserable in Cleveland. IMHO.

I'll take the gilded cage over the ratty shoebox every time.

Diogenes: TheDumbBlonde: Better to be miserable in Coral Gables then being miserable in Cleveland. IMHO.

I'll take the gilded cage over the ratty shoebox every time.

I'll drink to that, Sistah.

I drive through Hartford most every day.

Give me the choice of living in Miami or Hartford, I'd take Miami any day.

There is a BBC series on Netflix that follows Steven Fry through all 50 states. He goes through Florida to Miami, and while driving through he doesn't have a single nice thing to say about the place. It was odd because that's the only place he outwardly scorned in the whole series.

shivashakti: Demetrius: I drive through Hartford most every day.

Give me the choice of living in Miami or Hartford, I'd take Miami any day.

Having lived in both CT and FL, I'll gladly take CT. Though not Hartford. Hartford sucks.

I love living in CT. I would never live in Hartford however.

shivashakti: Demetrius: I drive through Hartford most every day.

Give me the choice of living in Miami or Hartford, I'd take Miami any day.

Having lived in both CT and FL, I'll gladly take CT. Though not Hartford. Hartford sucks.

Dude: You lived in Daytona. Daytona/=Miami. Good Lord.

I don't know if I agree with the article or not. Miami has certainly changed over the decades -- since the Cuban Invasion began and pretty well you need to speak Spanish if you work there.

IMO, it was a crap place to be years ago and it's still a crap place. The first thing you notice is far too many folks jammed in a small space and the second is the 'beautiful beaches' are crammed shoulder to shoulder with condos and usually packed with far too many people.

The third thing is the prices of everything, especially housing, to be California high. There used to be a strong middle class there, but most of it was pushed out by the wealthy and the very poor. Crime has been pretty bad there for decades, just switching from Whites to Blacks to Hispanics.

Yeah, lots of pretty babes in bikini's, buff suntanned dudes strolling around, tropical climate, beautiful waters but you can barely see the skies off the beaches due to development, the place is full of Cuban restaurants and Cuban music and tons of Cubans who hate the US and are dreaming of the day they can return to Cuba. The business centers are crowded, like in any other major city and there's a constant fight to keep the place clean.

The traffic is a nightmare. Drug smugglers and illicit drug dealers are doing very well. Plus, Florida is Hurricane Central and the Lightening Capitol of the States.

Basically, like any other over developed, over crowded big city.

BTW. Florida seems like a tropical dream until you spend a few of the usually wet, steamy HOT summers here and go through winters which can barely even be called winter. Then, in the summer you have the usual tourist influx followed by the tourist exodus in the fall and the very high elderly population.

Personally, I've been considering Georgia or Virginia. At least they don't have alligators and, now, Big Dangerous Snakes in every mud puddle or pond in the state.

Hartford, represent!

Onkel Buck: I see Flint and The D made the list, would not have been a list otherwise. I grew up 45 minutes east of Flint and 50 minutes north of Detroit. If you were running, gunning, or hiding you came to PoHo.

I hear Detroit is becoming a Hipster mecca. Fixer upper houses for super cheap near a hotbed of music?

Souf Beech. yea.

Miami is fine, as long as you speak the language.

Here's a handy guide:

matthew_tray: cookiefleck: Hartford, represent!

Used to live in Hartford from 2003-2005, so I feel compelled to defend it.

I miss it during baseball season when half the city is divided between Red Sox vs. Yankees fans. That was especially good times when the Sox won it all in 2004 & bars like Pig's Eye were completely split in two warring factions. That was a blast. I also miss the brews at City Steam. Naughty Nurse Blonde FTW.
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I didn't mind it. There's good people there and I had a good time while I lived there. Not sure I'd want to live there now (esp b/c Austin is considerably better than most places), but it served me well at the time.

All that said, I laughed like hell when I saw the headline. Props to you subby. I appreciated it.

Yeah, I moved when I was 9. When I visit there, I stick to eyetalian food and hole in the wall bars.