Misery Loves Company in PDX

Break out the Prozac, PDXers.

Recent articles and awards by the NYTimes, greenability authorities, and travel mags gush glowingly about the city. But if you want to see Portland show up on all those great Top 10 lists, you’ve got to take the bad with the good.

Of the top 50 metro areas, Business Week proclaims Portland to be the Most Miserable City in the U.S. Why? Here is their rationale:

  • 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% (now closer to 10%)

(I would add Greg Oden’s knee injuries to the list.)

Kari Chisolm over at BlueOregon has the best retort so far. What say you?

Photo courtesy of Meredith Farmer, used under Creative Commons license.

March 3, 2009 · Filed Under Communities, Lifestyle, Livability, National News

Comments

One Response to “Misery Loves Company in PDX”

  1. Jody McLeod on March 3rd, 2009 6:00 pm

    I love Kari Chisolm’s commentary. And it’s odd to me that Business Week created their ranking based on somewhat outdated statistics and assumptions rather than personal polling and interviews. Makes me depressed just thinking about it.

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