2/21/2013 @ 2:20PM |267,133 views

“Right now, it’s all about survival,” Bing told Forbes.

 

Two years later, Detroit’s problems continue to multiply, sadly. It is still dealing with high levels of violent crime and unemployment. Home prices, already at historic lows, plummeted a further 35% during the past three years to a median of $40,000 as net migration out of the city continued.

 

The latest blow was Tuesday’s announcement that the city is on the verge of being taken over by the state. Detroit is in a financial emergency and cannot pay its bills. The city has been issuing debt to fund day-to-day operations. The continuing problems propelled Detroit to the top spot in our 2013 ranking of America’s Most Miserable Cities.

 

Economist Arthur Okun developed the original Misery Index in the 1960s. It combines unemployment and inflation (and was 10.2 last year nationally, down from an 18-year high of 12.1 in 2011).

 

Our look at misery is more localized, and includes unemployment, as well as other things that aggravate people.

 

Full List: America’s Most Miserable Cities

 

This year we examined nine factors for the 200 largest metro areas in the U.S. The metrics include the serious: violent crime, unemployment, foreclosures, taxes (income and property) and home prices. We also include less weighty, but still important quality-of-life issues like commute times and weather.

 

We tweaked the methodology in this year’s list in response to feedback from readers, dropping our rankings of both pro sports team success and political corruption, since both were based on regional, rather than city-specific data. We also added a new measure—net migration—which we see as a clear gauge of whether or not residents feel a community is worth living in. Detroit, which ranked No. 2 last year, also would have finished No. 1 under the previous methodology (click here for more details about the criteria for the list).

 

Detroit’s problems are hardly new. It has been in a four-decade decline, paralleling the slide of the U.S. auto industry. The city’s debt rating was cut to junk by Moody’s Investors Service in 1992, but declining tax revenues from a shrinking city will soon make Detroit a ward of the state.

 

Violent crime in the Detroit metro division was down 5% in 2011, but it remains the highest in the country with 1,052 violent crimes per 100,000 people, according to the FBI. The city’s financial problems have forced significant cutbacks to the police force. It is a circuitous problem as high crime and unemployment force people to leave the city, which lowers the tax base and strains Detroit’s finances further.

 

“There is no question that Detroit has many challenges,” Bing said in a statement to Forbes today. “With all due respect to the data in this report, Detroit is in the midst of a transformation. That transformation is being driven by my restructuring plan, which is focused on four key areas: public safety; public lighting; public transportation; and neighborhood blight removal.”

 

The problems of No. 2-ranked Flint, Mich. mirror those of Detroit. Like Detroit, Flint has been demolishing homes as the city shrinks, with residents leaving in search of jobs. Only Detroit has a higher net migration rate among the 200 largest U.S. metros. Unemployment has averaged 11.3% in Flint the past three years and it ranks third worst for violent crime behind just Detroit and Memphis, Tenn.

 

Flint beat Detroit to the punch when it came to surrendering to the state over its finances. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed an emergency manager at the end of 2011 to run the cash-strapped city. The manager is still in place.

 

Two cities on our list, Chicago (No. 4) and New York (No. 10) may surprise readers, though they’ve been here before. Both offer a myriad of opportunities and positives as the homes of financial centers, world-class culture, leading universities, sports teams galore and high-end restaurants. But it isn’t easy living in either city, particularly if you don’t earn a lot of money (even if you do it can be tough).

 

Chicago residents must endure long commutes (31 minutes on average), plummeting home prices (37% the past five years), brutal winters and high foreclosure rates (3.3% of homes in 2012 says RealtyTrac). Many residents are giving up on the Windy City with a net migration out of the city of 107,000 people the past five years, according to Moody’s Analytics.

 

There is almost as much misery in New York, home to the nation’s longest average commutes (36 minutes) and highest income tax rates (10.5% for those making $100,000). New York has seen a trickle out of the city the past two years, but Moody’s expects those numbers to jump dramatically with a projected 136,000 more people leaving the city than moving there over the next three years. The only things saving New York from a worse ranking: few foreclosures and rising home prices.

 

Last year’s most miserable city, Miami, dropped just outside the top 20, in part due to the addition of net migration as a metric. Miami ranks No. 20 for migration among the 200 largest metros. Miami still has a staggeringly high violent crime rate (seventh worst in the U.S.), but it also benefitted from a recovering housing market with home prices up 11% in 2012.

 

Full List: America’s Most Miserable Cities

• America’s Most Miserable Cities 2013