Los Angeles, New York City and Detroit have been identified as the three North American cities with the lowest quality of life.
The results come from Numbeo’s Northern America Current Quality of Life Index, which assessed 73 cities in the United States and Canada using factors including safety, living costs and pollution.
Numbeo, the world’s largest crowd-sourced online database, compiled the rankings from its data and user surveys.
Los Angeles ranked last overall, with New York City in second-to-last place and Detroit third from the bottom.
Los Angeles recorded the highest levels of pollution and the worst traffic commute in the rankings. It also had the fourth-worst climate score.
New York City had the worst property price-to-income ratio. It also ranked second-last for both cost of living and purchasing power, with only Honolulu, Hawaii, scoring lower in those categories.
Detroit ranked worst for safety and second-worst for pollution. Its traffic commute was also the fourth-worst among the cities surveyed.
The results broadly reflect the challenges associated with each city’s reputation: Los Angeles is often linked to congestion and smog, New York City to its steep prices, and Detroit to crime and urban decay.
Los Angeles ranked as the North American city with the lowest quality of life, performing particularly poorly for pollution and traffic commute
New York City had the second-lowest quality of life, recording the worst property price-to-income ratio and the second-worst results for cost of living and purchasing power
Detroit ranked third-worst for quality of life, placing last for safety and second-last for pollution
The index measured eight categories: purchasing power, safety, health care, cost of living, property price to income, traffic commute, pollution and climate.
New York City and Los Angeles both ranked among the five worst cities for purchasing power, while Detroit placed 11th-worst.
Detroit was significantly behind the other two cities on safety, ranking worst overall. Los Angeles was 29th-worst, while New York City ranked 37th-worst.
Los Angeles had the seventh-worst health care ranking, followed by Detroit in 10th place and New York City in 13th. All five cities with the strongest health care rankings were in Canada.
New York City ranked among the bottom two for purchasing power, while Los Angeles was ninth-worst. Detroit performed considerably better, placing 26th-best and within the top half of the list.
New York City came last for the property price-to-income ratio, and Los Angeles ranked eighth-worst. Detroit again reached the upper half of the rankings, placing 34th-best.
Los Angeles had the worst traffic commute in North America, followed by Detroit in fourth-worst place and New York City in sixth-worst.
New York City also ranked sixth-worst for pollution, behind Detroit in second-worst place and Los Angeles at the bottom of the list.
New York City’s results reflected its reputation as an exceptionally expensive city. Billionaire’s Row, where apartments can sell for hundreds of millions of dollars, is pictured
Los Angeles’s metrics aligned with its reputation for being smoggy and having traffic jams. The city’s downtown is pictured amid dense smog
Detroit’s metrics lined up with its reputation for crime and urban decay. A row of dilapidated houses in the city is pictured
Los Angeles had the most dismal climate of the three by far, taking the fourth-to-last spot. New York was listed as the 30th worst climate, and Detroit was actually listed as 26th best.
Three other US cities made the bottom-10 for quality of life on the list, including Miami, Las Vegas and Phoenix, in that order. The remaining four cities in the bottom 10 were in Canada.
The North American cities with the highest quality of life, according to the list, were Ottawa, Canada, followed by Raleigh, North Carolina, then Austin, Texas.
Spokane, Washington, was listed as having the fifth-highest quality of life in North America, or the third-best in the US.
