Every year Forbes Magazine ranks the 150 largest Metropolitan areas in the U.S. according to what the editors refer to as the “Forbes Misery Measure.” Criteria used to rank the cities are commute times, corruption, pro sports teams, Superfund sites, taxes (both income and sales), unemployment, violent crime and weather.
This year St. Louis was the only city to consistently score in the bottom half opf all nine categories in order to earn its ranking as the 10th most miserable city in the U.S. I personally wouldn’t lose any sleep over criteria like pro sports teams (although I acknowledge that there are probably those out there to whom sports teams are important), but the fact that sales taxes are included in the criteria struck me as telling.
Missouri Republican legislators (and, to be fair, some Democrats) spend lots of time braying about how they create a welcoming environment for business by keeping taxes low — while the state, cities and municipalities try desperatly to raise the revenue necessary to function by levying sales taxes or by other regressive taxation. Well, the Forbes misery index is a good indication that it just doesn’t work. In the end all you get are scandalously high sales taxes penalizing those who can least afford to pay and insufficient funds to deal with high crime, unemployment, superfund sites and every other ill that plagues the modern city.
Clark said:
I mean, not every city has a baseball team that has won a World Series ever, let alone this decade.
I think this Forbes list is more of a sign of our collective obsession with lists, which help to sell loads of magazines.
Also, where is Kansas City on that list? Everyone knows that Saint Louis is better than Kansas City, so naturally KC should rank as even more miserable.
ashriver said:
Those are pretty important. And of course, even if St. Louis doesn’t seem that bad to us, we have to remember that half of the city is completely ignored by both the mayor and the city’s only daily newspaper.
--Blue Girl said:
Yeah. Kansas City just sucks…Really…Don’t move here…You’ll regret it…[/sarcastic selfishness]
Nobody wants to live here until they do, then no one wants to leave. I certainly don’t, and I have lived lots and lots of places. I wouldn’t trade my life experiences for anything, but I love my home and my neighborhood and my city. Maybe it’s because I didn’t really have a hometown before I adopted my husbands zip code, but I took to this place like a duck to water and every day I wake up happy to be where I am and doing what I’m doing.
RBH said:
just wait until Kansas City gets the Kings back then we’ll.. well.. we might go up a little bit on those rankings. Not due to quality of basketball, but because traffic jams around the Flying Saucer would anger people who only pay to watch College Basketball.
Kansas City: “Pretty small, but it’s big too. There’s plenty of stuff to do” (ok, I adapted a Zack Greinke quote there)
It’s a lot better than the “You can’t help but smile” slogan on the Lee’s Summit billboards.
Asousley said:
I will take Kansas City over St Louis ANY day of the week!!!