Do you live in one of America's worst cities? Detroit, Birmingham and Flint top list of America's 50 least appealing places to live

The study examined the 551 cities in the US with populations over 65,000
It looked at education, health, crime, property prices, income and other factors
Each city was then given a score and the 50 worst picked out from the results
Detroit, Michigan, Birmingham, Alabama and Flint, Michigan are the three worst
Tourist hotspots Philadelphia and Miami Beach are also terrible places to live


Detroit, Michigan is the worst city in the US to live in due to its urban decay, violent crime rates and dwindling population, according to a new study.
It's not alone in being a dreadful place to reside, however: Birmingham, Alabama and Flint, Michigan take the next two spots.
And there are 47 more cities behind them, ranging from the dusty, deprived city of Merced, California, to tourist favorites Philadelphia and Miami Beach, 24/7 Wall Street reported.

To make the list, the site compiled data on the 551 cities that had populations of more than 65,000 in 2015.
It then rated them on a slew of subjects in nine major categories: crime, economy, demography, education, environment, health, housing, infrastructure, and leisure.
Each of those was then split into sub-sections, so 'crime' differentiates between violent and property crime, while 'health' includes the death rate from illnesses as well as how often people are readmitted to hospital.
Other factors included property prices, poverty and unemployment rates, availability of public transportation and the quality of air.
All data came from 2015 figures.
The statistics were given points and weighted, and final scores handed out to each of the cities to see which were the best and worst on offer.
Below are the top ten worst cities, according to the analysis; the full list can be found at the bottom of the page.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4659604/Worst-cities-America-revealed-Detroit-No-1.html#ixzz4lrS4hQIr


1. Detroit, Michigan

Population 677,124
Median home value $42,600
Poverty rate 39.8 per cent
Population with a bachelor's degree or above 14.2 per cent
Seeing downcast Detroit at the top of this list will be of little surprise to many, given its failing fortunes in recent times.
As the US auto industry has come to rely increasingly on automation and foreign manufacturing, employment in the city has dropped off in recent decades - with the population taking a similarly precipitous tumble.
At 677,124, the population is now just a third of what it was in 1950, when it topped out at 1.8 million people, and continued to drop at a rate of 19 per cent over the past decade.
Urban decay is rife in the city, which is clawing its way back from bankruptcy, and its violent crime rate is the second highest in the country at 1,760 crimes per 100,000 residents.
That's left property values at the lowest outside of its neighbor, Flint, with the average occupied Detroit home being worth just $42,600.
And on average Detroit households earn just $25,980 a year - that's under half the national average of $55,755.

2. Birmingham, Alabama

Population 214,911
Median home value $93,000
Poverty rate 29.2 per cent
Population with a bachelor's degree or above 25.3 per cent
Like Detroit, Birmingham's failing economy has driven away residents while raising poverty levels.
In the past decade, the city has shed 3.3 per cent of its population, while employment has fallen by 0.9 per cent in the past ten years.
Around a third of the city's population is now impoverished, at 29.2 per cent - which is around double the national poverty rate of 14.7 per cent.
And those that are making money are bringing home just $32,378 per household per year.
Those woes extend beyond Birmingham and across the rest of the state, according to AL.com, which reported in 2016 that Alabama had the fourth highest poverty level in the US.

3. Flint, Michigan

Population 98,297
Median home value $25,900
Poverty rate 40.8 per cent
Population with a bachelor's degree or above 11.8 per cent
Motor City's neighbor has also suffered due to changes in the auto industry and the decline of American manufacturing, with 30,000 jobs now gone from Buick's former auto plant in the city.
Infamously the city has also suffered from drinking water that had not been properly treated for lead contaminants from old pipes.
The population has declined rapidly - at a rate of 12.2 per cent in the last ten years.
It also had the highest poverty rate in the nation of any city in the 2015 data, at 40.8 per cent, with the average income being $25,342 a year.
The figures state above come from 2015 statistics; the most recent census bureau statistics suggest that things have become worse in the year since.
As of June 2016, the percentage of people living below the poverty line had increased to 41.2 per cent.
And the the average household income had dropped to $24,862.

4. St Louis, Missouri

Population 315,685
Median home value $130,800
Poverty rate 24.9 per cent
Population with a bachelor's degree or above 34.7 per cent
St Louis' poverty rate is more than ten per cent higher than the national average, the result of decades of industrial decline.
That has coincided with increased segregation as affluent whites have fled the city for the suburbs, and an overall population drop of more than 50 per cent since the 1950s.
In the last ten years, the population of St Louis has fallen by 5.4 per cent - whereas the population of the US overall has increased by double that.
That has in turn led to urban decay and the country's highest crime rate for a city, with 1,817 violent crimes reported per 100,000 residents.
That's more than five times the national crime rate.

5. Memphis, Tennessee

Population 655,760
Median home value $94,400
Poverty rate 26.2 per cent
Population with a bachelor's degree or above 24.9 per cent
While St Louis has the highest crime rate for any city in the US, Memphis has the highest for any major city.
It has 1,740 violent crimes for every 100,000 residents, putting it just a hair's breadth under St Louis.
And its property crime rate is 5,631 for every 100,000 residents - more than double the rate for the nation as a whole.
More than a quarter of the city's population is impoverished, and the average household income is just $55,775.

Hartford, Connecticut

Population 124,014
Median home value $159,200
Poverty rate 28.3 per cent
Population with a bachelor's degree or above 16.9 per cent
At 10.4 per cent, Hartford has the seventh highest unemployment rate in the US - meaning it's tied with Flint, Michigan and Compton, California.
But to compound problems for the un- and underemployed, the city has one of the highest tax rates in the country.
Goods and services cost 17 cents more per dollar than the American average.
That's led to a drop in population as people leave the city for new opportunities in cities where there are more jobs and lower living expenses - the city's poulation has dropped by 0.7 per cent in the past five years.
Those changes, as elsewhere, have gone hand-in-hand with increasing crime rates (1,141 violent crimes per 100,000 residents) and poverty (at 28.3 per cent, Hartford has double the national poverty level).