Study Identifies most and least Stressful Cities in America

According to J. James Moss, editor of Portfolio.com the list was done based on the statistical data analysis instead of conducting interviews from among local residents of the cities just to determine their levels of stress. The study was able to determine that Detroit hits the top spot as the number one stressful city because a lot of things has been going on against it. The city almost hit all the standards set in the stress test and it was all bad across the board, Moss said. Other cities on the top five include Riverside of California and St. Louis of Missouri.

Moss explained that Detroit has been afflicted with high rate of unemployment, a distressful housing market coupled with high crime rate all along. It would seem that it has not much hope. He further stressed that his study group did not conduct interviews with people because they would most likely cling to their civic pride and this could possibly be in conflict with the statistical figures obtained. The other cities found to be stressful include New York City on the 6th spot followed by New Orleans, Chicago, Birmingham and Miami-Fort Lauderdale in that order.

On the other hand, the study also found out that Salt Lake City is the least stressful city with low crime rates, prominent health standing and employment, and its easy travels. It was followed by Virginia Beach, Virginia and Minneapolis-St. Paul which both scored high for low stress living. Meanwhile, Raleigh of North Carolina, Austin of Texas, Denver, San Antonio, and Kansas City were also found to be less stressful cities.

According to Moss the list obtained as the result of this study would likely be useful for employers, employees and the unemployed. He believed that other people could look at the results differently but for small business entrepreneurs or those who would like to start a small business venture, the results can possibly give them points to determine business feasibility. 

These small businessmen or entrepreneurs would likely prefer a less stressful business environment and give better perspective of opportunity for a happy employer-customers relationship. This could also give some pointers for prospective employees who are looking for jobs and would rather prefer to go to less stressful places for a happier life.