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 across 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 own data alongside information gathered through 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 ranking. It also placed fourth from the bottom for climate.
New York City had the worst property price-to-income ratio. It also ranked second-last for both cost of living and purchasing power, ahead of only Honolulu, Hawaii, in each category.
Detroit performed worst on safety and had the second-highest level of pollution. Its traffic commute was also ranked fourth-worst.
The findings broadly reflect the challenges associated with each city’s reputation: Los Angeles is often linked to gridlocked roads and smog, New York City to its steep costs, 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, with the worst property price-to-income ratio and the second-worst results for cost of living and purchasing power
Detroit ranked third from the bottom overall, 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 ratio, traffic commute, pollution and climate.
New York City and Los Angeles both appeared among the bottom five cities for purchasing power, while Detroit ranked 11th-worst.
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Detroit was well behind the other two cities for safety, ranking worst overall. Los Angeles was 29th-worst and New York City 37th-worst.
Los Angeles had the seventh-worst health care ranking, followed by Detroit in 10th place and New York City in 13th. Canada accounted for all five cities with the highest health care scores in North America.
New York City was in the bottom two for purchasing power, while Los Angeles ranked ninth-worst. Detroit performed considerably better, placing 26th-best and inside the top half of the list.
New York City ranked last for property price-to-income ratio, with Los Angeles eighth-worst. Detroit again narrowly reached the top half, placing 34th-best.
Los Angeles had the worst traffic commute in the study, followed by Detroit in fourth-worst place and New York City in sixth-worst.
New York City also ranked sixth-worst for pollution. Detroit placed second-worst, while Los Angeles had the poorest pollution score overall.
New York City’s ranking reflected its reputation for high living costs. 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.