By Sarah Lynch
Few enjoy their
commute. Just ask Stephen Dinwiddie, M.D., a psychiatrist at the
University of Chicago.
"I think anybody who,
like I do, commutes on the Kennedy on a daily basis knows exactly
what stress is," he says, of his daily home-to-work commute on
Chicago's expressway that extends from the Chicago Loop to
O'Hare International Airport. "It takes anywhere from 30
minutes to several centuries--at least subjectively."
In Pictures: America's 40 Most
Stressful Cities
But more pressing factors make Chicago for the
second year in a row the country's most stressful city.
Crowding, poor air quality, a high 11% unemployment rate and
free-falling home values have created a cocktail of constant worry
affecting many in the Windy City.
Los
Angeles, Calif., ranks second, followed by New
York, N.Y., Cleveland, Ohio, and
Providence, R.I.
Behind the
Numbers
To find the
country's most stressful cities, we examined quality of life
factors in the country's 40 largest metropolitan statistical
areas, or metros--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of
Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting,
tabulating and publishing federal statistics. We looked at June
2009 unemployment figures provided by the Bureau of Labor and
Statistics and cost of living figures from the Council for
Community and Economic Research. We examined median home-price
drops from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009 that were provided by the National
Association of Realtors. Population density based on 2008 data from
the U.S. Census Bureau and ESRI also factored. Last, we examined
the number of sunny and partly sunny days per year, based on 2007
data from the National Environmental Satellite, Data and
Information Service, as well as air-quality figures, based on 2007
data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The economic climate is
clearly kicking up stress levels. In March, the National Sleep
Foundation reported that more than a quarter of 1,000 survey
participants were sleeping less because of the economy.
The recession has also
forced Americans to skimp on health care. In a February telephone
poll of 1,200 adults conducted by the nonprofit Kaiser Family
Foundation, 53% of respondents said they cut back on health care
costs by avoiding doctor's visits, skipping dental checkups and
not filling prescriptions, among other strategies.
"A forty-three percent
drop is something that could easily be classified as a
housing-market cataclysm," says Andres Carbacho-Burgos,
economist at Moody's Economy.com, of the Q1 2008 to Q1 2009
median home-price plunge in San Francisco. That's compared with
the national median home-price dip of 14.7% during that same time.
"Over that long a period of time a drop that significant for
San Francisco, or for the Bay Area as a whole,
indicates just that the economy has turned sour and that credit is
very, very tight and has been over the past year."
What's more, the
drastic decline is not representative of the housing market as a
whole--rather of the composition of homes being sold, says Walter
Molony, spokesman for the National Association of Realtors. Almost
50% of homes sold nationwide in the first quarter of 2009 were
distressed homes. One-third of those were short sales, and
two-thirds were foreclosures, Molony says.
Though there are signs of a
bottoming in some markets, falling home prices can immediately
impact residents in two ways: first by affecting employment in the
housing-related or real estate fields, and second by reducing
consumer spending in metro areas with relatively large home-equity
declines. Consumer spending in July was flat, erasing hopes of a
kick-started economy.
And few are going to start
spending when jobs are scarce. Perhaps no one knows that better
than residents of Detroit. There, unemployment is
17.1%, thanks to the collapse in the auto industry. Employee
cutbacks in General Motors plants and
other makers of car parts led to the drastic 14.8% unemployment
rate increase from May to June 2009, says Steve Cochrane of
Moody's Economy.com.
Other cities have different
reasons for stress: Pittsburgh comes in second for
the least amount of sunny days, and ninth for low air quality.
While for years we’ve been told to avoid certain skin cancers by
staying out of the sun, new research showed a link between low
vitamin D levels and increased propensity to the common cold. It’s
also believed that vitamin D receptors in cells and tissue may help
regulate the immune system. Irritants in the atmosphere can cause
increased incidences of asthma, chest tightness or cough.
In Pictures: America's 40 Most
Stressful Cities
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Most Livable Cities
America's Most Stressful Cities
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Posted by Tue Sep 1, 2009 10:22pm PDT
Report AbuseAnd California has plenty of Massage Therapists...not that they make a lot of money, but yet it that profession kind of took off and blossomed greatly for a while.
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Posted by Wed Sep 2, 2009 12:37am PDT
Report AbuseI need a job! I live in Seattle and I wouldn't feel more or less stressed anywhere else.
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Posted by Wed Sep 2, 2009 5:55am PDT
Report AbuseWhy is there a picture of San Antonio when the city isn't even mentioned in this article?! Very misleading... I expect better from Forbes.
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Posted by Wed Sep 2, 2009 7:29am PDT
Report AbuseSunshine: Beautiful San Antonio, Texas, is listed as number 39.
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Posted by Wed Sep 2, 2009 11:45am PDT
Report Abusewhy is there a picture of san antonio if this article doesn't mention it at all?
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Posted by Wed Sep 2, 2009 12:02pm PDT
Report AbuseI stay away from big cities. Why even live in any city? I love the country.
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Posted by Wed Sep 2, 2009 12:20pm PDT
Report Abuse...because that's not san antonio. that isn't the riverwalk.
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Posted by Wed Sep 2, 2009 1:03pm PDT
Report Abuseclick on the link below the article and u will see that san antonio is listed as 39,jeez.
39. San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio's sunny weather, high air quality and an unemployment rate in June of 6.9% are just a few of the factors allowing its population to beat stress
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