Los Angeles, New York City and Detroit have been identified as the three North American cities with the lowest quality of life.
The ranking comes from Numbeo’s Northern America Current Quality of Life Index, which compares 73 cities in the United States and Canada using measures including safety, affordability and pollution.
Numbeo, the world’s largest crowd-sourced online database, compiled the rankings from user surveys and other data collected by the company.
Los Angeles placed last overall, with New York City ranked second-to-last and Detroit in third-to-last place.
Los Angeles recorded the region’s worst results for pollution and commuting. It also had the fourth-lowest climate score.
New York City ranked last for its property price-to-income ratio. It also placed second from the bottom for both cost of living and purchasing power, ahead of only Honolulu, Hawaii, in each category.
Detroit had the weakest safety rating and the second-worst pollution score. Its traffic commute ranking was also fourth-worst among the cities surveyed.
The results reflect long-standing criticisms associated with each city: Los Angeles is often linked to gridlocked roads and smog, New York City to steep living costs, and Detroit to crime and urban deterioration.
Los Angeles ranked as North America’s lowest-quality-of-life city, with especially poor scores for pollution and commuting
New York City placed second from the bottom, driven in part by the region’s worst property price-to-income ratio and its low scores for cost of living and purchasing power
Detroit ranked third from the bottom overall, finishing last for safety and second-to-last for pollution
Numbeo’s index assessed eight categories: purchasing power, safety, health care, cost of living, property prices compared with income, commuting time, pollution and climate.
New York and Los Angeles both ranked among the five weakest cities for purchasing power, while Detroit placed 11th from the bottom.
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Detroit was far behind the other two cities on safety, ranking last overall. Los Angeles was 29th-worst, while New York City ranked 37th-worst.
Los Angeles posted the seventh-worst health care ranking, followed by Detroit in 10th and New York City in 13th. All five cities with the strongest health care scores were located in Canada.
New York City ranked among the bottom two for purchasing power, while Los Angeles was ninth-worst. Detroit performed considerably better, landing in the top half at 26th-best.
New York City had the weakest property price-to-income ranking in the index. Los Angeles was eighth-worst, while Detroit narrowly reached the top half in 34th place.
Los Angeles had the worst traffic commute ranking, followed by Detroit in fourth-to-last place and New York City in sixth-to-last.
Pollution was another major weakness. Los Angeles ranked worst, Detroit second-worst and New York City sixth-worst.
New York City’s numbers reinforced its image as an exceptionally expensive place to live. Billionaire’s Row, where homes can sell for hundreds of millions of dollars, is pictured
Los Angeles’s results reflected its reputation for heavy traffic and smog, with downtown shown beneath a layer of dense pollution
Detroit’s rankings echoed perceptions of crime and urban decline, illustrated by a row of deteriorating homes in the city
Los Angeles also had the weakest climate score of the three, ranking fourth from the bottom. New York City was 30th-worst, while Detroit ranked 26th-best.
Three additional US cities appeared in the bottom 10: Miami, Las Vegas and Phoenix, in that order. The other four cities in the bottom 10 were located in Canada.
Ottawa topped the list for quality of life in North America, followed by Raleigh, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas.
Spokane, Washington, ranked fifth overall and third among US cities.
