Denver’s Quality Of Life Ranked Among Worst: Study

DENVER, CO – Everyone can agree that having a high quality of life is a good thing. That’s easy. Pegging what exactly goes into it is a bit trickier. Fortunately the folks at Numbeo did it using data and put together a list of cities in North America that have the highest quality of life.

Denver ranked 40th out of 60 on the index with an overall index score of 168.96. The study placed Denver just ahead of Atlanta and just behind Houston on the index. Denver even ranked lower that Albuquerque, which came in No. 30 on the list. Pittsburgh (No. 37) and St. Louis (No. 24) even outranked Denver, according to Numbeo.

Here’s how we ranked in each category (the lower the number, the worse the ranking):

• Purchasing power: 124.16
• Safety: 57.85
• Health care: 70.97
• Cost of living: 70.61
• Property price to income ratio: 4.81
• Traffic commute time: 35.06
• Pollution:41.06
• Climate:56.28

Denver scored among the worst cities ranked in "property price to income ratio" with a 4.81 score. To calculate the score, the company looked at median disposable income, mortgage as a percentage of income, and whether housing is cheaper to rent or own. Vancouver, Canada had the highest score in this category.

Raleigh has the highest quality of life in North America, according to the index. The North Carolina city scored 215.24 overall and ranked 2nd in buying power, 5th in safety, 6th in pollution and 14th in property price to income ratio out of 59 cities. Raleigh also ranked 15th for health care, 19th in climate, 29th in traffic commute time and 34th in cost of living.

Here are the top 10 cities on the index:

1. Raleigh, NC
2. Madison, WI
3. Charlotte, NC
4. Ottawa, Canada
5. Columbus, OH
6. Victoria, Canada
7. Austin, TX
8. San Diego, CA
9. San Jose, CA
10. Quebec City, Canada

Detroit ranked dead last on the index with a score of 132.83. Michigan’s largest city was the least safe of all cities and had the single worst commute time, even ahead of Los Angeles. Detroit was also among the worst in the nation for buying power, health care and pollution.

New York City had the second-lowest quality of life on the index, followed by Winnipeg, Regina and Toronto, all in Canada. Miami, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Las Vegas were the next-lowest.

Click any of the following links to see how the metrics were calculated: purchasing power (including rent) index, pollution index, property price to income ratios, cost of living index, safety index, climate index, health index and traffic index.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

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