Hey, you! Yes, you over there on the beach, rubbing suntan lotion on in February, planning what fabulous thing you'll do tonight -- you are supposed to be miserable.
Sixth-most miserable in the U.S., in fact, according to Forbes.
The mag took a look at the 200 largest metropolitan statistical areas and used things like "facts" and "science" to declare that Miami falls just below some of America's most depressing, depressed cities like Detroit and Flint and Cleveland thanks to long commute times, violent crime, and corruption.
Shouldn't we at least get any credit for being really, really good at those things?
Forbes did salute the South Florida weather and the fact that Floridians don't pay state income tax, but noted that the Magic City ranked in the bottom 10% in the bad categories and possesses the 10th-worst foreclosure rate in the U.S. (Those homes aren't empty! They're just resting!)
It all came down to a formula they call the Misery Measure:
Our Misery Measure takes into account unemployment, as well as eight other issues that cause people anguish. The metrics include taxes (both sales and income), commute times, violent crime and how its pro sports teams have fared over the past two years. We also factored in two indexes put together by Portland, Ore., researcher Bert Sperling that gauge weather and Superfund pollution sites. Lastly we considered corruption based on convictions of public officials in each area as tracked by the Public Integrity Section of the US Department of Justice.
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Oh, our pro teams -- suddenly this all makes sense, and we beg you all not to show this to Dwyane Wade lest he bolt for happier Chicago leaving us to overtake Flint, a city so sad it's actually demolishing itself.
Ultimately, though, the joke's on Forbes: we may have issues with the Dolphins and corruption and traffic, but we're also having too much fun to let it keep us down.
