The Washington, D.C., area, including Northern Virginia, is the 15th most stressful place to live among the nation’s 50 largest metro areas, according to Portfolio.com
By contrast, the Virginia Beach-Norfolk area ranked as one of the least stressful at No. 49.
The Richmond region was in between, ranked No. 35.
The Portfolio.com ranking was based on a stress index using 10 measurable factors: deaths from circulatory diseases, unemployment rate, change in per-capita income, families living in poverty, robberies, ozone level, murders, average commuting time, mortgage affordability and sunshiny days.
The top 10 most stressful metro areas on the list were: Detroit; Los Angeles; Cleveland; Riverside, Calif.; St. Louis; New York; New Orleans; Chicago; Birmingham, Ala; and Miami.
The 10 least stressful areas were: Salt Lake City; Virginia Beach-Norfolk; Minneapolis-St, Paul; Raleigh, N.C.; Austin, Texas; Oklahoma City; Denver; San Antonio; Kansas City, Mo;
and Phoenix.
Detroit had a stress index of 9.026. By comparison, Washington’s number was 2.181. The stress figures for Richmond and Virginia Beach-Norfolk were actually negative, -1.737 and -7.859, respectively.
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