Moving experts have created a list of cities across the United States that they say residents should consider moving out of due to a variety of negative factors.
The recent study by Rocket Moving listed Camden, New Jersey, as the city with the most reasons to move out of, after scoring the highest in crime levels at 87.5 and having the third-highest unemployment rate of 4.7% as of July.
Cities in all 50 states were rated on factors including annual personal income, crime rates, air quality, unemployment, population change and cost of living, as well as Google searches for “moving out.” The factors were weighted based on perceived impact, with crime rates and population change given the highest importance.
The closer a city scored to zero, the safer, cleaner or more financially beneficial it was determined to be.
Following Camden, the top five worst scoring cities included Cleveland, Ohio; Rockford, Illinois; Stockton, California; and St. Louis, Missouri. Cleveland had the most substantial population decline from 2020 to 2024, while Rockford was determined to have the highest unemployment rate of 5.2%
The top 10 cities were rounded out by Pueblo, Colorado; Honolulu, Hawaii; Macon, Georgia; Baltimore, Maryland; and Springfield, Massachusetts. Baltimore was found to have the second-highest crime level at 86.84, and Honolulu had the highest cost of living index with a score of 179.0.
However, some of the cities had redeeming qualities. Pueblo was determined to have the best air quality score, and Baltimore had the lowest unemployment rate of the cities analyzed. Honolulu also had the lowest crime level.
