If you want record-setting sunshine, St. Petersburg is your city—it once soaked up a Guinness-certified 768 straight days of rays. But there's an asterisk: The people of St. Pete also have the darkest clouds hanging over their heads. We put America on the therapist's couch and discovered that not only is St. Petersburg our Saddest City, but Florida in general seems to be a depressing place to live.
Of course, we aren't shrinks, so our diagnosis is more statistical than psychological. To come up with our rankings, we calculated the following:
- suicide rates (CDC)
- unemployment rates (Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of June 2011)
- percentage of households that use antidepressants (SimplyMap)
- the number of people who report feeling the blues all or most of the time (SimplyMap)
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