From noisy neighbors to abandoned cars, every big city in the U.S. has to deal with various nuisances and discontented residents. And with 83% of the country’s population concentrated in urban areas, it’s no wonder. But aside from the generally accepted thinking that bustling city life also means more things to complain about, some cities do much better than others in offering a friendly place to live.
To see where big city residents enjoy the most welcoming environment, StorageCafe looked into reports, including 7 million complaints in 10 of the country’s biggest cities, logged over 311 or other similar lines that provide residents access to non-emergency municipal services.
Phoenix snagged first place as the as the most relaxed big city nationwide. Home to more than 1.63 million people, Phoenix registered less than 200K complaints per year to the 311 service. In other words, just 0.12 complaints per resident were made, meaning that few of them were bothered enough to report on a community issue.
Of the complaints made, the major concern among Phoenicians is traffic, which comprised 36% of the complaints, followed by noise at 12%. A small number of the complaints–under 1,000–bring up the city’s cleanliness issues, the smallest proportion of calls about this particular issue compared to the other cities.
Houston and San Jose follow Phoenix as some of the most relaxed cities.
Read the full report here.
