Oklahoma City 5th Worst Place to Live? Please.

Walletpop.com recently posted a list of the 10 Worst Places To Live. Number five on their list? Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City is the unhealthiest city in the country, as measured by the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual fitness index. The index looks at 30 fitness indicators, including obesity and exercise rates, death rate from cardiovascular disease, acres of park land, number of primary care physicians per capita and percentage of residents who bicycle or walk to work.

The index compares the 50 largest metro areas on a 100-point scale; Oklahoma City received a score of 24.3, making it the most sluggish city in the U.S. The obesity rate is 30.2%, four points above average. It has an exercise rate of 71% and has half as many baseball diamonds, recreation centers and dog parks as most cities. Detroit and Las Vegas also performed poorly on the fitness index.

I have issue with this. Some of the other cities on the list have legitimate reasons I wouldn’t want to live there. El Centro, California has the highest unemployment rate in the country. Detroit, Michigan and Memphis, Tennessee have two of the highest violent crime rates in the country. Los Angeles has both the worst ozone pollution and the worst traffic in the country. These are all things that, if you lived in one of these cities, might possibly affect you.

The fact that there are more fat people in Oklahoma than other cities really doesn’t affect me on a day-to-day basis. It’s not like we’re all riding on airplanes together every day or anything.

Of course it makes sense that heavier people migrate toward the city — and in Oklahoma, there are fewer large cities than there are in other states. In fact, according to CalorieLab.com, Oklahoma’s the sixth fattest state, behind Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Louisiana.

I also take offense to the fact that Oklahoma is the “most sluggish city in the country”. The study states that the population of Oklahoma City is 560,332 and has a 30.2% obesity rate. That’s 169,220 obese people in Oklahoma City. Houston, on the other hand, has a population of 5,728,143 and an obesity rate of 26.8%. That means there are 1,535,142 obese people in Houston. Houston has almost 10x as many obese people as Oklahoma City.

(And by the way; Oklahoma City being the most “obese city” is just a negative way of saying “we have the best food”.)

Also according to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) report, Oklahoma also ranked low because of a “low number of parks and swimming pools”. Exact numbers aren’t given so I can’t compare Oklahoma to other cities, but there are a lot of parks in Oklahoma City. Then again, if you live in New York City and don’t have a backyard, then having access to a park is probably pretty important. In my dad’s neighborhood, every single yard is somewhere between 1/4 acre and 1/2 acre (so is our yard, in fact). There’s a park within walking distance in my neighborhood, but ours kids have a large yard to play in, too. I also do not think the ACSM counted Oklahoma City’s free spraygrounds as pools. Also, if you want a swimming pool in Oklahoma City, you can just put one in your backyard. Also, a lot of people here go swimming in lakes — you know, nature’s swimming pools? (Fact: there are more man-made lakes in Oklahoma than any other state.)

I’ve never met a person here who wanted to take their kids to a park or go swimming and couldn’t find one.

Here are a few things I don’t think WalletPop took into consideration. In 2008, Forbes released a list of the Top 10 Recession Proof Cities. Guess who was ranked number one? That’s right, Oklahoma City. The Cost of Living in Oklahoma City is one of the best in the country. In fact, it’s almost 2:1 when compared to Boston. If you make $50k/year in Boston, it’s like making $100k/year in OKC — and if you make $100k/year in Boston, it’s like making $200k/year here.

Here are a few more Oklahoma City-related statistics (lifted from OKCommerce.gov:

– #2 among Best Housing Markets (Forbes.com)
– #6 among Best Places to Look for a Job (Indeed.com)
– #10 Place to Live in America (RelocateAmerica.com)
– #1 Place to Live for Renters (Business Week)
– #9 among the Most Favorable Cities to Build Personal Wealth (Salary.com)
– #3 Ranked Child/Family Zoo in the Country (Child Magazine)
– #47 in taxes (out of all 50 states)
– Average Commute Time of 19.6 minutes (Mine is less)

5th worst place to live, WalletPop? Think again. Great schools, affordable housing, competitive salaries, and a few extra fat people thrown in because we like fried chicken and white gravy.