DENVER (KDVR) — Denver has been a hotspot for young adults in the last decade, but a new study suggests it isn’t as wonderful for children.
Denver was ranked as the nation’s worst city to raise a family, according to a Scholaroo report.
The firm of college scholarship analysts crunched each city’s child-friendliness based on seven metrics: safety, health care, finances, education, leisure, quality of life and home atmosphere.
They used public crime, schooling, household finance, infrastructure, amenities and health care to track and score each city.
Denver joins Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Santa Ana at the bottom of the list. The best cities in the country to raise a family in include Yonkers, New York, Warwick, Rhode Island and Charleston, West Virginia.
Other cities scored lowly in one or more categories but scored highly in others. New York City, for example, ranked one of the nation’s worst for finances but the second-best for health care. Aurora, Illinois ranked one of the worst for health care but among the best for safety.
Denver did not score lowest in any one category, but it consistently ranked among the bottom third across all categories except education.
Among 151 cities, Denver ranked 149th for home atmosphere. This category included divorce rates, marriage duration and alcoholism rates.
Denver ranked 134th for safety, which included the number of police officers and firefighters, violent and property crimes, school shootings, sex offenders and watch groups.
Denver’s expense lowered its affordability score. It ranked 127th for finances, which includes costs for private education, median home value, homeownership rates, costs of a nanny, median household income, cost of living, and cost of rent. It ranked 126th for quality of life, which includes air and water quality and noise pollution.
It ranked 121st for health care, which includes the number of hospitals, pediatricians, uninsured people and hospital beds. Denver ranked slightly higher in leisure at 114th, which tallies the number of museums, restaurants, theaters and recreational areas.
Denver ranked better than average at 50th for education, which includes the number of schools and teachers, graduation rate, student and teacher ratios, and educational expenses.