ORLANDO, Fla. – This week, WalletHub released its ranking of the most caring cities in the U.S. — and it reveals the least caring in the Sunshine State.
The study looks at factors like civic health, violent crime, poverty, and first responders to determine which areas are the most “caring.”
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“The most caring cities donate a lot of money to charity and have high volunteer rates, but being a caring city overall requires much more than just giving time or money,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said. “In the top cities... residents also display their care for others by working in professions that help others, like teaching, social work, firefighting and medicine, at high rates.”
Overall, the top three cities turned out to be Virginia Beach (No. 1), Boston (No. 2), and Scottsdale (No. 3). In fact, Florida didn’t even rank within the top 50 cities.
The first Florida metro to appear on the list comes in all the way down at No. 51: Tampa, which scored fairly high for community caring in particular.
But the lowest-ranked Florida city on the list turned out to be Orlando, which came in all the way down at No. 84.
The City Beautiful had a middling performance when it came to “caring for the vulnerable,” but its community and workforce scores lagged behind all the way down in the bottom 10 cities on the list.
The full ranking of Florida cities in this year’s study is as follows:
| Rank | City | Total Score | Community Rank | Vulnerable Rank | Workforce Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 51 | Tampa | 57.25 | 38 | 46 | 78 |
| 55 | St. Petersburg | 56.71 | 55 | 37 | 78 |
| 65 | Jacksonville | 54.64 | 51 | 64 | 93 |
| 74 | Hialeah | 52.40 | 48 | 89 | 83 |
| 81 | Miami | 49.98 | 79 | 69 | 83 |
| 84 | Orlando | 49.89 | 92 | 44 | 91 |
The methodology used in this study breaks down into the factors listed below.
- Caring for the Community (50%)
- Violent crime rate
- Property crime rate
- Average alcohol-impaired driving fatalities per capita
- Driving fatalities per capita
- Pedestrian fatality rate
- Share of workers who carpool
- WalletHub’s “Energy Efficiency” ranking
- Civic engagement
- Favors for neighbors
- Presence of “Built for Zero” communities
- Food and clothing distribution to the needy
- Share of residents who fundraise or sell items to raise money
- Share of income donated to charity
- Online giving per capita
- Volunteering hours per capita
- Share of registered volunteer fire departments
- Google search interest for “charitable donations”
- Caring for the Vulnerable (40%)
- Child poverty rate
- Adult poverty rate
- Adoption rate
- Availability of paid family leave
- Share of sheltered homeless persons
- Rehabilitation centers per capita
- Pet shelters and rescue services per capita
- Animal protection laws ranking
- Disability friendliness of employers
- Uninsured rate
- Caring in the Workforce (10%)
- Residents who work in community and social services per capita
- Physicians per capita
- Nurses per capita
- Special education teachers per school-aged people with disabilities
- Teachers’ care for students’ well-being
- Counselors’ care for students’ well-being
- Childcare workers per total number of children
- Substance abuse, behavioral disorder and mental health counselors per capita
- Personal care aides per capita
- Firefighters per capita
- Paramedics per capita