Michigan's Most Stressed City Might Surprise You

However, if you're familiar with the area...it actually makes sense.

We've all been very vocal about how stressful 2020 has been, can you blame us?

Sure, stress is a part of pretty much everyone's lives which is why Zippia studied multiple factors that cause stress to figure out what the most stressed city in each of the 50 states is.

Zippia, a career services company, said: "To determine which cities were the most stressed we looked into the average number of hours worked each week, how long the average commute was, and determined the income to home price ratio."

According to their findings, the most stressed city in Michigan isn't one of our big cities like Lansing or Detroit but rather, about 15 miles west of Grand Rapids...Allendale!

Looking at the numbers found by Zippia, people in Allendale work an average of 43 hours per week with about a 19-minute commute and a 5.78% "income-to-home-price ratio" makes the city the most-stressed in Michigan.

If you ask me, numbers aside, I know from experience the people of Allendale are pretty stressed out.

Allendale is home to Grand Valley State University, my alma matter, and let me tell you the locals were / are not particularly fond of the students in town.

I'm sure stressed out college students in town probably adds to the, well, stress. However, I think they are stressed because the university and the off-campus apartments, restaurants and various other resources in the city are interwoven right through the community.

There was one summer I lived in Downtown Grand Rapids and had some work to do on-campus in Allendale when my car broke down. It was towed to an auto-body shop where I then had to pick it up. Mind you, this was right before "welcome week" when all the students come back. A woman who lived in town was waiting at the auto shop too and said "oh boy, are the students coming back soon?" I replied "yes, this week actually." She then then sarcastically just responded "oh, great."

Message recieved.

At least now it is nice to know me and my fellow students of past, present and future aren't the only reason Allendale's residents are so grumpy and stressed out.