Here in Flint, we're used to getting beat up in the national media (and just beat up in general). We routinely top lists like "America's Most Violent City" and "Worst Place to Live," but a new study proves that living in Genesee County is far from the worst you could do.

Genesee County is not the best place to live in the United States. That's not news to anybody. However, according to New York Times' new interactive map ranking hardest counties to live in -- it's also not the worst. Not by a long shot.

Genesee County was ranked 2,485 out of 3,135 counties in America in terms of living difficulty.  The county ranked at 3,135 -- making it the hardest place to live in the States -- is Clay County, Kentucky. In fact, living in Genesee County is easier than living almost anywhere in Kentucky.

The rankings are based on six key data points -- education (percentage of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree), median household income, unemployment rate, disability rate, life expectancy and obesity. Had terrible winter weather conditions been factored in, Kentucky may have edged us out on that one alone. Crime rate being left out of the criteria probably helped give us a bump in the rankings as well.

Our neighbors to the south in Oakland County did surprisingly well, ranking at 432, while their neighbors to the south did not. Detroit's Wayne County were not as fortunate and ranked a little below us at 2,516.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, several counties in the area near our nation's capitol did very well in the rankings... big surprise. However, the easiest place to live in the U.S. is Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the streets are reportedly paved with gold, the fountains all dispense top shelf tequila and you can fall out of bed and land comfortably in a great paying career. Italics is the official font of sarcasm... right?

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