We used science to determine which cities in Colorado are the real pits.

Editor’s Note: This article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as infotainment. Don’t freak out we updated this article for 2020. This is our sixth time ranking the worst places to live in Colorado.

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People who live in Colorado are weirdly protective of their state. It's almost like they warn you: Don't you dare say anything bad about Colorado, especially if you don't live here.

Well I am about to, and I don't. So deal with it.

To be fair, I've been to Colorado many times, and it is a beautiful place. I've boarded there, and I've camped out in the mountains and in the deserts. Many of my friends spent time there, and many still make Colorado home. I hear nothing but great things.

But is it all good there? Of course not. Just like any other state, Colorado has some issues. And the purpose of this post is to use science and data to determine which places in Colorado are the absolute worst. If you live in any of these places, you might agree with this analysis. And if you don't agree, you have to admit that the criteria we're using makes a lot of sense.

After analyzing all 74 cities with a population over 5,100, we came up with this list as the 10 worst places in Colorado:

What? Where are these places you wonder? And before you get all riled up and say we're picking on small town America, that's not the case.

We understand there's a lot of good in every place.

However, according to data (which doesn't measure things like beauty and 'friendly people'), there are far better options in the state for making a place home. And the worst place to live in Colorado? That would be Lochbuie.

Read on below to see how we crunched the numbers and see how your city fared in 2020.

If you're looking for something more national, check out the worst cities in America or the worst states in America.

For more Colorado reading, check out:

Next 10 Cities

How we determined the worst places to live in Colorado for 2020

To figure out how bad a place is to live in, we only needed to know what kinds of things people like and then decide what cities have the least amount of those things.

We don't think it's a stretch to assume that people like the following things:

Good education

Lots of jobs

Low crime

Low poverty

Nice homes

High incomes

High population density (Lots of things to do)

Short work commutes

Health insurance

The data comes from the Census's most recent American Community Survey and from the FBI Uniform Crime Report.

We broke crime down into violent crime and property crime to give violent crime a larger weight -- if you did a simple calculation of all crimes per capita, property crimes are normally 7x more common and really bias that ranking.

Furthermore, only cities with at least 5,000 people were considered -- leaving 74 cities.

We then ranked each city from 1 to 74 for all the criteria with a #1 ranking being the worst for the particular criteria.

Next, we averaged the rankings into one "Worst Place To Live Score".

Finally, we ranked every city on the "Worst Place To Live Score" with the lowest score being the worst city in Colorado -- Lochbuie. Read on for a detailed look at the 10 worst cities in Colorado. You can download the data here.

This list is a scientific analysis based on real data and is completely unbiased.

Wrapping Up The Worst In Colorado

If you're looking at areas in Colorado with the worst economic situations, where there's higher than average crime, and not a lot to do, this is an accurate list.

And in the end, Lochbuie ranks as the worst city to live in Colorado for 2020.

If you're curious enough, here are the best cities to live in Colorado:

Parker (Pop. 52,563) Centennial (Pop. 109,505) Louisville (Pop. 20,705)

For more Colorado reading, check out:

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