We used science and data to determine which cities in the Palmetto State 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 South Carolina.

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The Palmetto State of South Carolina is truly a glorious place. You have some of the best beaches in the south. Charleston might be one of America's finest cities. And there's more history in South Carolina than in the rest of the south combined.

You've got some great colleges, lots of culture, and the large areas of farming are a vital part of our economy.

But you knew that already if you live there.

But is it all charming in South Carolina? Of course not. Just like every other state, South Carolina has its issues. There are some cities that a real hot mess right now. The purpose of this post is to use science and data to determine which South Carolina cities have some serious issues, at least on paper.

After analyzing 64 of the Palmetto State's most populous cities, we came up with this list as the 10 worst places you could live in South Carolina:

The 10 Worst Places To Live In South Carolina For 2020 Batesburg-Leesville Georgetown Marion Chester Greenwood Dillon Darlington Cheraw Walterboro Clinton

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 South Carolina? That would be Batesburg-Leesville.

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 South Carolina reading, check out:

Next 10 Cities

How we determined the worst places to live in South Carolina 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 64 cities.

We then ranked each city from 1 to 64 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 South Carolina -- Batesburg-Leesville. Read on for a detailed look at the 10 worst cities in South Carolina. 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 South Carolina

If you're looking at areas in South Carolina 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, Batesburg-Leesville ranks as the worst city to live in South Carolina for 2020.

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

Mauldin (Pop. 25,009) James Island (Pop. 12,010) Mount Pleasant (Pop. 83,700)

For more South Carolina reading, check out:

Where Are The Worst Places To Live In South Carolina? Rank City Population Unemployment Rate Home Value 1 Batesburg-Leesville 5,424 9.8% $118,400 2 Georgetown 8,936 19.4% $162,800 3 Marion 6,548 20.5% $104,000 4 Chester 5,433 13.4% $75,100 5 Greenwood 23,230 8.4% $92,000 6 Dillon 6,456 12.0% $114,500 7 Darlington 6,034 12.5% $97,800 8 Cheraw 5,701 18.7% $114,400 9 Walterboro 5,503 14.9% $113,200 10 Clinton 8,508 9.6% $83,600

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