We used science to determine which Buckeye State cities 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 Ohio.

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O-H-I-Oh no!

The last time we talked about the state of Ohio, it was a happier time. We went over all of the Buckeye State's charms. We talked about the grittiness of the folks in the bigger cities and the warm, friendly people in Ohio's smaller towns.

But today, we're going in the opposite direction. Because, like in any other state in America, there are bad places just like there are good places. And today, we're going to address the worst of Ohio's cities and towns.

So, Who Dey?

After analyzing all 250 cities with a population over 5,100, we came up with this list as the 10 worst places in Ohio:

The 10 Worst Places To Live In Ohio For 2020 Trotwood Wellston New Carlisle Cleveland Middletown Mansfield Moraine Dayton Logan Portsmouth

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 Ohio? That would be Trotwood.

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 Ohio reading, check out:

Next 10 Cities

How we determined the worst places to live in Ohio 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 250 cities.

We then ranked each city from 1 to 250 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 Ohio -- Trotwood. Read on for a detailed look at the 10 worst cities in Ohio. 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 Ohio

If you're looking at areas in Ohio 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, Trotwood ranks as the worst city to live in Ohio for 2020.

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

Wyoming (Pop. 8,535) Upper Arlington (Pop. 35,223) Grandview Heights (Pop. 7,681)

For more Ohio reading, check out:

Where Are The Worst Places To Live In Ohio? Rank City Population Unemployment Rate Home Value 1 Trotwood 24,361 12.3% $72,900 2 Wellston 5,540 16.2% $88,400 3 New Carlisle 5,622 7.0% $91,400 4 Cleveland 387,398 14.7% $68,500 5 Middletown 48,449 9.7% $97,000 6 Mansfield 46,638 10.8% $76,300 7 Moraine 6,445 8.7% $88,600 8 Dayton 140,782 11.9% $66,500 9 Logan 6,846 9.0% $110,400 10 Portsmouth 20,366 11.0% $75,800

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