Hartselle ranked 5th happiest Alabama city
Hartselle has another top 10 ranking to add to its collection.
Credit Donkey, a blog focusing on financial trends, has ranked Hartselle the fifth happiest city in Alabama.
The blog looked at places with a population of 5,000 or higher. Using U.S. Census and FBI crime data, each city was assigned a ranking based on the following criteria: the number of restaurants per capita, the odds of being the victim of a violent crime, the average commute, the percentage of residents who leave for work before 5 a.m., median household income, the percentage of divorced people is for men and women and the percentage of income residents spend on housing.
“The city of Hartselle is situated about 35 miles to the southwest of Huntsville, and its 14,000 residents agree that it’s a nice little detour from the big city,” the blog stated about Hartselle. “You’ll notice that housing costs are lower than any of the cities we’ve looked at so far, taking a relatively smaller bite out of workers’ income.”
Here are Hartselle’s statistics:
• Restaurants per capita: 1 per 537 inhabitants
• Odds of being the victim of a violent crime: 1 in 684.8
• Average commute time: 23.2 minutes
• Percentage of residents leaving for work before 5 a.m.: 7%
• Median household income: $52,036
• Percentage of residents who are divorced: 6.7% of males, 14.5% of females
• Percentage of income spent on housing: 17%
The cities ranked in order were:
1. Mountain Brook
2. Glencoe
3. Oxford
4. Madison
5. Hartselle
6. Enterprise
7. Southside
8. Muscle Shoals
9. Fort Payne
10. Muscle Shoals
Other nearby cities that made the top 40 included:
11. Athens
26. Huntsville
33. Decatur