Whether you've been caught in a nightmarish reverie, or just watched the last episode of The Walking Dead, you know you've wondered: how would you do if faced with a zombie apocalypse? If survival were your clear goal, how would your surroundings help or hinder your effort?
Turns out the city you live in matters. Unfortunately, Miami ranked in the bottom 10, at 48 out of 53 major metros in the list.
CareerBuilder took it upon themselves to tally the results, based on four rankings.
Category 1: Fighting the Good Fight – Ability to Defend Against the Virus
We need people who will volunteer to fight on the front lines. To calculate who's best able to defend themselves, this looked at the percentage of population in the military and in protective services occupations (e.g. law enforcement, firefighting and security). Then, to figure out the availability of small arms, the percentage of total exports was taken, coming from small arms manufacturing industries.
Our score: 51. Pretty much last.
Category 2: Keeping Zombies Out - Ability to Contain the Virus
Sound buildings and safe distances could sum this one up. Engineering prowess (looking at the percentage population in the civil, electrical, environmental, materials, mechanical, nuclear and engineering technician occupations); construction skills (looking at the percentage of each metro's population in construction); and population density matters here. The higher a metro's population density, the faster its contamination rates, and the less time to organize and find a cure.
Our score: 47. Fifth from the bottom. Damn.
Category 3: Race for the Cure – Ability to Cure the Virus
Somebody's gotta focus on saving us from this nasty virus. Is there a doctor in the house? To calculate who's best equipped to find a cure for infection, the population of people in biomedical research and development was counted.
Our score: 10. Hey! We actually did well on this one.
Category 4: Counting Calories – Ability to Outlast the Virus with a Good Food Supply
Since you're not going to go for leisurely jaunts to the grocery store anytime soon, you have to stock up. Think of it as preparing for a hurricane. This category focuses on the percentage of total exports in non-perishable food manufacturing or wholesale goods industries, including rice milling, breakfast cereal manufacturing, fruit and vegetable canning, roasted nuts and peanut butter manufacturing.
Our score: 35. Middle of the road, and not on the better side of the results here.
· Could Your City Survive a Zombie Apocalypse? CareerBuilder and EMSI Reveal the Metros Most and Least Likely to Withstand the Walking Dead [PR Newswire]
· Zombie Apocalypse Index [Tableau]
· Cool Map Things [Curbed Miami]
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