Ranking: 50 Cities Where Americans Are Happiest, 2023 (living, cost, state, rates)
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SmartAsset studied the 200 Largest Cities, here are their results:
Lots of upscale suburbs...
50 Cities Where Americans Are Happiest, 2022
1 Sunnyvale, CA
2 Arlington, VA
3 Bellevue, WA
4 Fremont, CA
5 Frisco, TX
6 Plano, TX
7 Roseville, CA
8 San Jose, CA
9 Santa Clarita, CA
10 Irvine, CA
11 Huntington Beach, CA
12 Madison, WI
13 Alexandria, VA
14 San Francisco, CA
15 Seattle, WA
16 Boise, ID
17 Hayward, CA
18 Honolulu, HI
19 Raleigh, NC
20 Austin, TX
21 Glendale, CA
22 Virginia Beach, VA
23 Fort Collins, CO
24 Anchorage, AK
25 Santa Rosa, CA
27 Portland, OR
28 Gilbert, AZ
29 Peoria, AZ
30 Henderson, NV
31 San Diego, CA
32 Oakland, CA
33 Lakewood, CO
34 Durham, NC
35 Lincoln, NE
36 Charleston, SC
37 Colorado Springs, CO
38 Omaha, NE
39 Charlotte, NC
40 Washington, DC
41 Minneapolis, MN
42 Denver, CO
43 Yonkers, NY
44 Corona, CA
45 Chula Vista, CA
46 New York, NY
47 Jersey City, NJ
48 St Paul, MN
49 Aurora, IL
50 Sacramento, CA
Each score is measured on a scale of 0 to 100. Underlying metrics are listed below.
Personal Finance:*Percent of individuals earning $100,000 or more, cost of living as a percent of income, personal bankruptcy flings and down payment-to-income ratio.
Well-Being:*Percent reporting poor mental health days, life expectancy, physical activity rate and percent of adults with health insurance.
Quality of Life:*Percent of adults living below poverty-level, marriage rate, commute time (minutes), concentration of dining, bars & entertainment businesses and violent crime rate.
So much California. And I will say, people genuinely do seem happier in California. And I don't think it's fake in most parts of the state at least - I feel like in much of CA there's a vibe or something that just gets people excited about self-expression and going with the flow. I can't explain it, really.
Interesting list, but I only see one category that's actually measuring happiness: number of poor mental health days. The other things are correlated with happiness, but so is church attendance (which is high in very different places from these wealthy suburbs), and they didn't include that.
As a point of contrast I'll bring up the World Well-Being Map from 2017, which extrapolated mood in different counties from tweets via AI models. It claims that the happiest areas of the country are parts of the Mountain West (Montana, Idaho, Colorado), northern New England, and parts of Georgia and Florida. The least happy places were northern Appalachia, rural Nevada, and spots across the Great Plains.
Interesting list, but I only see one category that's actually measuring happiness: number of poor mental health days. The other things are correlated with happiness, but so is church attendance (which is high in very different places from these wealthy suburbs), and they didn't include that.
As a point of contrast I'll bring up the World Well-Being Map from 2017, which extrapolated mood in different counties from tweets via AI models. It claims that the happiest areas of the country are parts of the Mountain West (Montana, Idaho, Colorado), northern New England, and parts of Georgia and Florida. The least happy places were northern Appalachia, rural Nevada, and spots across the Great Plains.
It's weird that the Mountain West while "happy" also has a fairly high suicide rate...
It's funny how California is slammed now days but when it comes to health and wellness it always near the top.
I don't really hear about California being slammed like that nowadays. In my experience, it still has a glorious reputation; it doesn't get slammed like Midwest states do. Even with the stereotypes, California has a lot of positive stereotypes attached to them.
I really doubt those metrics. Moved from California to Chicago and I’m way happier.
Maybe with enough money parts of California are alright…… but the traffic. The inescapable petty crime. I’m not really seeing it as someone who lived there for around 10 years.
San Francisco can be a very pleasant city to walk around and chill in with good friends.
Rich people are the happiest who would’ve thought. In times of record inflation the economy bordering a recession people are drowning but rich people they are fine in times like this.
Rich people are the happiest who would’ve thought. In times of record inflation the economy bordering a recession people are drowning but rich people they are fine in times like this.
Rich people are going to be happiest when your criteria for happiness is wealth. A good chunk of the measurements used for this study are along the lines of "percent of adults below the poverty line" and "percent of people making $100k+ a year." It's pretty much all external measures about how close an area is to an imagined, pretty much completely material ideal for happiness.
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Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
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