New York, New York’s little town blues aren’t melting away.
It’s just the opposite, according to a study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research that says New York is the unhappiest city in the U.S.
New York, Pittsburgh, Louisville, Milwaukee and Detroit are, in that order, America’s least happy cities. Survey data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked respondents: “In general, how satisfied are you with your life?” Researchers then tweaked that data for factors like race, education, marital status and family size.
“Our research indicates that people care about more than happiness alone, so other factors may encourage them to stay in a city despite their unhappiness,” UBC researcher Joshua Gottlieb said in the report.
“Researchers and policymakers should not consider an increase in reported happiness as an overriding objective,” he added.
The city that’s all smiles is Richmond, Va., followed by jovial metro areas Norfolk, Va.; Washington; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; and Atlanta, Ga.
Gothamites aren’t buying this sob story. New York’s population is currently 8.4 million, an all-time high.
Just ask new kid on the block Jaclyn Minker, 22, who moved to the Upper East Side this summer.
“There’s nothing I can’t do in New York City,” said Minker, who works at a startup company in Brooklyn.
“If happiness is doing what I love, when I want to do it, New York City must be a happy place. There is such variation and uniqueness in each neighborhood that I visit and person that I meet and that makes me happy to live here,” she adds.
For everyone else, if you can be unhappy here, you can be unhappy anywhere.
