Hey Richmond, I guess you’re all in a better mood than I’m lead to believe. A new study from the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research of Economics says that Richmond, VA is one of the happiest places in the country.
Joshua Gottlieb of the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver School of Economics helped conduct the survey which said the Richmond-Petersburg area was the happiest while New York City was the least happy.
‘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,’ says Gottlieb.
The survey involved numbers from the General Social Survey (GSS), the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). It used the numbers and straight up asked folks about how content they were, and the findings (RVA Vs. NYC) could suggest that available housing and economic prospects impact the happiness of a city. IE – Theres more housing and jobs in NYC, but you make personal sacrifices to move and live there (traffic, higher standard of living, etc.)
“Differences in happiness and subjective well-being across space weakly support the view that the desires for happiness and life satisfaction do not uniquely drive human ambitions,” reads the study.
“If we choose only that which maximized our happiness, then individuals would presumably move to happier places until the point where rising rents and congestion eliminated the joys of that locale.”
As far as ‘happiest regions’ – Charlottesville, VA was #1 and Scranton, PA was the worst.
