The Happiest and Unhappiest Cities in America

This is terrible…I can’t read anything with the dark brown background and dark color font. What’s going on? Is this an error?

Funny, Holland MI is on the West side of MI, and Flint is on the East so apparently West siders are just happier?

Curious that they combined Holland and Grand Haven, they’re near each other, but not like twin cities or anything.

Holland is very nice, right near Lake Michigan, very clean and well taken care of.

Flint is horrible. Tons of crime and poverty, it’s a dying city.

Oh, and I know why so many of the unhappiest cities are in the south. They’re still pissed about losing the war.

I wonder how Portland would do if they weren’t lumping it in with Beaverton and Vancouver (WA), possibly the most depressing places I’ve ever had the misfortune of spending an afternoon.

Portland itself is certainly in my top ten places.

8. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV

This survey must be old because everyone around here is pissed lately because of the amount snow. I bet suicide rates are even up.

Dave123

The reason they combined with Holland is that someone obviously wanted to plump up the city in the stats. Holland uses Muskegon, MI as the place to dump its poor and minority (non-Dutch) people in West Michigan. In many other surveys Holland and Muskegon are linked as one area.

Take the half hour commute to Muskegon sometime, Dave, if you think that West MI is better than the East part of the state.

Muskegon has a WORSE crime rate than Flint and it is only the fact that most of the citizens of Muskegon can commute to work in Holland or Grand Rapids that prevents Muskegon from being in the bottom ten. That and the fact that Flint isn’t on the the big lake.

Also doesn’t West Michigan also host St. Joseph?, Benton Harbor? Dowagiac? South Haven?

All of these cities and Muskegon had worse crime rates than Flint in 2009.

What!? No comments on why Boulder is the happiest city? Nuck nuck nuck.

My wife’s family lives in Bossier City/Shreveport, and yeah, it is a pretty sad area.

Statistically speaking, money can buy happiness. Or at least it can pay misery to go somewhere else.

This is an interesting survey. I lived in the St. Louis area until I was 18.
Lived in San Antonio, TX and Dallas. Then Wichita, KS, and on to central
Florida. Baltimore, Indianapolis, and then to San Diego and San Francisco.
I travel extensively in my job and have been to every major city in the
lower 48 and several in Canada, Europe, and New Zealand. I see too many
people praising the “greatness” of their respective cities but they have
never been any where else. How can you know if some place is better or
worse – if you have never been any where else ?? I make my home in
Denver, Colorado – and if I didn’t live here – I would pick Portland, OR.
San Francisco was nice but pricey – can’t say anything really nice about
any of the other cities. Each had some good points but not enough to
make me want to live there as a permanent resident

How do Santa Barbara and Santa Maria count as one city when they’re almost an hour apart through very non-urban territory?

I was born and raised in the Huntington, WV area and live very near to Shreveport, LA now.
I missed my calling to be a professional emo kid, I really did.
And yes, both places are pretty miserable.

I lived in Huntington most of my life. We aren’t unhappy, Appalachian folks are just modest. We don’t dare tell you outsiders how happy we are, you will just move to WV and ruin it for us. Look at the south and the Yankee invasion of VA, NC, and FL. We wouldn’t want that for us.

I live in Michigan. Traverse City to be exact. It’s a tourist town, but I hate living here. The water is beautiful! The people however, not so much. For the past few years I’ve been traveling to find somewhere to move. I really don’t like snow, small amount are fine, but not a lot. I love the water. If you have any suggestions of a great place with awesome people, please let me know!

They forgot Chicago as one of the unhappiest… I’m so proud of this city, but it just craps on me repeatedly in return. DOG EAT DOG!!!
1)Jobs are extremely rare to come by and employers are happy to fire you at the drop of a hat just for fun.
2)Highest sales tax in the country
3)The city squeezes every dime out of you possible for revenue (state is broke. Ridiculous procedures for everything with very little reward (heaven help you if you ever have to deal with building inspectors).
4)The most surely and lazy post office customer service and transit workers you’ve ever seen. And they’re all fat!!!
5)Oppressive winters that last 8 full months.
6)Overpaid and corrupt, machine politicians run the joint and there’s nothing you can do about it.