Study finds 'unhappiest cities' in America

NEW YORK (PIX11) – Sorry, New Yorkers (especially the new ones): The Big Apple is the unhappiest city in the country. That's according to new analysis by the University of of British Columbia and Harvard which identifies which cities are home to the most joyful residents.

The working paper "Unhappy Cities" used federal data to glean how satisfied respondents felt with their lives, accounting for race, education, marital status and family size.

Researchers said their findings reveal that some young people are still willing to relocate to less-happy cities if it means securing a good job or paying cheaper housing costs.

And even though NYC's residents may be the least happy in the country, they aren't leaving.

Residents care about more than just happiness and will stay in a place where they are unhappy because of other, predominantly economic, factors, researchers said.

That means, the researches propose, that lawmakers shouldn't put citizen's reported happiness at the top of their objectives when making new policies.

Many of the happiest cities are located in the southern portion of the country, with Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, New Jersey, representing the sole northern city among the more joyful bunch.

Top 10 unhappiest metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million (as of 2010):

1. New York, NY
2. Pittsburgh, PA
3. Louisville, KY
4. Milwaukee, WI
5. Detroit, MI
6. Indianapolis, IN
7. St. Louis, MO
8. Las Vegas, NV
9. Buffalo, NY
10. Philadelphia, PA

Top 10 happiest metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million (as of 2010):

1. Richmond-Petersburg, VA
2. Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, VA
3. Washington, DC
4. Raleigh-Durham, NC
5. Atlanta, GA
6. Houston, TX
7. Jacksonville, FL
8. Nashville, TN
9. West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, FL
10. Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, NJ

U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest reported happiness:

1. Charlottesville, VA
2. Rochester, MN
3. Lafayette, LA
4. Naples, FL
5. Baton Rouge, LA
6. Flagstaff, AZ
7. Shreveport, LA
8. Houma, LA
9. Corpus Christi, TX
10. Provo, UT

The least happy American regions are:

1. Scranton, PA
2. St. Joseph, MO
3. Erie, PA
4. South Bend, IN
5. Jersey City, NJ
6. Johnstown, PA
7. Non-metropolitan West Virginia
8. Springfield, MA
9. New York, NY
10. Evansville-Henderson, IN-KY

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