7 ms·

The Happiest Regions in the U.S.

refurb 12y ago
Interesting! It would be neat to line-up the map with the red/blue political map. By first glance it looks like the red states are the happiest. What is also surprising is that some of the poorer states in the US, LA, GA, AL are some of the happiest states, while the most wealthy, NY (Long Island), CA (around LA) are some of the unhappiest. The declining mid-west cities makes sense to me.
- learc83 12y ago
  >What is also surprising is that some of the poorer states in the US, LA, GA, AL are some of the happiest states Unless I'm reading that map wrong, Alabama was slightly below average. Also Georgia is pretty close to the middle for average income, and once you adjust for cost of living it's even higher. It's interesting that the difference between Georgia and Alabama is so great, because once you remove metro Atlanta, the weather, culture, income, and cost of living are pretty close. So why does it seem someone living in rural GA is much happier than someone living in rural Alabama? By the way I live in Georgia, but only about 30 minutes from the Alabama line.
  - refurb 12y ago
    Sorry! I don't know my Southern geography apparently, I meant Mississippi, not Alabama.
- disjointrevelry 12y ago
  I'm not that surprised. Obtaining self-sustainment is more rewarding than being exploited by serving another. Discontent stems from being exploited, and LA, NY are clear examples of cities and areas where expectation and exploitation go hand in hand.
  - refurb 12y ago
    I consider myself more on the right side of the US political spectrum, but I cringe when I read comments like this from either the left or the right.
    - disjointrevelry 12y ago
      Then you should read your own comments and cringe as well as it adds nothing, nor explains your subjective reaction.
- existencebox 12y ago
  At the risk of falling into the "All heatmaps end up generally being a reflection of population density heatmap" pitfall, I'd cite the fashionable argument that education is inversely correlated with happiness, coupled with reasonably recent census data http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer to point out that, with some exceptions, there does seem to be similarities. If anyone has information that would support or refute this, I'd be curious, a brief searching didn't turn up anything solid.
  - learc83 12y ago
    >I'd cite the fashionable argument that education is inversely correlated with happiness That argument doesn't seem to be supported. The article points out that high school graduates are more satisfied than dropouts. Also up to a point higher income (correlated with higher education) leads to higher satisfaction. A quick google search seems to confirm that education is correlated with life satisfaction [1,2,3]. Furthermore the study mentioned in the article is specifically looking at location differences. They acknowledge that other factors like "income, education level, age, and marital status" matter more, but that there even controlling for those factors there are still differences based on location. [1] http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/does-education-make-you-happy/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/does-education-... [2] http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012/04/10/why-learning-leads-to-happiness http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012... [3] http://www.rasmussen.edu/student-life/blogs/main/does-education-lead-to-happiness/ http://www.rasmussen.edu/student-life/blogs/main/does-educat...
  - enjo 12y ago
    Colorado has a very high rate of college graduates (third in the county I believe). It's all blue.
  - autokad 12y ago
    It looks like the happiness map is at county level or higher, where as any useful map/data trying to break education and income apart would use census block group or tract at the largest. imagine philadelphia county which has some of very highly educated areas such as around the University of Pennsylvania. But the overall education of Philadelphia is quite poor. im just saying that any attempt to link education with happiness data at the county level is somewhat useless for most of the country.
sitkack 12y ago
Non-paywalled link to paper http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Glaeser14.pdf http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Glaeser...
- micro_cam 12y ago
  Thanks. The between figure 2 (the one shown in the article) and figure 3 which is the same map controlled for income is interesting. As a Montanan I take it to mean that we get more happiness for our buck here.
nikanj 12y ago
In the US, anyway. I would like to see the effects of the better functioning society in Canada and the cultural differences in Mexico on the map as well.
- vecinu 12y ago
  > better functioning society in Canada I would love if you expanded on this point rather than just throwing it out there. I live in Canada, tell me why my society is better functioning.
- dang 12y ago
  We changed the title to say "U.S.".
disjointrevelry 12y ago
What is the frequency that they asked the question and did they weigh their response to heavily? It would be useful if they could count in the variation of how people perceive their lives. If it is based on just a few responses, then this graph would just be a snapshot rather than a general trend indicator.
nickthemagicman 12y ago
This is really interesting. I think I know the answer. I live in Louisiana and I noticed a majority of residents grew up here, had family that grew up here, and have kids that are all growing up here and everyone knows each other, all their kids know each other,and there's very strong community values and regional pride. So my theory is that happiness is tied to roots and community more than good economy, good education, good employment prospects, good future for your kids, low crime, and all of the other things LA isn't really strong on. I would like to see the happiness research compared to migration statistics.
- refurb 12y ago
  I think that's a fair hypotheses. The movement of people in and out of cities results in residents having far few bonds with their fellow human being. I think there is a decent amount of evidence that "connectedness" contributes to happiness.
  - mpyne 12y ago
    That's one of the reasons I've started thinking recently that things like churches are useful in principle independent of any spiritual benefit. I've often wondered about the stories I'd occasionally read about agnostics or atheists who attend church on purpose, that hypothesis would go some way to explaining that behavior.
    - Dewie 12y ago
      It seems like that in some cultures people need clear excuses or pretences to be together with other people (atheists going to church looks like a pretense, i.e. the church and faith itself is not interesting, but the congregation is). Then religious people might very well become more sociable and communal than non-religious people, since they have a life-long activity and community to engage with. Would it be crazy to, umm, just drop the pretence and hang out with people? To strike up a conversation with a stranger with which you have apparently no activity, institution or familial bond in common without being looked at like you're a weirdo? Though I guess human interactions are so complex and subtle that it might be a lost cause to try to drop the pretence, sometimes. But maybe some cultures do this a lot, for all I know.
vacri 12y ago
A strange selection of colours for the map. Warm, bright colours represent low values and sadness. Cold, blue colours represent high values and happiness. It's the opposite of both heat maps and of semantic colour associations with emotion.
fred_durst 12y ago
There is bias based on if it is socially acceptable in an area to be unhappy. There are many places where saying you are unhappy is looked down upon or causes people to avoid you. This study also should have controlled for antidepressant usage. http://insights.som.yale.edu/sites/default/files/antidep_2012_mdk_0.jpg http://insights.som.yale.edu/sites/default/files/antidep_201... http://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/study-maps-mental-health-medication-use-us http://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/study-maps-mental-heal...
darkmighty 12y ago
Even accepting most of the "equilibrium" premises, the author misses the temporal trade-off: I suppose a lot of people choose to be unhappy in certain moments of their lives so they can be more happy in others -- it's not a greedy, monotonic response that would lead to the mentioned equilibrium.
droopyEyelids 12y ago
Can anyone explain how these articles, studies, etc, can infer happiness through people's reports of their own mental states? It sure seems to me like asking people if they're happy measures what they consider is a culturally acceptable answer to the question, and nothing else.
aianus 12y ago
I'm flabbergasted that only ~6% of Americans are unhappy. Don't something like 30% of Americans have a negative net worth? How can you be satisfied with your life when you literally don't have two pennies to rub together?
- lutusp 12y ago
  That's easy to answer -- people who have money care about money, people who don't, care about something else, like their immediate family, or fishing, or reading mystery novels, activities that cost almost nothing. The people that annoy me are those who say things like, "Joe Smith is worth a million dollars." Implicit in that sentence is the idea that someone who has no money is worth nothing.
  - aianus 12y ago
    How do you spend time with your family, fish, read mystery novels, or do anything other than study, work, or look for work when you're basically one step away from homelessness?
    - lutusp 12y ago
      The answer is obvious -- all you have is time on your hands, and that time is easily filled reading mystery novels at the local lending library while waiting for your welfare check. > ... when you're basically one step away from homelessness? American society is so immersed in conventional signs of status that it's possible to shamelessly define people in terms of what they lack. Homeless. Jobless. Degree-less. Car-less. People who live in hotels are homeless, strictly speaking. Many New Yorkers are car-less because there's good public transport. I lived in New York City for about five years in the 1960s and it would never have occurred to me that not having a car made me a second-class person. In the U.S., the view of rich people as seen by poor people is wildly distorted -- the rich are jetting around, wrecking their exotic cars, throwing wild expensive parties. And the view of poor people as seen by rich people is wildly distorted -- the poor live in cardboard boxes, do drugs, drink cheap wine, and so forth. Both equally inaccurate. The 2008 financial crisis had a number of causes, but one of them was a federal program to get people into houses they actually couldn't afford. The mortgage meltdown was partly the result of this program that created an artificial scarcity (and price rise) of real estate and a widespread disregard of people's inability to pay their mortgages. My point? Being homeless isn't the worst thing that could happen to someone.

Interesting! It would be neat to line-up the map with the red/blue political map. By first glance it looks like the red states are the happiest. What is also surprising is that some of the poorer states in the US, LA, GA, AL are some of the happiest states, while the most wealthy, NY (Long Island), CA (around LA) are some of the unhappiest. The declining mid-west cities makes sense to me.

learc83 12y ago
>What is also surprising is that some of the poorer states in the US, LA, GA, AL are some of the happiest states Unless I'm reading that map wrong, Alabama was slightly below average. Also Georgia is pretty close to the middle for average income, and once you adjust for cost of living it's even higher. It's interesting that the difference between Georgia and Alabama is so great, because once you remove metro Atlanta, the weather, culture, income, and cost of living are pretty close. So why does it seem someone living in rural GA is much happier than someone living in rural Alabama? By the way I live in Georgia, but only about 30 minutes from the Alabama line.
- refurb 12y ago
  Sorry! I don't know my Southern geography apparently, I meant Mississippi, not Alabama.
disjointrevelry 12y ago
I'm not that surprised. Obtaining self-sustainment is more rewarding than being exploited by serving another. Discontent stems from being exploited, and LA, NY are clear examples of cities and areas where expectation and exploitation go hand in hand.
- refurb 12y ago
  I consider myself more on the right side of the US political spectrum, but I cringe when I read comments like this from either the left or the right.
  - disjointrevelry 12y ago
    Then you should read your own comments and cringe as well as it adds nothing, nor explains your subjective reaction.
existencebox 12y ago
At the risk of falling into the "All heatmaps end up generally being a reflection of population density heatmap" pitfall, I'd cite the fashionable argument that education is inversely correlated with happiness, coupled with reasonably recent census data http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer to point out that, with some exceptions, there does seem to be similarities. If anyone has information that would support or refute this, I'd be curious, a brief searching didn't turn up anything solid.
- learc83 12y ago
  >I'd cite the fashionable argument that education is inversely correlated with happiness That argument doesn't seem to be supported. The article points out that high school graduates are more satisfied than dropouts. Also up to a point higher income (correlated with higher education) leads to higher satisfaction. A quick google search seems to confirm that education is correlated with life satisfaction [1,2,3]. Furthermore the study mentioned in the article is specifically looking at location differences. They acknowledge that other factors like "income, education level, age, and marital status" matter more, but that there even controlling for those factors there are still differences based on location. [1] http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/does-education-make-you-happy/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/does-education-... [2] http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012/04/10/why-learning-leads-to-happiness http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012... [3] http://www.rasmussen.edu/student-life/blogs/main/does-education-lead-to-happiness/ http://www.rasmussen.edu/student-life/blogs/main/does-educat...
- enjo 12y ago
  Colorado has a very high rate of college graduates (third in the county I believe). It's all blue.
- autokad 12y ago
  It looks like the happiness map is at county level or higher, where as any useful map/data trying to break education and income apart would use census block group or tract at the largest. imagine philadelphia county which has some of very highly educated areas such as around the University of Pennsylvania. But the overall education of Philadelphia is quite poor. im just saying that any attempt to link education with happiness data at the county level is somewhat useless for most of the country.

sitkack 12y ago

Non-paywalled link to paper http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Glaeser14.pdf http://www.hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Glaeser...

micro_cam 12y ago
Thanks. The between figure 2 (the one shown in the article) and figure 3 which is the same map controlled for income is interesting. As a Montanan I take it to mean that we get more happiness for our buck here.

nikanj 12y ago

In the US, anyway. I would like to see the effects of the better functioning society in Canada and the cultural differences in Mexico on the map as well.

vecinu 12y ago
> better functioning society in Canada I would love if you expanded on this point rather than just throwing it out there. I live in Canada, tell me why my society is better functioning.
dang 12y ago
We changed the title to say "U.S.".

disjointrevelry 12y ago

What is the frequency that they asked the question and did they weigh their response to heavily? It would be useful if they could count in the variation of how people perceive their lives. If it is based on just a few responses, then this graph would just be a snapshot rather than a general trend indicator.

nickthemagicman 12y ago

This is really interesting. I think I know the answer. I live in Louisiana and I noticed a majority of residents grew up here, had family that grew up here, and have kids that are all growing up here and everyone knows each other, all their kids know each other,and there's very strong community values and regional pride. So my theory is that happiness is tied to roots and community more than good economy, good education, good employment prospects, good future for your kids, low crime, and all of the other things LA isn't really strong on. I would like to see the happiness research compared to migration statistics.

refurb 12y ago
I think that's a fair hypotheses. The movement of people in and out of cities results in residents having far few bonds with their fellow human being. I think there is a decent amount of evidence that "connectedness" contributes to happiness.
- mpyne 12y ago
  That's one of the reasons I've started thinking recently that things like churches are useful in principle independent of any spiritual benefit. I've often wondered about the stories I'd occasionally read about agnostics or atheists who attend church on purpose, that hypothesis would go some way to explaining that behavior.
  - Dewie 12y ago
    It seems like that in some cultures people need clear excuses or pretences to be together with other people (atheists going to church looks like a pretense, i.e. the church and faith itself is not interesting, but the congregation is). Then religious people might very well become more sociable and communal than non-religious people, since they have a life-long activity and community to engage with. Would it be crazy to, umm, just drop the pretence and hang out with people? To strike up a conversation with a stranger with which you have apparently no activity, institution or familial bond in common without being looked at like you're a weirdo? Though I guess human interactions are so complex and subtle that it might be a lost cause to try to drop the pretence, sometimes. But maybe some cultures do this a lot, for all I know.

vacri 12y ago

A strange selection of colours for the map. Warm, bright colours represent low values and sadness. Cold, blue colours represent high values and happiness. It's the opposite of both heat maps and of semantic colour associations with emotion.

fred_durst 12y ago

There is bias based on if it is socially acceptable in an area to be unhappy. There are many places where saying you are unhappy is looked down upon or causes people to avoid you. This study also should have controlled for antidepressant usage. http://insights.som.yale.edu/sites/default/files/antidep_2012_mdk_0.jpg http://insights.som.yale.edu/sites/default/files/antidep_201... http://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/study-maps-mental-health-medication-use-us http://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/study-maps-mental-heal...

darkmighty 12y ago

Even accepting most of the "equilibrium" premises, the author misses the temporal trade-off: I suppose a lot of people choose to be unhappy in certain moments of their lives so they can be more happy in others -- it's not a greedy, monotonic response that would lead to the mentioned equilibrium.

droopyEyelids 12y ago

Can anyone explain how these articles, studies, etc, can infer happiness through people's reports of their own mental states? It sure seems to me like asking people if they're happy measures what they consider is a culturally acceptable answer to the question, and nothing else.

aianus 12y ago

I'm flabbergasted that only ~6% of Americans are unhappy. Don't something like 30% of Americans have a negative net worth? How can you be satisfied with your life when you literally don't have two pennies to rub together?

lutusp 12y ago
That's easy to answer -- people who have money care about money, people who don't, care about something else, like their immediate family, or fishing, or reading mystery novels, activities that cost almost nothing. The people that annoy me are those who say things like, "Joe Smith is worth a million dollars." Implicit in that sentence is the idea that someone who has no money is worth nothing.
- aianus 12y ago
  How do you spend time with your family, fish, read mystery novels, or do anything other than study, work, or look for work when you're basically one step away from homelessness?
  - lutusp 12y ago
    The answer is obvious -- all you have is time on your hands, and that time is easily filled reading mystery novels at the local lending library while waiting for your welfare check. > ... when you're basically one step away from homelessness? American society is so immersed in conventional signs of status that it's possible to shamelessly define people in terms of what they lack. Homeless. Jobless. Degree-less. Car-less. People who live in hotels are homeless, strictly speaking. Many New Yorkers are car-less because there's good public transport. I lived in New York City for about five years in the 1960s and it would never have occurred to me that not having a car made me a second-class person. In the U.S., the view of rich people as seen by poor people is wildly distorted -- the rich are jetting around, wrecking their exotic cars, throwing wild expensive parties. And the view of poor people as seen by rich people is wildly distorted -- the poor live in cardboard boxes, do drugs, drink cheap wine, and so forth. Both equally inaccurate. The 2008 financial crisis had a number of causes, but one of them was a federal program to get people into houses they actually couldn't afford. The mortgage meltdown was partly the result of this program that created an artificial scarcity (and price rise) of real estate and a widespread disregard of people's inability to pay their mortgages. My point? Being homeless isn't the worst thing that could happen to someone.