"Heaven is wide open spaces — at least, it is for most people, according to a massive new data set of happiness in Canada.
A team of happiness researchers at the Vancouver School of Economics and McGill University recently published a working paper on the geography of well-being in Canada.
They compiled 400,000 responses to a pair of national Canadian surveys, allowing them to parse out distinctions in well-being at the level of more than 1,200 communities representing the country’s entire geography.
They were able to cross-reference the well-being responses with other survey data, as well as figures from the Canadian census, to see what sorts of characteristics were associated with happiness at the community level:
They were able to cross-reference the well-being responses with other survey data, as well as figures from the Canadian census, to see what sorts of characteristics were associated with happiness at the community level:
Are happier communities richer, for instance?
Are the people there more educated?
Do they spend more time in church?
Their chief finding is a striking association between population density — the concentration of people in a given area — and happiness.
Their chief finding is a striking association between population density — the concentration of people in a given area — and happiness.
When the researchers ranked all 1,215 communities by average happiness, they found that average population density in the 20% most miserable communities was more than eight times greater than in the happiest 20% of communities.
“Life is significantly less happy in urban areas,” the paper concluded...
“Life is significantly less happy in urban areas,” the paper concluded...
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