Did you find yourself smiling for no particular reason recently? Well if you live in Scottsdale, it might not be because of no reason…it might be because you live in Scottsdale.
Why do we say that? Because Scottsdale was recently ranked the 8th happiest city out of a survey of 200 cities according to WalletHub. Three Californian cities (Fremont, San Jose and Irvine) take the top three spots, with Scottsdale sandwiched between Madison, Wisconsin and San Francisco. Detroit and Cleveland were the two least happy cities, with Phoenix right near the middle at spot #106.
Meanwhile, this is while the United States is ranked 23rd in the national statistics, so perhaps Helsinki would make Scottsdale look like a factory of sadness in comparison, but we will stick to the positives.
How were the rankings compiled? There were three primary components: 1) Emotional & Physical Well-Being, 2) Income & Employment, and 3) Community & Environment. Scottsdale ranked #22, #10, and #15 in those categories respectively.
That said, the rankings clearly aren’t as clear-cut as an initial look would imply. For instance, Fremont, CA has the highest number of households that make over $80,000 a year, yet it somehow ranked #93 for Income & Employment. San Jose, at the very heart of Silicon Valley, was #45 in that ranking. In reality, each category had around 10 subcategories, leveling the weight of any particular factor.
So does this mean anything? It’s all rather subjective, both the factors involved as well as how they are ranked. It’s easy to say that since Detroit and Cleveland are last, that makes a lot of sense, so there must be some merit to it. That would be confirmation bias.
That said, speaking of confirmation bias, it’s hard to deny that Scottsdale is a truly special city and that we should feel grateful that we’re able to call it our home. So while we can quibble about the metrics used and how they’re weighted, it’s difficult to disagree with the outcome.